About me

I am a Senior Lecturer in Operations and Analytics at the University of Exeter Business School. Prior to joining the University of Exeter, I was a Lecturer in Data Science (Alliance Manchester Business School) at the University of Manchester where I received my PhD in Computer Science (machine learning and optimisation) in 2015.

My primary research interests include Electricity Market, Carbon Market, Smart Energy and Mobility, Machine Learning, Game Theory and Optimisation. I am a Fellow of British Computer Society (FBCS), member of EPSRC Peer Review College, and Senior Member of IEEE.

Message to Potential PhD students I welcome enquiries from potential applicants sharing similar research interests to mine, with strong academic background in Operational Research, Management Science, Economics, Computer Science, Data Science, etc.

Check this doctoral page for information on PhD programs and funding opportunities (including MRes + PhD Scholarships 硕博连读奖学金, and CSC scholarships) offered by University of Exeter Business School.

I also welcome self-funded PhD students, visiting PhD students and scholars.

Recent News

• [2026.02] I am happy to serve as the Area Chair for 2026 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 2026).
• [2025.11] Our special session on Computational Intelligence in Transactive Energy Management and Smart Energy Network (CITESEN) has been accepted with WCCI 2026. Check here for more information on the special session and how to make your submissions.
• [2025.11] Our review paper on peak demand forecasting has been accepted by Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
• [2025.10] Happy to give a seminar on our recent research on energy and carbon markets to the Centre for Decision Research at the University of Leeds Business School.
• [2025.08] Jiaci Wang will join the team as a new PhD student from September, researching AI and game theory in transportation, funded by the China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter PhD Scholarships. Welcome Jiaci!
• [2025.06] I have been invited to give a research talk on Modelling in Electricity Market and Carbon Market: An Operations Analytics Perspective at the Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.
• [2025.04] Our recent work titled Statistical disaggregation—a Monte Carlo approach for imputation under constraints has been accepted by Scandinavian Journal of Statistics. One promising application of the proposed method lies in the area of energy disaggregation, which is crucial for demand management and energy transition.
• [2025.03] I am happy to serve as the Area Chair for 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2025).
• [2025.02] I was invited to review proposals for the recently launched AI Safety Institute’s Systemic AI Safety Grants Programme (delivered in partnership with UKRI). It is great to involve and contribute to the AI safety research community.
• [2024.12] Call for papers: Special Session on Computational Intelligence in Transactive Energy Management and Smart Energy Network (CITESEN 2025) within 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2025), to be held in Rome, Italy, June 30 - July 5, 2025. Submission deadline: January 15, 2025.
• [2024.10] I have PhD opportunities funded through China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter PhD Scholarships (中国国家留学基金委和英国埃克塞特大学合作奖学金). Two projects are advertised at the University website (under “University of Exeter Business School”). More information about the opportunities and how to apply are here.
• [2024.09] I became Associate Editor of e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy.
• [2024.09] We have an EPSRC DTP PhD studentship opportunity on Digital Twin for Electricity and Carbon Markets at University of Exeter Business School (Management): Project description, Application link. Application deadline: October 04, 2024.
• [2024.07] I joined the University of Exeter Business School as a Senior Lecturer in Operations and Analytics!
• [2024.06] Many congratulations to Qiuyi for passing his PhD viva with flying colors! He will join Newcastle University as a postdoctoral researcher.
• [2024.05] Funded by UKRI IAA Strategic Partnership Fund and Manchester Airports Group (MAG) to work on an AI-driven airport digital framework, as PI.
• [2024.04] Our recent collaborative work (with Oracle and Baylor University) on novel evolutionary computational apprach to wind optimal power flow problem has been accepted by Applied Soft Computing.
• [2024.03] Our recent work on open-set domain adaptation has been published in IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence.
• [2023.12] Call for papers: Special Session on Computational Intelligence in Transactive Energy Management and Smart Energy Network (CITESEN 2024) within WCCI/IJCNN 2024 to be held in Yokohama, Japan, June 30 - July 5, 2024.
• [2023.11] Our developed distributed and privacy-preserving framework to non-intrusive load monitoring has been published as a research article in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
• [2023.10] Our recent research investigating the dynamic relationships of building indoor thermal profiles, building physcial information, and external weather conditions has been published in Sustainability.
• [2023.06] Two papers have been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
• [2023.04] Two papers have been accepted for presentation at IJCNN 2023.
• [2023.02] Congratulations to Shuang for successfully defending her PhD thesis! She will join University of Exeter as a postdoctoral researcher.
• [2023.02] Our recent work Learn to rotate: Part orientation for reducing support volume via generalizable reinforcement learning has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics! Joint work with colleagues at EPSRC Future Advanced Metrology Hub.
• [2023.02] Call for papers: Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Smart Energy and Mobility with Energies. Submission deadline: 14 December 2023.
• [2023.02] Our invited paper Customised Multi-Energy Pricing: Model and Solutions has been published in Energies! Well done Qiuyi!
• [2023.02] Our work Process Knowledge-guided Autonomous Evolutionary Optimization for Constrained Multi-objective Problems has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation!
• [2023.02] Our work Data Augmentation with norm-AE and Selective Pseudo-Labelling for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation has been accepted for publication in Neural Networks!
• [2023.01] Our recent work Multiple dynamic pricing for demand response with adaptive clustering-based customer segmentation in smart grids has been published in Applied Energy!
• [2022.12] Call for papers: Special Session on Computational Intelligence in Transactive Energy Management and Smart Energy Network (Citesen 2023) with IJCNN2023, Queensland, Australia, June 18-23, 2023. Submission deadline: January 31, 2023.
• [2022.11] I was invited to give a talk on “Strategic modelling of electricity retailers in wholesale and local markets” in the Department of Engineering, Durham University
• [2022.11] Our paper A bilevel game-theoretic decision-making framework for strategic retailers in both local and wholesale electricity markets has been accepted by Applied Energy. Well done Qiuyi!
• [2022.09] I became Associate Editor of Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems.
• [2022.09] Our paper A benchmark for multi-class object counting and size estimation using deep convolutional neural networks has been accepted by Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. Joint work with Zixu (Southampton) and Qian (Durham).
• [2022.08] I joined the Editorial Board of Complex & Intelligent Systems.
• Our paper “Customized Multi-energy Pricing in Smart Grids: A Bilevel and Evolutionary Computation Approach” has been accepted for presentation at The 21st UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence. Well done Qiuyi!
• Our paper Online Model-based Functional Clustering and Functional Deep Learning for Load Forecasting Using Smart Meter Data has been accepted for presentation at 5th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies. Well done Shuang!
• Our paper Addressing modern and practical challenges in machine learning: A survey of online federated and transfer learning has been accepted by Applied Intelligence. Well done Shuang!
• I am invited to speak at IEEE ISGT Europe 2022 on smart meter data analytics in the Super Session “AI for Active Power Distribution”.
• I am joining Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester as Lecturer in Data Science from August 2022!