Debayan Mandal

Assistant Teaching Professor,

School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning

[email protected]

Mail code: 5302

Campus: Tempe
‌

Long Bio

Debayan Mandal is a geospatial scientist and assistant teaching professor specializing in GIScience, CyberGIS, Digital Twin technologies, flood monitoring and disaster resilience. His research integrates multiscale geospatial analytics, social sensing, hydrology, and big data to develop innovative solutions for smart, resilient communities. Dr. Mandal's work has been recognized nationally and internationally, earning him awards such as the Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth P. Pipes Endowed Scholarship, Rising Geospatial Data Scientist Award and the Jeanne X. Kasperson Award. His recent projects include the development of hyperlocal geospatial digital twins for urban flood resilience and the PRIME CyberGIS platform for community resilience assessment.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Mandal has taught and developed curriculum in WebGIS, Geographic Information Science, Programming in GIS, Cartography and Visualization, Geodatabases, and Environmental Geoscience, emphasizing inclusive teaching practices that foster critical thinking and real-world problem-solving skills. He is committed to advancing research, teaching, and service, and has actively led student organizations advocating for professional development and community engagement.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in GEOGRAPHY
Texas A&M University, College Station (2021-2024)
Dissertation: “Toward Smart and Resilient Communities: Advancing Multiscale Disaster Resilience in the Age of CyberGIS and Digital Twins”
Advisor: Dr. Lei Zou

Master of Science in CIVIL ENGINEERING
Texas A&M University, College Station (2019 -2020)
Sub Discipline - WATER RESOUCES ENGINEERING
Dissertation: “Flash Flood Screening Tool”
Advisor: Dr. Francisco Olivera

Bachelor of Technology in CIVIL ENGINEERING
Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore (2013 -2017)
Dissertation: “Quantifying Predictive Uncertainty in Stream Flow Using SWAT”
Advisor: Dr. Roshan Karan Srivastav

Curriculum Vitae

Images

Presenting in AGU

The Team of Centre for Teaching Excellence

Awarded for being the Director of Academy for Future Faculty

The Team of I-GUIDE Workshop

Invited Speaker at Conflict Archaeology & Military History Conference

I-GUIDE Workshop Individual Team

Urban Climate Workshop

At AGU Conference

At AGU Conference II

At AGU Conference III

At AGU Conference IV

Final Dissertation Defense at TAMU

At I-GUIDE Forum

I-GUIDE Forum Participants

Video

Research Website URL

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Debayan-Mandal

Google Scholar URL

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cS1X_L4AAAAJ&hl=en

ORCID Profile ID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9529-830X

Research Interests

GIScience and Remote Sensing
Cyber GIScience
Geospatial Digital Twins
Smart Disaster Resilience
Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI)
Big Data and Microdata Analytics
Data Mining and Visualization
Social Sensing Analytics
Hydrology and Hydraulics
Computational Urban Informatics

Research Group

Geospatial Exploration and Resolution Research Group, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA

Publications

Article Publications:

Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, Mingzheng Yang, Binbin Lin, and Heng Cai. 2023. “Algorithmic Uncertainties in Geolocating Social Media Data for Disaster Management.” Cartography and Geographic Information Science. (IF: 2.5) https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2023.2286385
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Furqan Baig, Nasir Gharaibeh, Nina Lam. 2024. “PRIME: A CyberGIS platform for resilience inference measurement and enhancement.” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. (IF: 7.1) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2024.102197
Lin, Binbin, Lei Zou, Mingzheng Yang, Bing Zhou, Debayan Mandal, Joynal Abedin, Heng Cai, Nina Lam. “Understanding human-COVID-19 dynamics using geospatial big data: a systematic literature review.” Annals of GIS. (IF: 3.9) https://doi.org/10.1080/19475683.2024.2418584
Abedin, Joynal, Lei Zou, Mingzheng Yang, Robert Rohli, Debayan Mandal, Yi Qiang, Humaira Akter, Bing Zhou, Binbin Lin, B., Cai, H. “Deciphering spatial-temporal dynamics of flood exposure in the United States.” Sustainable Cities and Society. (IF: 11.7) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105444
Zhou, Bing, Lei Zou, Mingzheng Yang, Binbin Lin, Debayan Mandal, Joynal Abedin. “Overlooked voices under lockdown: mapping humanitarian needs in 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 outbreak.” Cartography and Geographic Information Science. (IF: 2.5) https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2024.2314547
Zhou, Bing, Lei Zou, Ali Mostafavi, Binbin Lin, Mingzheng Yang, Nasir Gharaibeh, Heng Cai, Joynal Abedin, and Debayan Mandal. 2022. “VictimFinder: Harvesting Rescue Requests in Disaster Response from Social Media with BERT.” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (IF: 6.8) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2022.101824
Lin, Binbin, Lei Zou, Nick Duffield, Ali Mostafavi, Heng Cai, Bing Zhou, Jian Tao, Mingzheng Yang, Debayan Mandal, and Joynal Abedin. 2022. “Revealing the Linguistic and Geographical Disparities of Public Awareness to Covid-19 Outbreak through Social Media.” International Journal of Digital Earth. (IF: 5.1)
https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2022.2070677
Yang, Mingzheng, Lei Zou, Heng Cai, Yi Qiang, Binbin Lin, Bing Zhou, Joynal Abedin, and Debayan Mandal. 2022. “Spatial–Temporal Land Loss Modeling and Simulation in a Vulnerable Coast: A Case Study in Coastal Louisiana.” Remote Sensing. (IF: 5.0) https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14040896
Ghosh, Satyajit, Akash Goenka, Manish Deo, and Debayan Mandal. 2017. “Vernacular Architecture as an Idiom for Promoting Cultural Continuity in South Asia.” AI & Society Journal. (IF: 3.0) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-017-0754-z

Book Chapters:

Zou, Lei, Ali Mostafavi, Bing Zhou, Binbin Lin, Debayan Mandal, Mingzheng Yang, Joynal Abedin, and Heng Cai. 2023. “GeoAI for Disaster Response.” In Handbook of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence, edited by Song Gao, Yingjie Hu, and Wenwen Li, 1st ed., 287–304. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003308423-14
Joseph, Nitu, and Debayan Mandal. 2018. “Comparative Study of Predictive Models in Microbial Induced Corrosion.” In Machine Learning and IoT: A Biological Perspective, 9781138492691. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Publication Date: 19th July, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781351029940-6

Courses

2025 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
GIS 205	Geographic Info Science I
GIS 211	Geographic Info Science II
GIS 211	Geographic Info Science II
GIS 211	Geographic Info Science II
GIS 211	Geographic Info Science II
GIS 222	Programming Principles GIS I
GIS 498	Pro-Seminar

2025 Summer

Course Number	Course Title
GIS 205	Geographic Info Science I
GIS 205	Geographic Info Science I
GIS 498	Pro-Seminar
GIS 498	Pro-Seminar

2025 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
GIS 205	Geographic Info Science I
GIS 470	Adv Stats Geography & Planning
GIS 470	Adv Stats Geography & Planning
GIS 498	Pro-Seminar

Presentations

Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Furqan Baig. “Enhancing disaster resilience in the cyberinfrastructure era: CyberGIS for customizable resilience measurement and improvement.” IGUIDE Forum 2024, Jackson, Wyoming
Mandal, Debayan, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Abhinav Wadhwa, Lei Zou. “Strengthening Resilience in 4D: Geospatial Digital Twins for Navigating Urban Flood Dynamics.” IGUIDE Forum 2024, Jackson, Wyoming.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Furqan Baig, Nasir Gharaibeh. “PRIME: A CyberGIS Platform for Resilience Inference Measurement and Enhancement.” IGUIDE 2024 Virtual Poster Competition. Data-Intensive Convergence Science: FAIR Geospatial Data for Sustainability Research. Rising Geospatial Data Scientist Award.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Furqan Baig. “Enhancing disaster resilience in the cyberinfrastructure era: CyberGIS for customizable resilience measurement and improvement.” AAG 2024 Annual Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii. Jeanne X. Kasperson Award.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou. “4D Resilience: Geospatial Digital Twins for Navigating Urban Flood Dynamics.” AAG 2024 Annual Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou, and Heng Cai. 2023. “Empowering Disaster Resilience through Cyberinfrastructure: A Multi-Scale Approach to Visualization and Management.” AGU 2023 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California. (Lightning Talk and Poster)
Zou, Lei, Bing Zhou, Binbin Lin, Debayan Mandal (presenting author), Mingzheng Yang, Joynal Abedin, and Heng Cai. 2023. “Smart Disaster Response with GeoAI and Big Data.” AGU 2023 Fall Meeting, San Francisco.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Rohan Singh Wilkho. Empowering disaster resilience through cyberinfrastructure: a CyberGIS for multi-scale visualization and management of urban resilience to climatic hazards. Urban Climate Solutions Workshop 2023, College Station, Texas.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Stacey Lyle. “Veterans legacy geographic information system: citizen science approach to extended memorialization digitally.” WWII Never Forgotten Conference 2023. College Station, Texas. (Invited Panelist)
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Heng Cai, Joynal Abedin, Mingzheng Yang, Bing Zhou, and Binbin Lin. 2023. “Evolving Geographical Disparities of Community Disaster Resilience in the United States.” AAG 2023 Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado.
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Binbin Lin, Mingzheng Yang, Joynal Abedin, Bing Zhou. “Evolving geographical disparities of community disaster resilience in the United States.” AGU 2022 Fall Meeting, Chicago, Illinois. (Poster)
Mandal, Debayan, Lei Zou, Heng Cai, Binbin Lin, Bing Zhou, Joynal Abedin, Mingzheng Yang. “Uncertainties in geolocating social media data for disaster management.” AutoCarto 2022, Redlands, California. AutoCarto Student Assistantship.
Mandal, Debayan, Binbin Lin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Joynal Abedin, Mingzheng Yang, and Lei Zou. 2022. “A Modular Machine Learning Platform for Resilience Inference Measurement and Enhancement. (PRIME)” AAG 2022 Annual Meeting, Virtual, 26 February 2022.
Mandal, Debayan, Binbin Lin, Bing Zhou, Heng Cai, Joynal Abedin, Mingzheng Yang, and Lei Zou. 2021. “Visualizing and Evaluating the Geocoding Uncertainty in Social Sensing for Disaster Management.” International Cartographic Conference 2021, Florence, Italy, 16 December 2021.
Mandal, Debayan, Venkatesh B, and Roshan Srivastav. 2017. “Impact of Climate Variability and Land-use Changes on River Flow Characteristics – A Case Study of the San Jacinto River Basin.” AOGS 2017 Annual Meeting, Singapore, 11 August 2017.
Mandal, Debayan, Nikhil Bhatia, and Roshan Srivastav. 2016. “Quantifying the Uncertainty in Streamflow Predictions Using SWAT for Brazos–Colorado Coastal Watershed, Texas.” AGU 2016 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 15 December 2016.

Honors / Awards

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth P. Pipes Endowed Scholarship in the Geosciences, College of Art & Sciences, Texas A&M University.
Rising Geospatial Data Scientist Award, I-GUIDE 2024 Virtual Poster Competition, Data-Intensive Convergence Science: FAIR Geospatial Data for Sustainability Research.
Jeanne X. Kasperson Award, Hazards, Risk, and Disasters Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers 2024 conference.
CHI Educational Grant, 2023, Computational Hydraulics International, Ontario, Canada. ($2400)
Selected for I-GUIDE (Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment) Summer School, Convergence Science in Action, August 2023, UCAR (University Consortium for Atmospheric Research), Boulder, Colorado. (It is an NSF-funded inter-institutional research organization dedicated to fostering development and innovation in geospatial convergence science. Beginning in 2023, I-GUIDE has hosted the I-GUIDE Summer School which brings together graduate students and early career scholars from across the United States for a week-long intensive team project-based training and personal development course focused on engaging and empowering the next generation of leaders in geospatial data science and convergent problem solving. Acceptance into summer school is a highly competitive and selective process.)
Research and Presentation Travel Award, 2023, Graduate & Professional School, Texas A&M University
Second Position in Texas GIS Day 2023, Texas A&M University
Student Travel Grant, Department of Geography, Academic Year 2022-2023.
Student Assistantship, AutoCarto 2022 conference
Travel Funding (USNC) to participate in the 30th International Cartographic Conference, Italy, December 14-18, 2021.
Departmental Fellowship for Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, for Spring 2021.
Texas Public Education Grant, Academic Year 2019-2020.
Departmental Fellowship for Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, for the Year 2019.
Featured in a book for inspiring story for budding engineers, Shape-IT (Dr. Subramani R, Ms. Vaijayanthi S), 2017 (ISBN: - 978-1-946869-16-6)
Second Position for Quiz during Water Conservation Week, VIT University, 2017
Undergraduate Mentoring Program mentee, American Geophysical Union, December 2016. (Fifty Undergraduate Students, among those who attended the meeting, were given the opportunity to be mentored by the senior presenters from a similar field.)

Professional Associations

Director, Academy for Future Faculty, Texas A&M University, (2019-2023)
Founding member and Representative for Water Resources Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate Students Association, Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, (2019-2020)
Departmental Senator, Graduate & Professional Student Government, Texas A&M University, (2022-2023)
Departmental Senator, Association of Geography Graduate Students, Geography Department, Texas A&M University, (2022-2023)
Coordinator, Organizing Committee, Odessey’15 and ‘16, VIT University, Vellore (2015-2016)
Senior Editor, Hindu Education Plus Club (Newspaper), School of Social Sciences and Languages, VIT University, Vellore (2015-2016)

Work History

Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University. (January 2025 - Present)
Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant, Department of Geography, Texas A&M University. (January 2021 - December 2024)
Student Technician, Department of Civil Engineering, Texas Engineering Experiment Station. (June - July 2021; April - September 2019)
Undergraduate Researcher, iSMART Research Lab, Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, VIT University, (2016 – 2018)
Intern, Department of Barrage and Canal Design (North, West, and South), Central Water Commission, Ministry of Water resources, Government of India, (June - July 2015)

Service

American Association of Geographers:
 Session Organizer/Chair:
- Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Geospatial Digital Twins (GDT) for
Sustainable Planning and Management, 2024.
- Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Emerging Disaster Vulnerability, Risk, and Resilience Modeling I & II, 2023
 Volunteer, 2024
 Member, 2021– present.
Reviewer at:
- Sustainable Cities and Society (IF:11.7)
- Big Earth Data (IF:4.2)
- Geoinformatics (IF:2.2)
American Geophysical Union:
 Session Organizer/Chair:
- Big Earth Data for Disaster Risk Reduction (Oral, Online Poster, and Poster), 2022.
 Member, 2016 – present.
Cartographic and Geographic Information Society:
 Member, 2021– 2022.
Asia Oceania Geosciences Society:
 Volunteer, Singapore, Annual Meeting 2017.
 Member, 2017– 2019.
American Society of Civil Engineers (VIT University branch):
 Member, 2014 – 2017.
Juvenile Care (VIT University branch):
 Volunteer, 2015 – 2016.
Student Research Week, Texas A&M University, Texas:
 Volunteer, 2019.
AutoCarto, Redlands:
 Student Assistant, 2022.

Industry Positions

Intern, Department of Barrage and Canal Design (North, West, and South), Central Water Commission, Ministry of Water resources, Government of India, (June-July 2015)