Before he joined CAU in 2006, he earned a M.E. in Industrial Engineering (Lehigh University, PA) and a B.E. in Automation (Tsinghua University, China). Dr. Gao's Ph.D. dissertation was entitled On the Zero-Inventory Production and Distribution Integrated Problems. His research interests include, but are not limited to, supply chain management, scheduling and logistics management. In recent years he has focused on supply chain modeling, optimization and algorithm development. He has publications in Annuals of Operation Research and MISTA proceeding. He regularly presents at INFORMS annual conferences, and has been invited as a referee for journals of Operations Research Letters, International Journal of Production Economics, etc.