Special Session Organisers

Dr Fanlin Meng, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK

Dr Evelyn Heylen, Centrica

Prof Dunwei Gong, School of Information and Control Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, China

Dr Felipe Maldonado, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Essex, UK

Prof Xiao-Jun Zeng, Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK

Dr Fanlin Meng received his PhD from University of Manchester, UK in 2015 where he is currently a Lecturer in Data Science. His primary research interests include Machine Learning, Game theory and Optimisation including their applications to smart grids and energy markets, intelligent transportation systems, and sustainability. He has published more than 40 international journal and conference papers in the above research areas. He was PC/TPC/session chair of more than 10 international conferences including AAAI, IJCAI, IJCNN, WCCI. He is Fellow of British Computer Society (FBCS) and Senior Member of IEEE.

Dr Evelyn Heylen is leading the research and innovation activities on demand-side response at Centrica, a British multinational energy and services company. Her team co-innovates with energy system stakeholders to develop a reliable and affordable net-zero energy system. To achieve net zero, it is key to optimally control flexible demand in the system. For this purpose, her team investigates cutting-edge optimization techniques and machine learning models. Besides her position at Centrica, she is a guest lecturer in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering department of Imperial College London. Evelyn joined Centrica in December 2020, after being a post-doctoral researcher at Imperial College London and the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Prof Dunwei Gong received the B.Sc. degree in mathematics from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, in 1992, the M.Sc. degree in control theory and applications from Beihang University, Beijing, China, in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and control engineering from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, in 1999, respectively. He is an IEEE member, and a Professor in Computational Intelligence and the Director of the Centre for Intelligent Optimization and Control, School of Information and Control Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China. He is a Guest Professor in School of Information Science and Technology, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China. He has published over 180 publications. He obtained two awards issued by Ministry of Education and Jiangsu Province, China, respectively, in recent three years. His current research interests include computation intelligence in many-objective optimization, dynamic and uncertain optimization, as well as applications in integrated energy systems, software engineering, scheduling, path planning, big data processing and analysis.

Dr Felipe Maldonado is a Lecturer in Data Science and Operational Research at the University of Essex (UK). Prior to joining Essex, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Technical University of Munich, with a research focus on electricity market design as part of the Kopernikus-projekt SynErgie. Dr Maldonado obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the Australian National University, where he was also part of CSIRO-Data61. He holds a Mathematical Engineering degree (BSc + MSc) from the University of Chile. His current research, which has been published in peer reviewed international journals and conferences, focuses on developing computational models for electricity markets and supply chains. He is particularly interested in the mix of operations and analytics, using for instance forecasting techniques and reinforcement learning methods.

Prof. Xiaojun Zeng has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester since 2002, where he is currently a Professor of Machine Learning and the Head of Internationalisation for China in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Before joining the University of Manchester in 2002, he was with Knowledge Support Systems, Ltd. between 1996- 2002, where he was the Head of Research, developing intelligent pricing decision support systems. His research in intelligent pricing decision support systems was selected by UKCRC, CPHC, and BCS Academy as one of 20 impact cases to highlight the impact made by UK academic Computer Science Research within the UK and worldwide over the period 2008 – 2013. Prof. Zeng’s research interests include Computational Intelligence, Machine Learning, Decision Support Systems, Energy Systems and Markets.