Dr. Yanchao Liu — Wayne State University

Yanchao Liu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor · Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering · Wayne State University

NSF CAREER Award

Air Traffic Management

Optimization & AI

Drone Delivery

Dr. Yanchao Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Wayne State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, M.S. from the University of Arkansas, and B.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, all in Industrial Engineering. Prior to joining WSU in 2017, he was a Data Scientist at Sears Holdings Corporation and Director of Brand Marketing Analytics at Catalina Marketing Corporation.

Dr. Liu's research focuses on developing mathematical models and computing algorithms to empower next-generation air and ground transportation systems, data analytics platforms, and industrial AI applications. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Air Force, and the State of Michigan.

Recruiting (2026): I am seeking a Ph.D. student and a postdoctoral researcher in unmanned air traffic management and custom AI model development. Applicants must be a U.S. citizen or green card holder. Please email your resume, transcripts, and writing or code samples to yanchaoliu@wayne.edu.

Courses Taught

DSA 6000 — Data Science and Analytics Alumni

DSA 7500 — Data Science Practicum Alumni

IE 6210 — Applied Engineering Statistics

IE 7710 — Introduction to Stochastic Processes

IE 6010 — IoT and Edge AI Programming Sample projects

Patent

U.S. Patent: A Smart Landing Platform with Data-driven Analytic Procedures for Unmanned Multicopter Aircraft Pre-flight Diagnosis. U.S. Patent 18/696,243. Co-inventor: Zhenyu Zhou (former PhD student, currently at GEICO). Video