2019 Excellence in Research Prize and Medal Recipient

MengChu Zhou, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, specializes in automation science and engineering aimed at optimizing systems, particularly in manufacturing, where he seeks to improve both operational efficiencies and product quality. Zhou is currently working on information and control flows in semiconductor manufacturing that will increase productivity with cost- and time-saving improvements, among others. He uses Petri nets – mathematical models that track discrete events in distributed systems – plus the internet of things, big data analysis and machine learning to build smart manufacturing systems.

On the efficiency side, he is exploring methods to realize net zero energy data centers, which require vast amounts of electricity to run their systems and to cool them, by accurately predicting the timing of tasks and scheduling them optimally to computing servers. He is also working with mechanical engineers on technology that would use inexpensive, highly-scalable heat sources to power potentially huge vacuum generators. Applications include water treatment facilities at hydraulic fracturing sites and tunnels for extremely high-speed trains.

He is a fellow of IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Federation of Automatic Control and the Chinese Association of Automation. Zhou holds 12 patents for technologies ranging from robotic manufacturing systems to vacuum generation, with several more pending.

He has been among the most highly cited scholars over the past several years and was ranked number one in the field of engineering in 2012 by Web of Science/Thomson Reuters. A prolific author, he has published more than 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including nearly 400 in IEEE Transactions and over 300 in conference proceedings, and has written or edited 12 books and co-authored 29 book chapters. He is the founding editor of the IEEE Press Book Series on Systems Science and Engineering, the editor-in-chief of IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica and an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems and the IEEE Internet of Things Journal. He served as editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

Zhou was the recipient of the Computer-Integrated Manufacturing University Leadership and Excellence in the Application and Development Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Norbert Wiener Award from the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. Since joining NJIT in 1990, he has received the Excellence in Research Award from Newark College of Engineering in 2018, the Saul K. Fenster Innovation in Engineering Education Award in 2012 and the Harlan J. Perlis Award for Research in 1996.