Dr. Zeyi Sun to Present Seminar

Dr. Zeyi Sun from the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology will present at the IMSE seminar on Monday, March 25, 2019 at 1:15pm in Nedderman Hall, Room 105. Dr. Sun’s presentation title, abstract, and biographical sketch are below

Title: Interdisciplinary Fellowship Program in Engineering

Abstract: Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is inviting students to apply for Ph.D. program in engineering management, systems engineering, or civil engineering and become GAANN fellows to conduct cutting-edge research on various aspects of infrastructure studies, including resilience, safety, sustainability, connectivity, and smartness, to name a few.
The primary objective of this proposed GAANN program is to increase the number of U.S. PhD scholars in engineering management and systems engineering – areas identified as a national need by the Department of Education. The GAANN Fellows will assume educational and leadership roles, particularly in advancing new methodologies for infrastructure studies. Rebuilding infrastructure to allow Americans to build their lives on top of the best infrastructure in the world is a national need.
GAANN faculties and the academic advisors provide academic support and research mentoring to the selected GAANN fellows. Mentored teaching experiences (e.g., teaching one undergraduate course as an instructor for two semesters) are provided. Up to $34,000 fellowship stipend is offered annually depending on financial need (decided by FAFSA). In addition, up to $15,750 education allowance is offered annually to cover tuition, research related expense, and travel.
Without losing generality, three research thrusts by Dr. Zeyi Sun in the relevant areas are briefly introduced. The first one is biofuel supply chain infrastructure restructuring to accommodate the switch from first generation biofuel manufacturing (corn grain based) to second generation biofuel manufacturing (corn stover based). Various infrastructure deployment strategies have been investigated. Both economic viability and environmental sustainability have been systematically examined and compared. The second one is the design and control of distributed generation system (microgrid) with renewable energy sources for manufacturing end use customers towards cost effectiveness and environmental sustainability. A neural network integrated Q-learning algorithm is proposed to identify the optimal control strategies for both microgrid and manufacturing plant to reduce the overall energy consumption cost without sacrificing production throughput. The third one is the integration of aggregated electric vehicles (EVs) in smart grid for frequency regulation. Gradient-based reinforcement learning algorithm is being investigated to identify the optimal control policy with respect to the energy flow between the EVs and grid considering the benefits and interests from both the EV owners and grid operator.

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Zeyi Sun obtained his PhD degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015. His research interest is complex system integration towards sustainability. His current research thrusts include: 1) integration of onsite generation systems with renewable energy sources into manufacturing operations; 2) integration of electric vehicles as a source for frequency regulation in smart grid; and 3) biofuel supply design and restructuring to accommodate second generation biofuel manufacturing. He teaches two undergraduate courses, i.e., Operations and Production Management (required), and Industrial Systems Simulation (selected) at Missouri S&T. He has graduated two M.S. students and is currently mentoring one M.S. student and three Ph.D. students.

Dr. Sridhar Nerur to Present Seminar

Dr. Sridhar Nerur, a Professor of Goolsby-Virginia and Paul Dorman Endowed Chair in Leadership at the University of Texas at Arlington will present a seminar on March 18 at 1:15pm in Nedderman Hall 105.

Title: Understanding Your Research Domain: Drawing Insights from Bibliometrics and Text Analysis
Author: Professor Sridhar Nerur
Location: Nedderman Hall Room 105
Date: Monday, March 18, 2019
Time: 1:15pm

Abstract: Scholars strive to extend the intellectual boundaries of their discipline by “standing on the shoulders of giants”. The first step in pursuing good research, therefore, is to have a good grasp of what has already been accomplished and what challenges remain. Regrettably, it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to sift through a discipline’s extensive corpora to understand the extant cumulative research traditions and the opportunities they afford for future research. Bibliometric tools that rely on citations and text mining algorithms that exploit the lexical structure of articles are increasingly being used to quickly unravel latent themes in large corpora. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how such tools can accelerate the literature review process and provide insight that would otherwise take months of effort.

Biographical Sketch: Sridhar Nerur is currently Professor of Goolsby-Virginia  and Paul Dorman Endowed Chair in Leadership at the University of Texas at Arlington. As Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee on Business Analytics, he has been actively involved in updating the curriculum to ensure that it is consistent with industry practices. His research has been published in the MIS Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Communications of the ACM, Communications of the AIS, The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Management, Information & Management, IEEE Software, and the Journal of International Business Studies. He has served as an associate editor of the European Journal of Information Systems, and was on the editorial board of the Journal of AIS until December 2016. His research and teaching interests include social networks, machine learning/AI, text analytics, self-organizing systems, and neuroeconomics.