X (Xiaodong) Cheng

X (Xiaodong) Cheng

Assistant Professor
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I am an assistant professor at the Mathematical and Statistical Methods (Biometris) group in the Department of Plant Science, Wageningen University & Research. My main research interests cover various topics in control systems, optimization and machine learning, including

  1. Data-driven modeling: learning predictive models from data, physics-guided machine learning
  2. Dimensionality reduction: build surrogate models of complex dynamic systems, simplify high-dimensional network models
  3. Control and optimization: model-based and learning-based control, actuator/sensor placement for system monitoring, data assimilation for variable and parameter estimation

I am also enthusiastic about applying the relevant techniques to practical applications, particularly in agricultural systems and energy systems.


Before joining WUR, I was appointed as a research associate in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge from 2020 to 2022 and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology from 2019 to 2020. I received my B.S. and M.E. degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China, in 2011 and 2014, respectively. In November 2018, I was awarded a Ph.D. degree with honors (cum laude) from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, under the supervision of Prof. Jacquelien M. A. Scherpen. I am the recipient of the Paper Prize Award from the IFAC Journal Automatica in the triennium 2017–2019 as well as the Outstanding Paper Award from IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology in 2020. For more information, you can look into my personal webpage at here.