Research software

Tools and applications

The Geo-Social Lab and collaborators develop a variety of web-based tools and information systems for cancer mapping, flow mapping, history education, public sentiment and topic analysis, and insights for combatting pandemics.

CAMSA

Cancer Analytics and Maps for Small Areas (CAMSA) is an NIH/NCI-funded interactive web mapping tool for exploring reliable small-area cancer incidence and mortality estimates at county and ZIP Code Tabulation Area levels. It supports public health planning, cancer surveillance, grant writing, and community-level cancer prevention and control.

Related publications: Wisler Gerdes et al. (2026), JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics; Cai et al. (2025), Advances in Cartography and GIScience of the ICA.

Open CAMSA

FlowMapper

FlowMapper is a web-based framework for automated production and design of origin–destination flow maps. It helps users upload flow data, customize flow symbology, add contextual map layers, filter and inspect flows, and share reproducible flow-map projects.

Related publication: Koylu, C., Tian, G., & Windsor, M. (2023). Flowmapper.org: a web-based framework for designing origin–destination flow maps. Journal of Maps, 19(1), 1996479. DOI.

Open FlowMapper

Roots & Migrants

Roots & Migrants is an interactive tool developed as part of the NSF-funded Population-Scale Kinship Networks and Migration project. It supports exploration of historical family-tree data, kinship connections, and long-term migration patterns across people, places, and generations.

Project context: The tool is part of the lab's work using population-scale family trees to study migration, settlement, intergenerational dispersion, and historical spatial processes.

Open Roots & Migrants

CarSenToGram

CarSenToGram is a geovisual text analytics system for exploring spatiotemporal variation in public discourse on Twitter using sentiment, topic modeling, cartograms, and interactive visual analytics.

Related publication: Koylu, C., Larson, R., Dietrich, B., & Lee, K. P. (2019). CarSenToGram: geovisual text analytics for exploring spatio-temporal variation in public discourse on Twitter. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 46(1), 57–71. DOI.

Open CarSenToGram

TopicViz: Mention topics

TopicViz supports visual exploration of semantic and spatio-temporal topic evolution in spatially embedded interpersonal communication networks. The mention-topics interface focuses on topic modeling and geographic/network patterns in user mentions and replies.

Related publication: Koylu, C. (2019). Modeling and visualizing semantic and spatio-temporal evolution of topics in interpersonal communication on Twitter. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 33(4), 805–832. DOI.

Open TopicViz mention topics

Consensus Regions

The Consensus Regions application supports exploration of functional geographic regions derived from human mobility and social-network data. It helps compare regional structures and agreement across alternative spatial-network regionalization results.

Related publication: Andris, C., Koylu, C., & Porter, M. A. (2023). Human-network regions as effective geographic units for disease mitigation. EPJ Data Science, 12, 60. DOI.

Open Consensus Regions