Peter Zhang

I joined Heinz College's OR group at CMU in 2019. My current research interests are resilience and adaptability in supply chain and transportation operations, and robust optimization.

I completed my PhD in Engineering Systems at MIT in 2019, where I worked with David Simchi-Levi and Nikos Trichakis. My PhD thesis was on the robust optimization of supply chains. I received my master's (MIE) and undergraduate (EngSci, Manufacturing Systems) degrees from the University of Toronto, where I worked with Cristina Amon, David Romero, and Timothy Chan on the robust optimization of wind farm layouts. My initial fascination with research grew out of formative undergraduate experiences with Yu-Ling Cheng and Chris Beck.

Portrait of Peter Zhang
Assistant Professor (2019 to current), Carnegie Mellon University
Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy; courtesy appointment, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Focus Areas
  • Resilient & adaptive supply chain and transportation systems
    • Disaster response supply chain and climate resilience
    • Last-mile, distributed service and fairness
    • Transportation safety
    • Workforce training and career mobility in manufacturing
    • Transportation and supply chains in the developing world
  • Robust optimization
    • Minimax gap in static and dynamic formulations
    • Information gap in bilevel formulations
    • Optimality gap of decision rules
    • Solution sets and their geometry
    • Fairness and robustness
    • Uncertainty set composition
Education
  • PhD, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, MIT (2019)
  • MASc, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto (2013)
  • BASc, Engineering Science, University of Toronto (2011)
Industry
  • IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights (2018)
  • Internships at various startups, Toronto (2005 to 2011)
Contact
Email: pyzhang [at] cmu [dot] edu  |  Google Scholar  |  Heinz OR group