Dr. Xiuquan (Xander) Wang, PhD, PEng

Dr. Xander Wang is currently a Visiting Professor to the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Wang works as a Professor in the School of Climate Change and Adaptation at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), where he directs the Climate Smart Lab in the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation. Dr. Wang is a member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) College of New Scholars and has received numerous awards for his pioneering contributions to climate change research, such as the Charles S. Falkenberg Award by American Geophysical Union (AGU) and Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), and the Whitman Wright Award by Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE). Before joining UPEI, Dr. Wang worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, US.

Dr. Wang’s research is mainly focused on high-resolution climate modeling, hydroclimate risk assessment, climate resilient communities, climate smart agriculture, climate change and health, climate policy, climate change impact assessment and adaptation with the state-of-the-art techniques in high-performance computing, remote sensing, geospatial modeling and analysis, big data analysis and visualization. His multidisciplinary background has enabled him to develop a pioneering climate change research program in the Canadian Center for Climate Change and Adaptation at UPEI. Dr. Wang has demonstrated an exceptional level of research achievements through high-impact peer-reviewed journal publications, considerable external research funds, training of large numbers of HQPs, extensive professional services, active participation in community services, and so on.

Dr. Wang is one of the founding faculty members who launched the Canada’s first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary undergraduate program in Applied Climate Change and Adaptation at UPEI in 2018. He has demonstrated strong leadership through his previous role as the Interim Associate Dean in the School of Climate Change and Adaptation, who oversaw the curriculum delivery of the unique climate change program at UPEI. He is also one of the key members establishing the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, which is now a world-leading research cluster in climate change.

Summary of Achievements:

• Dr. Wang has produced >130 peer-reviewed journal publications and most of them are published in the top-tier journals in the climate change field.
• Dr. Wang has delivered >60 conference presentations and >30 invited talks, including an invited talk on climate change by the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars.
• Dr. Wang has edited or co-edited >10 ebooks and special issues.
• Dr. Wang has successfully secured over $17M external funding since he joined UPEI in 2018. Dr. Wang has received the 1st NSERC CREATE project in UPEI’s history.
• Dr. Wang has supervised or co-supervised >60 HQPs over the past 10 years.
• Dr. Wang has been elected as a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2022 in recognition of his pioneering research in climate change.
• Dr. Wang has been serving as editor-in-chief, associate editor, and guest editor for >10 internal peer-reviewed journals.
• Dr. Wang has served as a reviewer for over 80 peer-reviewed journals and has been awarded the 2022 IOP Outstanding Reviewer Award and the 2019 Top Peer Reviewer by Publons to acknowledge his peer-review contributions.
• Dr. Wang has been invited to serve as an external reviewer or sit on the review panel for many major funding agencies nationally and internationally, such as the NFRF, NSERC, SSHRC, Mitacs, US NASA, Dutch Research Council, and Swiss National Science Foundation.
• Dr. Wang is the developer and maintainer of many climate related software tools, such as Canada CCDP, China CCDP, Prairie CCDP, Ontario CCDP, rSCA, FloodMapper, PEI Climate Hazard & Risk Information System, PEI Weather & Climate App, PEI Storm Surge Early Warning System, PEI Climate Atlas, PEI Climate Diary, PEI Ecosystem Carbon Flux, and so on. These tools have been actively used by >10k researchers and practitioners around the world.
• Dr. Wang has been invited to serve on many national or regional advisory committees, such as the Climate Change Expert Advisor for the Royal Society of Canada’s G7 Science Statements, the Standing Committee on Environmental Separation (SC-ES) at Codes Canada, the Advisory Committee for CLIMAtlantic, Research Directorate for ACENET, the Core Advisory Team of PEI Forested Landscape Priority Place, and the Advisory Committee of NRCan’s Flood Risk Assessment Program.
• Dr. Wang has served as conference chair, co-chair, and session chair for many international conferences, such as Climate Forum 2024, Adaptation Futures 2023, Climate Forum 2023, PEOPLE 2023, CSCE 2023, PEOPLE 2022, CMOS 2022, AMS 2020, and so on.
• Dr. Wang has been awarded many prestigious career awards, such as AGU & ESIP’s Charles S. Falkenberg Award, CSCE’s Whitman Wright Award, UPEI FA’s Merit Award for Scholarly Achievement, Engineers PEI’s Environment Award, PEOPLE Network’s Award for Excellence in Contribution.
• Dr. Wang’s research has been reported and featured by many national and international media, such as CBC News, CTV News, CBC Radio, The Walrus, Canada’s National Observer, The Hill Times, The Charlatan, Calgary Journal, Scientia, Francopresse, NationTalk, The Guardian, Saltwire Network, and so on.
• Dr. Wang is the founder and president of Sigma Academy – a non-for-profit organization to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has also successfully launched the PEI Section of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and is currently serving as the inaugural chair of the Section.