Qi Zhang named McKnight Land-Grant Professor

Assistant Professor Qi Zhang is among ten recipients of the 2023-2025 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. This University-wide program seeks to advance the careers of the most promising junior faculty members who have potential to make significant contributions to their departments and scholarly fields. Recipients were chosen based on merit, professional promise, quality of publication record, and originality and innovation in research achievements.

Zhang was awarded for his research on decision discovery and optimization for sustainable systems engineering. Zhang's research group develops computational, data-driven methods for systems-level analysis and optimization that inform decision making in sustainable engineering applications. The proposed models and algorithms address various complex problems ranging from the effective operation of electrified chemical processes to the design of sustainable energy supply chains. Their research particularly focuses on multi-agent systems, which involve multiple self-interested decision makers, and systems with significant uncertainty, especially regarding the performance and cost of new clean technologies and weather-dependent events.

https://scholarswalk.umn.edu/faculty-awards/mcknight-awards/land-grant-professorship