{"id":119,"date":"2020-06-03T01:56:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T01:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jcai.oucreate.com\/?page_id=119"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:13:11","slug":"students","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/students\/","title":{"rendered":"Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ph.D. Students:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Brandon Peterson, D.Eng. student, Jan 2026 &#8211; present\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Model-Assisted Control of Building Energy Systems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hongzhen Dan, D-Ph.D. student, Aug 2025 &#8211; present\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Distributed and Game Theoretic Control of Smart Communities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dongyang Xi, Ph.D. student, Jan 2025 &#8211; present\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Modeling and Control of Next Generation Heat Pumps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zicheng Wang, Ph.D. student, Aug 2024 &#8211; present (co-advised with Dr. Ming Qu at Purdue)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Data-Driven BMS Semantic Model to Facilitate Automated Analytics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Chibuoke Eneh, Ph.D. student, Jan 2025 &#8211; present\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Load-Based Testing of Heat Pumps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">M.S. Students:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>None<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Alumni:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Philani Hlanze, Ph.D. at OU, Jan 2021 &#8211; Dec 2025; current role TBA.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Modeling and Control of PCM-Based Energy Storage Integrated in Air Distribution Systems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Chibuoke Eneh, M.S., Jan 2023 &#8211; Aug 2024, currently a PhD student at Purdue.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Thesis topic: Aging-Aware Control of Motorized Energy Storage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mingshi Yao, M.S, Aug 2023 &#8211; Aug 2024, currently a PhD student at Rutgers University. \n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Thesis topic: Carbon-Responsive Control of Buildings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Aly Elhefny, Ph.D., Aug 2019 &#8211; May 2024, currently lecturer at Central Community College (co-advised with Dr. Hamidreza Shabgard at OU)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Modeling and Control of Freeze Desalination Systems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jerson Sanchez, M.S., Aug 2021 &#8211; Dec 2023, currently research engineer at AAON.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Thesis topic: Development and assessment of constrained reinforcement learning-based controller for building demand response<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zhimin Jiang, Ph.D., Aug 2018 &#8211; Jun 2022, currently senior research engineer at Trane Technologies\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Building cluster control to enable grid reliability and efficiency support<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Haopeng Liu, Ph.D., Aug 2018 &#8211; Jun 2022, currently postdoc at University of Maryland\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dissertation topic: Gray box dynamic modeling of vapor compression systems for control optimization<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Philani Hlanze, M.S., Aug 2018 &#8211; Dec 2020, currently a Ph.D. student at OU\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Thesis topic: Integration of phase change material-based thermal energy storage in air distribution systems to increase building power flexibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ph.D. Students: M.S. Students: Alumni:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-119","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/engineering\/cairesearchgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}