He received his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, in 2009. His research interests are the modeling, simulation, and optimization of complex stochastic systems. His expertise includes stochastic simulation optimization, rare event simulation, computational intelligence, and their applications in artificial intelligence, air transportation, cloud computing, health care systems, machine learning, power systems, and risk management. His work has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Air Force of Scientific Research, Jeffress Trust of Interdisciplinary Research, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Office of Naval Research, National Cancer Institute of France, and National Natural Science Foundation of China.