Hanan Samet
Hanan Samet is a professor at the University of Maryland whose work on quadtrees and spatial data structures supports geographic information systems and spatial search. He completed a Stanford PhD and joined Maryland's computer science faculty in 1975, then published books on spatial data structures and built systems for map-based news search. He became an IEEE Fellow in 1991, an ACM and IAPR Fellow in 1996, and received the 2023 ACM SIGSPATIAL Lifetime Impact Award. His recent work applies AI and large language models to spatial questions; as of October 2026, he is a Distinguished University Professor at Maryland.
- Now at
- University of Maryland
- Works
- 552
- Citations
- 23,289
- h-index
- 70
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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1975
Joining Maryland's CS faculty
He completes a PhD at Stanford and joins Maryland's computer science faculty as an assistant professor in 1975.
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1980s
Quadtrees for spatial data
From the 1980s, he researches quadtrees and other multidimensional spatial data structures for spatial databases and image processing.
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1990
Spatial data structure books
He publishes Design and Analysis of Spatial Data Structures and Applications of Spatial Data Structures: Computer Graphics, Image Processing and GIS in 1990.
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1991–1996
Fellowships for data structures
He becomes an IEEE Fellow in 1991 and an ACM and IAPR Fellow in 1996 for contributions involving hierarchical data structures in spatial databases and image analysis.
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2006–2014
Spatial systems and SIGSPATIAL
His group develops SAND, VASCO, and MARCO for spatial browsing, index visualization, and map retrieval, followed by STEWARD, NewsStand, and TwitterStand for spatio-textual search. He publishes Foundations of Multidimensional and Metric Data Structures in 2006; NewsStand appears on the October 2014 Communications of the ACM cover. He is the founding chair of ACM SIGSPATIAL and the founding editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems.
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2023
A SIGSPATIAL lifetime award
He receives the ACM SIGSPATIAL Lifetime Impact Award in 2023 for technical achievements and service to the organization.
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September 2025–June 2026
AI for spatial search
In September 2025, his advisee Nicole Schneider presents a PhD proposal on spatial reasoning through AI and natural language processing. In June 2026, he coauthors an arXiv paper outlining how search engines could use graph-enhanced large language model reasoning to answer spatial questions.
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As of October 2026
Professor at Maryland
In Spring 2025, he teaches Geographical Information Systems and Spatial Databases at Maryland. As of October 2026, he is a professor and Distinguished University Professor in the university's computer science department.
Sources and credits
Photo: We have no published photo of Hanan Samet yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.
- Department of Computer Science: Photo History Timeline
- Hanan Samet - Wikipedia
- Samet, Hanan | CGIS | Center for Geospatial Information Science | University of Maryland
- Hanan Samet | UMD Department of Computer Science
- PhD Proposal: Spatial Reasoning through Artificial Intelligence
- [2606.22909] Graph-Enhanced Large Language Models for Spatial Search
- Hanan Samet | University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
- Schedule of Classes