Yuxuan Cai is Co-founder and Principal Investigator of Nature AI Lab. He is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works at the intersection of urban informatics and human-centered AI, studying urban perception, behavior, decisions, and mental health through LLM agent pathology, multi-agent deliberation, and vision-language models. He completed an MA in Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago, with prior studies in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
Research Theme
Theme I: Urban Environment and Perception via Vision-Language Models and Interpretable AI
Theme II: Individual and Collective Behavior and Decision-Making through Multi-Agent Systems and Computational Methods
Theme III: Mental Health and Wellbeing under Environmental Exposure and Behavioral Dynamics
Peer – Review Paper
- SCI: Cai, Y.*, Wei, E., & Cai, X. Empathy and Redemption: Exploring the Narrative Transformation of Online Support for Mental Health Across Communities Before and After Covid-19. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307042.
- SCI: Chen, M., Cai, Y., Guo, S., Sun, R., Song, Y., & Shen, X. *.Reimagining Urban Nature Vitality in San Francisco: An Interdisciplinary Approach Combining Census Data, Street View Images, and Social Media Analysis. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128289
- SCI: Cai, Yuxuana+., Huang, Yongmingb+., Chen, Anzhi., Yang, Zhuohao., Chen, Mingze,. Wen, Yuhan., Yang, Qiuyi., Li, Xiaowei*. Subjective Perception or the Physical Environment: Which Matters More for Public Area Visitation Thresholds Across Different COVID-19 Pandemic Stages? Urban Forestry & Urban Greening | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2025.128835
Conference
- Shen, X., Mosey, G., Chen, M., & Cai, Y. A Model for Identifying Suitable Living Areas in London: Mitigating the Impacts of Urban Heat Island (UHI) on Public Health | 2023 7th Advances in Geomatics Research Conference | https://www.agrc2023.com/
- Shen, X., Mosey, G., Chen, M., & Cai, Y. Post Occupancy Evaluation of the Urban Public Space through social media: a case study of Bryant Park, NY | 2023 ICDSAIA (The International Conference on Data Science, AI and Analytics: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practices ) Conference Abstract (Accepted)
- Shen, X., Mosey, G., Cai, Y., & Chen, M.. Advancing Environmental Design with Phytoremediation of Brownfield Soils Using Spontaneous Invasive Plants | 2023 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON POLLUTION CONTROL & SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT (Accepted)
- Cai, Y., Li, H., & Dai, S. Multi-factors evaluation of the impact of the street-level on sexual crime occurrences using computer vision and big data – a case study of Manhattan | 35TH AESOP (Association of European schools of Planning) Annual Congress Full Paper Oral Report | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/1202.
- Li, H., & Cai, Y. A Bottom-Up Method: Human Perceptions to Inform Urban Landscape Design Strategies for Promoting Biking-Friendliness: A Case Study in Shanghai, China | 2023 IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects) Conference | Oral Report (Accepted)
- Cai, Y.*, Wei, E., & Cai, X. Dynamic Transformation of Online Community Support Behavior Before and After Covid-19 Oral Report | 2024 26th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. (Full paper accepted)
- Cai, Y. *, Li, H., Gao, J., & Yang, W. Multiscale Assessment of Environmental and SocioEconomic on Mental Health | 2024 ACSP (Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning) (Accepted)