World-Class Institute for Data and Decision Analytics Established at CUHK-Shenzhen

On July 20th, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen("University") held a press conference to announce the establishment of the Institute for Data and Decision Analytics ("Institute"), CUHK-Shenzhen. Two world-renowned scholars Professor Jim Dai and Professor Zhang Yin will serve as Co-Directors of the Institute. The Institute is committed to providing world-class education and state-of-the-art data and decision analytics research, and will work closely with the School of Science and Engineering ("SSE") and the School of Management and Economics ("SME") for teaching and research.

Speech by President Xu Yangsheng

Speech by Professor Jim Dai, Dean of the Institute

In-depth cross-field research to train top research talents

The Institute for Data and Decision Analytics focuses on scientific research and talent development in research areas such as operations research, information engineering, statistics, operations management, and decision science, which are closely related to the development and application of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence. They are the basic fields of data science and the driving force for the growth of digital technology in the future. The Institute will train outstanding doctoral students who will teach in the world's top research universities or join the most advanced research and development laboratories after graduation.

Professor Yangsheng Xu, President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen stressed in his speech that the establishment of the Institute for Data and Decision Analytics is particularly important for the development of Shenzhen. The establishment of this institute will help promote Shenzhen to be the world's innovative communications and logistics center with the fast development of data intelligence industry. President Xu said that the Institute, SME and SSE will coordinate with each other to attract top talents, build a first-class scientific research platform, and cultivate first-class academic elites to build an advanced research center in Asia and the world.

President Xu Yangsheng congratulates Professor Jim Dai

Scientific Experts Gather to Stimulate The Power of Education and Research Innovation

The Institute for Data and Decision Analytics has a research and teaching team led by leading international scholars. The dean position is co-chaired by two internationally renowned scholars, Professor Jim Dai and Professor Zhang Yin. Professor Jim Dai received his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and is a Leon C. Welch Professor of School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). He is a leading scholar in international operations research. Professor Dai's research results lead the world's scholars in a variety of related researches and promote the leap of theoretical research with a lot of practical impacts.

 Photo of President Xu and Professor Dai

Professor Zhang Yin, Co-Director of the Institute, is a lifelong professor at the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics of Rice University in the United States. He is an expert in optimization algorithms and calculations. He has published a large number of widely cited academic papers in the world's top academic journals and has won many best paper awards from associations and magazines at home and abroad. Professor Zhang' s most successful example of optimization application comes from the cooperation with NASA's project "Optimal Spacecraft Propellant-Free Rotating Path", which saves the cost of transporting fuel to the international space station and brings millions of dollars worth of benefit.

At the same time, the Institute has also recruited many well-known professors from world-class universities, including Professor Zhang Shuzhong, the founding director of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Minnesota. Professor Zhang has long-term and in-depth research in the theory and methods of operations research and optimization, and has a keen interest and extensive experience in the application of operational optimization. The Institute has also gathered a group of outstanding young talents, such as Professor Wang Zizhuo who is just 30 years old. He was an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota and is now an associate professor of the Institute. Professor Cai Zhuoxuan, who has joined the research team, holds a master's degree and a doctorate in operations research from Cornell University.

Zhang Shuzhong, Professor of the Institute and President Lecture Professor, interviewed by the media.

The Institute for Data and Decision Analytics has also attracted leading scholars from around the world to conduct research for more than one month, including Prof. Benjamin Van Roy, Professor of Department of Electronic Engineering, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Prof. Pengyi Shi from Purdue University and Prof. Siva Theja Maguluri from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Professor Tom Z.Q. Luo, Vice President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, introduced the members of the Institute

Dean Dai Jiangang won an international major award and became the first Chinese scientist to receive this honor

Recently, Prof. Dai Jiangang, one of the deans of the Institute for Data and Decision Analytics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, was awarded the ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award 2018. This award is a Lifetime Achievement Award of the World Computer Society in recognition of his fundamental contribution to arranging network stability and its application in computers and communication systems. This is the first time that Chinese scientists have won this award since the establishment of this award 16 years ago.

The ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award has a significant impact on the international academic community and is awarded annually to an individual who has made a long-term and outstanding contribution to the performance analysis and assessment of computer/communication systems. These contributions are often significant advances in related fields, ranging from theoretical breakthroughs to widespread use of practical systems to groundbreaking applications with extreme impact.

Prior to this, Professor Dai was awarded the Young Investigator Award 1994 by the National Science Foundation, whose predecessor was the US Presidential Young Scientist Award and the Erlang Awards in 1998 by the INFORMS Applied Probability Society for his outstanding academic achievement and influence. In 2017, Professor Dai was awarded the Best Paper Award by the INFORMS Applied Probability Society for his research on the steady-state diffusion approximation of stochastic systems. He is the only scholar who has won two INFORMS Best Paper Awards to date. Professor Dai has been the editor-in-chief of the international academic journal "Mathematics of Operations Research" since 2012. As one of INFORMS's flagship publications, the journal publishes top-level research in the field of operations research. The authors include Robert Aumann, Roger B. Myerson, Alvin E. Roth, Lloyd S. Shapley and other Nobel laureates.

Recruiting doctoral students in operations research from 2019 to cultivate outstanding talents

It is reported that The Institute for Data and Decision Analytics will begin to recruit doctoral students in operations research in 2019. Outstanding candidates who have a high degree of initiative and a solid foundation in mathematics are welcome to apply for this programme. The admitted students will study for a doctoral degree under the guidance of the Institute's tutors and have the opportunity to participate in the research work of the University's AI labs with Tencent or JD.

Photo of the Inauguration Ceremony for Establishment of Institute for Data and Decision Analytics