Description
Welcome to today's webinar to honor the recipient of AIChE CAST Division's Outstanding Young Researcher Award. We are honored to have Dr. Qi Zhang presenting on "Toward Explainable Stochastic Optimization for Decision Making Under Uncertainty."
Dr. Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 2011, followed by an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2012, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016. Before joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Zhang gained industry experience at BASF in Germany and Houston. His research focuses on computational methods for decision-making in complex process systems, with applications spanning sustainable energy, advanced manufacturing, supply chain engineering, and bioengineering. Dr. Zhang's contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the AIChE CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award in 2024, the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship in 2023, and an NSF CAREER Award in 2021.