01
How should we produce?
Coordinating production, inventory, and distribution as demand and operating conditions change.
Production & supply chainsResearcher · Teacher · Engineer
Hello, I’m
Yang Deng.
I study how to make better decisions
when the world is uncertain.
Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering
American University of Sharjah
Based in Sharjah, UAE
From real systems
to better decisions.
to better decisions.
People, systems & the decisions between them
01 / The person behind the papers
A practical path
to curious questions.
My path to academia went through engineering projects and a steel factory.
At Hatch in Los Angeles, I worked on infrastructure projects. In Baotou, I managed steel-production work involving planning, inventory, scheduling, and pricing. Those experiences now connect with the questions I study in operations research.
Today, I work at the American University of Sharjah. My research brings optimization and reinforcement learning to production, inventory, and urban delivery—systems where one decision changes what becomes possible next.
Explore my backgroundStarted withIndustrial designBuilt throughEngineering practiceNow exploringDecisions under uncertainty
02 / What keeps me curious
Research, in three questions.
Optimization and learning, grounded in how systems actually work.
02
How should cities deliver?
Making assignment, pricing, and reassignment decisions when orders and courier availability are uncertain.
Urban delivery & logistics03
What makes a useful forecast?
Exploring how prediction errors affect decisions over time, and how learning can account for those consequences.
An ongoing research direction03 / In the classroom
Make the model.
Understand the decision.
Teaching connects my engineering experience with the questions behind the mathematics: what should we model, what are we assuming, and what does the answer mean in practice?
INE 331 · Analysis of Production Systems
Fall 2026 · American University of Sharjah
Fall 2026 · American University of Sharjah
The questions I bring to a problem
- 01 What is the decision?
- 02 Where is the uncertainty?
- 03 What changes when we act?
From a production schedule to a delivery route, these questions connect theory with the systems around us.
2027Online 2026
Dynamic optimization of order assignment and service pricing for urban goods delivery via crowdsourcing with uncertainties
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review · 218, 105362Available online 4 November 2026
A reinforcement learning framework coordinates order assignments and courier service fees when demand and courier acceptance are uncertain.
2025
Collaborative production control and distributor selection via multi-agent reinforcement learning with differentiable communication
Expert Systems with Applications · 282, 127539
Production control and distributor selection are coordinated through multi-agent reinforcement learning and differentiable communication.
2025
Hierarchical production control and distribution planning under retail uncertainty with reinforcement learning
International Journal of Production Research · 63(12), 4504–4522
A hierarchical learning framework coordinates production and distribution under uncertain retail capabilities, evaluated using steel-industry transaction data.
2024
A proximal policy optimization approach for food delivery problem with reassignment due to order cancellation
Expert Systems with Applications · 258, 125045
Reinforcement learning supports pricing and reassignment decisions to recover value after food-delivery orders are canceled.
05 / The journey so far
A few chapters.
Across industry, doctoral study, and academia.
View curriculum vitae- 2026 — now
American University of Sharjah
Assistant Professor · Industrial Engineering
- 2025 — 2026
Tsinghua University
Postdoctoral Researcher
- 2020 — 2025
Xi’an Jiaotong University &
City University of Hong KongJoint doctoral programme · PhDs awarded 2025
- 2018 — 2020
Engineering & industry
Hatch, Los Angeles · Zhonghou Steel Plate, Baotou
06 / A conversation starts here
Good questions
travel well.
Have a research idea, a practical problem,
or a question about my work? Say hello.