Haowen Xu

Research Staff (Level B) @ UNSW

About

Research Fellow at the UNSW Sydney and former Research Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with expertise in urban informatics, AI, digital twins, geospatial science, and scientific computing. My research focuses on integrating Generative AI, agentic AI, voxel-based simulation, and urban digital twins to support environmental modelling, smart cities, wildfire management, indoor hazard simulation, and intelligent decision-support systems. Explore my awards, publications, and project demos at https://haowenxu-phd.github.io/homepage/

Country

Australia

City

Greater Sydney Area

Industry

Computer Software

Skill

Generative AI, Python (Programming Language), Research Skills, Proposal Writing, Urban Informatics, Visual Analytics, Geoinformatics, ArcGIS, Python, ArcGIS Server, Web Design, JavaScript, CSS, jQuery, HTML, JSP, Web Services, Leaflet, OpenLayers, Java

Experience

Research Staff (Level B)

UNSW

2025-4 - Present · 1 yr 6 mos

Adjunct Associate Professor

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

2024-9 - Present · 2 yrs 1 mo

United States

Research Scientist

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2021-6 - 2025-4 · 3 yrs 11 mos

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2019 - 2021-6 · 2 yrs

Research Assistant

IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering

2013-8 - 2019-5 · 5 yrs 10 mos

100 C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1585

A world-renowned center for education, research, and public service focusing on hydraulic engineering, fluid mechanics, environmental science, and flood mitigation. - Involved in multiple government projects (Federal & State) and US National Science Foundation research - International collaboration with IAHR, IWHR and many NGOs on integrated watershed management - 12 peer-reviewed publications on international journals, conferences, and government technical reports

Research Associate (via PhD Project)

US Army Corps of Engineers

2015-5 - 2017-9 · 2 yrs 5 mos

United States

Multi-Hazard Tournament Project (by contract)

UCGIS Summer School on High Performance Computing

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

2017-5 - 2017-6 · 2 mos

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

UCGIS's first Summer School for graduate students and early-career scholars who are affiliated with UCGIS member institutions. This year the theme will be Collaborative Problem Solving with CyberGIS and Geospatial Data Science, a rich topic for GIS&T and related applications. This 2017 Summer School will be hosted by the CyberGIS Center for Advanced and Digital Studies and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

GIS Technician & surveyor

IRRAD: Institute of Rural Research and Development

2013-12 - 2014-1 · 2 mos

Plot No. 34, Sector 44, Institutional Area, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

This engineering project is part of the International Opportunities in Water Resources Science and Management Program. We traveled to Mewat district in India to help the Institute of Rural Research and Development develop Resilient and Sustainable Agricultural Watersheds. The project was non-profitable, we volunteered to help. In the project group, my duties are: (1) Topographic Survey using differential GPS unit (Rover & Base station System) and level. (2) Post-processing GPS and level data, analyzed uncertainty, generated DEM out of survey data (3) Calculate surface area and volume of two surveyed areas.

Graphic Artist (Department of Art & Art History)

University of Iowa

2010-9 - 2011-10 · 1 yr 2 mos

Iowa City, Iowa

• Edited text book and handouts for courses in art and art history department • Conduct photo editing using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator software