Yiling Zhang

Assistant Professor

Industrial and Systems Engineering

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Rm 240B, Lind Hall

207 Church St SE

Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

yiling "at" umn "dot" edu

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I am always looking for talented and enthusiastic PhD students.

About Me

Hello! I am an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) at the University of Minnesota (UMN), Twin Cities. Prior to joining UMN ISyE, I received my Ph.D. and M.S. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, and bachelor's degree in Automation from Tsinghua University. I am also a Faculty Scholar at the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS) at UMN.

I believe that application-motivated theory development is fundamentally important and has real impacts--this is what continuously inspires my research. In particular, I am fascinated by challenging optimization problems such as scheduling, routing, matching, and many others, where system uncertainties and dynamics need to be considered while making large-scale complex decisions. They often involve integer decision variables and nonlinear constraints embedded in sequential decision-making processes.

In short, my research interests include stochastic programming, integer programming, nonlinear programming, and applications of optimization techniques and statistical analysis in service systems including transportation and power systems.

Award and Honors

RC Seed Grant Awards, UMN, 2023
CTS Scholar Seed Research Grants, UMN 2020, 2022
INFORMS Journal on Computing (IJoC) Meritorious Reviewer Award, 2021
IISE Pritsker Doctoral Dissertation Award, Runner-up, 2020
Institute on the Environment Mini Grants, UMN 2019
Honorable Mention for the INFORMS Optimization Society Student Paper Prize, 2019
Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement, UM 2019
Murty Prize for Best Research Paper on Optimization, IOE Department, UM 2018
Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering Fellowship (MICDE Fellowship), UM 2017
Institute of Mathematics and its Applications workshop student travel award, 2016
XIV International Conference on Stochastic Programming student travel award, 2016
Rackham conference travel grant, UM 2015/2016/2017/2018
Departmental Fellowship, IOE Department, UM 2015
Rackham International Student Fellowship, Rackham Graduate School, UM 2014

Selected Services

Area Coordinator, Optimization Online, 2022-present
Track Chair, 2022 INFORMS Optimization Society Conference, March 2022.