Tianyu Zhang
I'm a Ph.D. Candidate,Research Assistant,Teaching Assistant at the University of Alberta.About Me
Hi, my name is Tianyu Zhang, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Alberta, Canada. My research interests are machine learning, sensor networks, internet of things, and transfer learning. Currently I am focusing on energy-efficient smart buildings.
What's new?
- March 2022 - Our paper is accepted in ICPR!
- March 2022 - Our paper is accepted in Energy and Buildings!
- February 2022 - Take a look at what our lab is working on here!
- February 2022 - I held my first seminar on the topic of building joint control and thermal comfort modelling. Video recording available here.
- November 2021 - I presented our COBS at ACM SIGEnergy RLEM workshop.
Experience
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Alberta
Department of Computing Science
Advisor: Dr. Omid Ardakanian
Research topic: Energy-efficient smart buildings
My research is inter-disciplinary and utilizes different techniques from machine learning, control systems and communication networks. It could produce innovative data-driven solutions for optimizing the energy consumption of buildings in the context of a smart city.
Expected Graduation: August 2023
Master of Science
University of Alberta
Department of Computing Science
Advisor: Dr. Omid Ardakanian
Thesis Title: Building Occupancy and Thermal Modelling in the Wild*
*Departmental Outstanding Master of Science Thesis Award Runner Up
Bachelor of Science with Honors
University of Alberta
Department of Computing Science
Three ACM ICPC Regional medals.
Associate Researcher
Huawei Canada (Part-time)
Design a workflow for user to evaluate the robustness of their machine learning classifier. Investigate the application of Reinforcement learning in the domain of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP), specifically the application of variable selection in Branch-and-Bound method.
Research Assistant
University of Alberta (Part-time)
Assists with academic research include but are not limited to editing and preparing manuscripts, producing academic papers, performing research work in archives, analyzing data, and developing models.
Teaching Assistant
University of Alberta (Part-time)
CMPUT 379 - Operating System Concepts
This course covers the design and implementation of operating systems, and operating systems concepts
that appear in other distributed systems.
CMPUT 366 - Reinforcement Learning
This course provides an introduction to reinforcement learning intelligence, which focuses on the
study and design of agents that interact with a complex, uncertain world to achieve a goal.
CMPUT 272 - Formal Systems and Logic
This course introduces the fundamentals of discrete mathematics and then use that knowledge to
solve problems and communicate the correctness of the solutions.
Library Back-End Programmer
University of Alberta (Part-time)
Deal with university publications. This includes organizing files stored on OpenStack Swift and MySQL entries, structuring and uploading items to the university production server using Ruby on Rails. Uploading items to the Internet Archive.
Publications
- Everything
- Refereed Papers
- Preprints
- Theses
- Presentations
Refereed Papers
- Tianyu Zhang, Amin Banitalebi-Dehkordi, Yong Zhang, "Deep Reinforcement Learning for Exact Combinatorial Optimization: Learning to Branch", to appear, 2022.
- Tianyu Zhang, Jake Gu, Omid Ardakanian, Joyce Kim, "Addressing Data Inadequacy Challenges in Personal Comfort Models by Combining Pretrained Comfort Models", Energy and Buildings, vol.264, 112068, June 2022.
- Tianyu Zhang, Gaby Baasch, Omid Ardakanian, Ralph Evins, "On the Joint Control of Multiple Building Systems with Reinforcement Learning", In Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp. 60-72, June 2021.
- Md Monir Hossain, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Identifying grey-box thermal models with Bayesian neural networks", Energy and Buildings, vol.238, pp.1-11, 2021.
- Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Poster Abstract: COBS: COmprehensive Building Simulator", In Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Systems for Built Environments (BuildSys), November 2020. [Best Poster Runner Up]
- Md Monir Hossain, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Evaluating the Feasibility of Reusing Pre-trained Thermal Models in the Residential Sector", In Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Workshop on Urban Building Energy Sensing, Controls, Big Data Analysis, and Visualization (UrbSys), pp.23-32, November 2019.
- Tianyu Zhang, Abdullah Al Zishan, Omid Ardakanian, "ODToolkit: Extensible Toolkit for Occupancy Detection in Smart Buildings", In Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.35-46, June 2019.
- Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "A Domain Adaptation Technique for Occupancy Estimation in Smart Buildings", In Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet of Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI), pp.148-159, April 2019.
Preprints
- Md Monir Hossain, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Identifying Grey-box Thermal Models with Bayesian Neural Networks", preprint available on arXiv (last revised in September 2020)
Theses
- Tianyu Zhang, " Building Occupancy and Thermal Modelling in the Wild", M.Sc. Dissertation, University of Alberta, August 2019.
Presentations
- Modeling and Simulation Studies and Tools: Co-simulation Platform for Occupant-centric Control of Buildings, 6th International Symposium on Occupant Behaviour, September 2020.
People
Omid Ardakanian
Yang Liu
Md Monir Hossain
Abdullah Al Zishan
Awards
- University of Alberta Departmental Outstanding Master Thesis Award Runner Up
- November 2020
- University of Alberta Graduate Student Teaching Award
- April 2020
- University of Alberta Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award
- April 2019
Latest Posts
Nothing yet. Please check back later.
Get In Touch
I'm currently open for any part-time opportunities!
Please send me an email if you are interested. 👋
Email: tianyu[dot]zhang[at]ualberta[dot]ca
Mailing Address: Athabasca Hall, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2E8