Born in Shandong, a coastal province in China, Professor Peng Gong was raised in the rural areas close to the Yellow Sea. This early exposure to water, mountains, and an agriculture-based economy, informs his understanding of people and planet. It also led to his major research interests in urbanization and health, mapping and monitoring of global environmental change, and modelling of environmentally-related infectious diseases.

He earned his BS and MS degrees from Nanjing University, and his PhD from the University of Waterloo. He remained in Canada, where he began his academic career at York University, followed by the University of Calgary. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed full professor in 2001. In 2016, he moved to Tsinghua University as founding Chair of the Department of Earth System Science, and in 2017 was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science.

Professor Gong is a foreign member of the Academia Europaea and a member of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. He was Founding Editor-in-Chief of Geographic Information Sciences (now Annals of GIS). He advises Future Earth, an international network of scientists, researchers, and innovators. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of The Lancet and as a member of the Earth Commission, a global team of scientists working for the sustainable development goals.

Professor Gong has an outstanding record in recruitment, innovative organization, and motivation of cross-disciplinary talents. He co-founded the Center for Assessment and Monitoring of Forest and Environmental Resources at UC Berkeley, and built China’s first Earth System Science Institute at Nanjing University. He was responsible for the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Normal University. At Tsinghua University, he led both the Tsinghua Urban Institute and the expert group that helped establish the Tsinghua Vanke School of Public Health.

He is widely recognized for his work with research awards from the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Association of American Geographers, and the Joint Board Council of Science China and Science Bulletin. Over 30 PhD and postdoctoral students he graduated and supervised hold academic positions in major American and Chinese universities including UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Tsinghua University, among others.