David Yao studies the analysis, design and control of stochastic systems, such as computer and communication networks, production systems and supply chains, health care systems, and related resource control and risk management issues. A principal investigator of over 30 grants and contracts from government agencies and industrial sources, he has done extensive research and consulting work in various aspects of semiconductor fabrication, inventory and distribution planning, scheduling and resource management in computer operating systems, internet traffic modeling, web-server performance optimization, supply chain management, and hospital resource planning. He is a holder of eight U.S. patents in manufacturing operations and supply chain logistics.
His most recent work has been in the following areas: Using stochastic networks to model the contagion dynamics in financial systems and to characterize measures of systemic risk; integrating risk-hedging strategies into production planning decisions so as to improve the risk-return tradeoff; identifying the main factors that impact the healthcare associated infection (HAI) using machine-learning and discrete-event simulation techniques.
Yao was a mathematics major at Fudan University in China in the late 1970’s, and received a PhD in industrial engineering from the University of Toronto in 1983. He is a fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.
