People
Here are the faculty and students in SHINES Lab
Faculty
Ying Lin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, University of Houston.

- Ph.D., Indusrial and Systems Engineering, University of Washington.

- M.S., Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, University of South Florida.

- B.S., School for Gifted Young (SGY), major in Statistics, University of Science and Technology of China, P. R. China.
Students
Current PhD Students
Muyun Lu, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Proposal defense in May 2026.
- Dissertation Topic: Optimizing Expensive Black-box Functions via Multi-fidelity and Self-evolving Bayesian Optimization
Kiran Adhikari, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Dissertation Topic: Process-structure-property relationships modeling from autocorrelated functional curves
Yuhao Wu, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Dissertation Topic: Real-time feedback control via reinforced LLM
Thamer Alnazzal, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Dissertation Topic: Data-driven decision rules for personalized health management.
Yanlin Xiang, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Co-advised with Qianmei (May) Feng.
- Dissertation Topic: Machine learning-based Process Stability Modeling and Monitoring
Yanjie Yi, M.S.
- Ph.D. Student, Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Co-advised with Zheyong Bian.
- Dissertation Topic: Federated and Robust Online Learning Algorithms for Real-time Vehicle-passenger Matching
Graduated PhD Students
Shiva Afshar, Ph.D.
- Data Scientist, Emory University School of Medicine
- Graduated in May 2023.
- Dissertation Topic: Deep Learning and Network-based Approaches to Fine-map Risk Genes at Single-cell Resolution
Mai Li, Ph.D.
- Data Scientist, Precision Animal Health at Zoetis Inc.
- Graduated in Fall 2024.
- Dissertation Topic: Embedding-based Privacy-Preserving Models to Integrate Multisource Medical Data
Tanapol Kosolwattana, Ph.D.
- Graduated in Spring 2025.
- Dissertation Topic: Bandit-based Adaptive Monitoring for a Population of Dependent Systems
Undergraduate students
Chiwetalu Peter Odo (Deal Tech Associate at EY-Parthenon)
- Industrial Engineering Department, University of Houston.
- Thesis Topic: Data-driven Rules for Individualized Lifestyle Recommendations