Huazhen Fang
About Me
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas, where I joined in 2014 and currently lead the Information & Smart Systems Laboratory. I am affiliated with the Institute for Information Sciences and hold a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. My broad research interest lies in how to tame complex system dynamics via enabling information-driven intelligence. The overarching objective is to develop new principles, methods and tools to understand, monitor, control and build dynamic systems. This motivation has led me to research on system modeling, estimation, control design, machine learning and numerical optimization. It has also combined with my passion of connecting control system technologies with societal and industrial imperatives, driving me to study energy management, cooperative robotics and environmental observing. My research has been sponsored by National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Army Research Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, and University of Kansas, among others.
I received my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2014 from the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, with specialization in Dynamic Systems and Control. I received my M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada in 2009. Before that, I did my undergraduate studies at Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xi’an, China, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science & Technology in 2006. I was a Visiting Faculty Fellow at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2022 while on sabbatical. I received the Faculty Early Career Award from National Science Foundation in 2019. At the University of Kansas, I was awarded the University Scholarly Achievement Award in 2024, Miller Professional Development Award in 2022, the Miller Faculty Scholar Award in 2018, 2019 and 2023, the Wesley G. Cramer Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Faculty Award in 2016, and the Big XII Faculty Fellowship in 2015. I received a IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification Prize Paper Award in 2024, and the awards of Outstanding Reviewer and Reviewers of the Year from Automatica, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics and ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. I currently serve as an Associate Editor for Information Sciences, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Control Systems Letters, IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems, and IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society. I am a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board.
For my research, publications and teaching, please visit the Information & Smart Systems Laboratory website.