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Wan Du

Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
School of Engineering
The University of California, Merced
Address: #208, SE2, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343
Email: wdu3 AT ucmerced.edu

Bio: Dr. Wan Du is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC Merced. He joined UC Merced as a tenure-track assistant professor in 2017. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Lyon, France, and worked as a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
 
Openings: 
I always look for self-motivated PhD students who are interested in Wireless Networking and Sensing, Reinforcement Learning, and Intelligent Control.
 
Selected Papers since 2017 (Google Scholar Profile) 
  1. Zhiyu An, Zhibo Hou, and Wan Du, "Disentangling Uncertainties by Learning Compressed Data Representation", the 7th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference (L4DC), 2025.
  2. Xianzhong Ding, Yunkai Zhang, Binbin Chen, Donghao Ying, Tieying Zhang, Jianjun Chen, Lei Zhang, Alberto Cerpa, and Wan Du, “Towards VM Rescheduling Optimization Through Deep Reinforcement Learning”, EuroSys, 2025.
  3. Xianzhong Ding, Wanshi Hong, Zhiyu An, Bin Wang, and Wan Du, "Deepot: Parking Lot Identification Using Low-Resolution Satellite Imagery", the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2025. Best Paper Award
  4. Xianzhong Ding, Zhiyu An, Arya Rathee, and Wan Du, "A Safe and Data-efficient Model-based Reinforcement Learning System for HVAC Control", IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 2025.
  5. Baicheng Chen, John Nolan, Xinyu Zhang, and Wan Du, "MetaSoil: Passive mmWave Metamaterial Multi-layer Soil Moisture", ACM SenSys, 2024.
  6. Yuning Chen, Kang Yang, Zhiyu An, Brady Holder, Luke Paloutzian, Khaled M. Bali, and Wan Du. "MARLP: Time-series Forecasting Control for Agricultural Managed Aquifer Recharge", ACM KDD, 2024.
  8. Zhiyu An, Xianzhong Ding, and Wan Du, "Go Beyond Black-Box Policies: Rethinking the Design of Learning Agent for Interpretable, Verifiable HVAC Control", the Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2024. code
  9. Zhiyu An, Xianzhong Ding, and Wan Du, "Reward Bound for Behavioral Guarantee of Model-based Planning Agents", the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2024.
  10. Miaomiao Liu, Sikai Yang, Arya Rathee, and Wan Du, “Orientation Estimation of Mobile Devices Piloted by Deep Reinforcement Learning", ACM/IEEE IoTDI, 2024. (Best Paper Award)
  11. Yifei Xu*, Yuning Chen*, Xumiao Zhang*, Xianshang Lin, Pan Hu, Yunfei Ma, Songwu Lu, Wan Du, Zhuoqing Mao, Ennan Zhai, Dennis Cai, “CloudEval-YAML: A Practical Benchmark for Cloud Configuration Generation”, the 7th Annual Conference on Machine Learning and Systems (MLSys), 2024. (The first three student authors have equal contribution.) code
  12. Kang Yang, Miaomiao Liu, and Wan Du. "RALoRa: Rateless-Enabled Link Adaptation for LoRa Networks", ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking (ToN), 2024.
  13. Xianzhong Ding, Alberto Cerpa, and Wan Du, “Multi-zone HVAC Control with Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning”, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.11510. Extended from our BuildSys 2020 paper.
  14. Xianzhong Ding, Alberto Cerpa, and Wan Du, “Exploring deep reinforcement learning for holistic smart building control”, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), 2024. https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.00725. Extended from our BuildSys 2019 paper.
  15. Zhiyu An, Xianzhong Ding, Arya Rathee, and Wan Du, "CLUE: Safe Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for HVAC Control Using Epistemic Uncertainty Estimation", ACM BuildSys, 2023. (Best Paper Runner-up Award)
  16. Hamid Rajabi, Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa, "TODOS: Thermal sensOr Data-driven Occupancy Estimation System", ACM BuildSys, 2023.
  17. Kang Yang, Yuning Chen, Tingruixiang Su, and Wan Du, "Link Quality Modeling for LoRa Networks in Orchards", ACM/IEEE IPSN, 2023.  
  18. Xianzhong Ding, Yunkai Zhang, Binbin Chen, Donghao Ying, Tieying Zhang, Jianjun Chen, Lei Zhang, Alberto Cerpa, and Wan Du, “VMR2L: Virtual Machines Rescheduling using Reinforcement Learning in Data Centers”, the Machine Learning for Systems (MlSys) Workshop in NeurIPS 2023.
  19. Xianzhong Ding, Le Chen, Murali Emani, Chunhua Liao, Pei-Hung Lin, Tristan Vanderbruggen, Zhen Xie, Alberto Cerpa, Wan Du, "HPC-GPT: Integrating Large Language Model for High-Performance Computing", the workshop of Machine Learning with Graphs in High-Performance Computing Environments (MLG-HPCE) in SC 2023.
  21. Miaomiao Liu, Sikai Yang, Wyssanie Chomsin, and Wan Du, "Real-Time Tracking of Smartwatch Orientation and Location by Multitask Learning", ACM SenSys, 2022.
  22. Miaomiao Liu, Kang Yang, Yanjie Fu, Dapeng Wu, and Wan Du, “Driving Maneuver Anomaly Detection based on Deep Auto-Encoder and Geographical Partitioning”, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), 2022.
  23. Xianzhong Ding and Wan Du, "DRLIC: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Irrigation Control", ACM/IEEE IPSN, 2022.
  24. Hamid Rajabi, Zhizhang Hu, Xianzhong Ding, Shijia Pan, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa, "MODES: Multi-sensor Occupancy Data-driven Estimation System for Smart Buildings". ACM e-Energy, 2022.
  25. Kang Yang, Xi Zhao, Jianhua Zou, and Wan Du, “ATPP: A Mobile App Prediction System Based on Deep Marked Temporal Point Processes”, IEEE DCOSS, 2021. code+data. (Best Paper Runner-Up Award)
  26. Devanshu Kumar, Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa. “Building Sensor Fault Detection and Diagnostic System”, the 1st ACM International Workshop on Big Data and Machine Learning for Smart Buildings and Cities (BALANCES) in ACM BuildSys 2021.
  27. Kunpeng Liu, Pengfei Wang, Dongjie Wang, Wan Du, Dapeng Wu, and Yanjie Fu, “Efficient Reinforced Feature Selection via Early Stopping Traverse Strategy'', IEEE ICDM, 2021.
  28. Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa, “MB2C: Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Multi-zone Building Control”, ACM BuildSys, 2020. (Best Paper Runner-Up Award and Best Presentation Award). YouTube Video.
  29. Miaomiao Liu, Xianzhong Ding, and Wan Du, “Continuous, Real-Time Object Detection on Mobile Devices without Offloading”, IEEE ICDCS, 2020. Acceptance rate: 105/584 = 18%. YouTube Video. 
  30. Zhihao Shen, Wan Du, Xi Zhao, and Jianhua Zou. “DMM: Fast Map Matching for Cellular Data”, ACM MobiCom, 2020. code+data. Acceptance rate: 62/384 = 16%. YouTube Video. 
  31. Huijie Chen, Fan Li, Wan Du, Song Yang, Matthew Conn, Song Yang, and Yu Wang. “Listen to Your Fingers: User Authentication based on Geometry Biometrics of Touch Gesture”, ACM UbiComp & IMWUT, 2020.
  32. Haiqiao Wu, Wan Du, Peng Gong, and Dapeng (Oliver) Wu, "CPU: Cross-Rack-Aware Pipelining Update for Erasure-Coded Storage", IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, November 2020.
  33. Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa, “OCTOPUS: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Holistic Smart Building Control”, ACM BuildSys, 2019. 
  34. Weifeng Gao, Wan Du, Zhiwei Zhao, Geyong Min, and Mukesh Singhal, "Towards Energy-Fairness in LoRa Networks", IEEE ICDCS, 2019. code+data. Acceptance rate: 19.6%.
  35. Zhihao Shen, Kang Yang, Wan Du, Xi Zhao, and Jianhua Zou, “DeepAPP: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for Mobile Application Usage Prediction”, ACM SenSys, 2019. code+data. Acceptance rate: 28/144 = 19.4%, YouTube video. (The first two student authors have an equal contribution.) 
  36. Jothi Prasanna Shanmuga Sundara, Wan Du, and Zhiwei Zhao, “A Survey on LoRa Networking: Research Problems, Current Solutions, and Open Issues”, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, Vol. 22, Issue 1, Pages 371-388, October 2019. 
  37. Jie Liu, Jiawen Liu, Wan Du, and Dong Li, “Performance Analysis and Characterization of Training Deep Learning Models on Mobile Devices”, IEEE ICPADS, 2019.
Selected Papers before 2017
  1. Huanle Zhang, Wan Du, Pengfei Zhou, Mo Li, and Prasant Mohapatra, "DopEnc: Acoustic-based Encounter Profiling Using Smartphones", in ACM MobiCom, 2016. Acceptance rate: 32/226 = 14.2%. Extension in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
  2. Wan Du, Jansen Christian Liando, and Mo Li, "SoftLight: Adaptive Visual Light Communication over Screen-Camera Links", in IEEE INFOCOM, 2016. Acceptance rate: 300/1644 = 18.3%. Extension in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
  3. Wan Du, Jansen Christian Liando, Huanle Zhang, and Mo Li, "When Pipelines Meet Fountain: Fast Data Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks", in ACM SenSys, 2015. Acceptance rate: 27/132 = 20.5%. Best Paper. Extension in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
  4. Zhenjiang Li, Wan Du, Yuanqing Zheng, Mo Li, and Dapeng Oliver Wu, "From Rateless to Hopless", in ACM MobiHoc, 2015. Acceptance rate: 37/250 = 14.8%. Extension in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
  5. Wan Du, Zhenjiang Li, Jansen Christian Liando, and Mo Li, "From Rateless to Distanceless: Enabling Sparse Sensor Network Deployment in Large Areas", in ACM SenSys, 2014. Acceptance rate: 21/117 = 17.9%. Extension in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
  6. Wan Du, Zikun Xing, Mo Li, Bingsheng He, Lloyd Hock Chye Chua, and Haiyan Miao, "Optimal Sensor Placement and Measurement of Wind for Water Quality Studies in Urban Reservoirs", in ACM/IEEE IPSN, 2014. Acceptance rate: 23/111 = 20.7%. Extension in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks.
  7. Wan Du and Mo Li, "Harnessing Mobile Multiple Access Efficiency with Location Input", in IEEE ICDCS, 2013. Acceptance rate: 61/464= 13.1%. Extension in  IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
Teaching 
  1. Undergraduate courses
    • CSE150 - Operating Systems: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.
    • CSE100 - Algorithm Design and Analysis: Fall 2022.
  2. Graduate courses
    • EECS258 - Multimedia Systems: Spring 2023
    • EECS251 - Advanced Operating Systems: Spring 2022, 2021. 
    • EECS250 - Advanced Topics in Computer Systems: Fall 2025, Spring 2020, 2019, and 2018.
    • EECS290 - EECS Seminars: Fall 2019.
Group Members
  1. Zhiyu An (Ph.D. student, B.S. from UC Berkeley, 01/2023~)
  2. Yuning Chen (Ph.D. student, B.S. from Tsinghua University, 08/2021~)
  3. Sikai Yang (Ph.D. student, B.S. from University of Science and Technology of China, 08/2021~)
  4. Zhibo Hou (Ph.D. student, 01/2023~, M.S. from Purdue University)
  5. Yuanlin Yang (Ph.D. student, 01/2023~, M.S. from City University of Hong Kong)
  6. Fan Zhao (Ph.D. student, 01/2023~, M.S. from University of Florida)
  7. Wyssanie Chomsin (Master student, B.S. from UC Merced, 08/22~)
Alumni
  1. Gang Yan (Postdoc, 1/2024~12/2024. PhD from SUNY-Binghamton University.)
  2. Kang Yang (Ph.D. student, 01/2020~12/2024. First job: Postdoc at UCLA. M.S. from Xi'an Jiaotong University)
  3. Xianzhong Ding (Ph.D. student, 08/2018~12/2023. First job: Postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. M.S. from Shandong University)
  4. Miaomiao Liu (Ph.D. student, 08/2018~05/2023. First job: Visa Inc. M.S. from Northeastern University, China)
  5. Weifeng Gao (visiting Ph.D. student, 09/2018~03/2020）
  6. Haiqiao Wu (visiting Ph.D. student, 01/2019~02/2021)
Editorial Activities
  • Associate Editor: IEEE Internet of Things Journal (2024~).
  • Associate Editor: ACM Transactions on Internet of Things (2024~).
  • Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering (2024~).
  • Guest Editor: Data-Centric Engineering (DCE), Cambridge University Press, Special Issue (Fast Track for BuildSys 2023): Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (BuildSys).
TPC Activities
  • 2025: INFOCOM, SenSys, MobiSys, USENIX ATC.
  • 2024: INFOCOM, SenSys, ICDCS, DCOSS-IoT, USENIX ATC.
  • 2023: INFOCOM, SenSys, ICDCS, DCOSS-IoT, IPSN, MASS.
  • 2022: INFOCOM, ICDCS, DCOSS, MASS, IoTDI, ICPADS, ICC, GLOBECOM.
  • 2021: INFOCOM, MASS, GLOBECOM, ICC.
  • 2020: INFOCOM, ICDCS, MASS, GLOBECOM.
  • 2019: INFOCOM, MASS, ICCCN, EWSN, SMARTCOMP, ICESS, VTC-Fall, MSN.
  • 2018: INFOCOM, ICDCS, ICCCN, ICPADS, SECON, GLOBECOM, MobiSyS Demo session.  
  • 2017: ICDCS, ICPADS.
Other Services
  • Publication chair: ACM SenSys 2025.
  • PhD Forum co-chair: ACM BuildSys 2024.
  • Journal Fast Track chair: ACM BuildSys 2023.
  • Poster/demo chair: ACM SenSys 2023. 
  • Workshops chair: CPS-IoT Week 2023,
  • Poster co-chair: ACM/IEEE IPSN 2022.
  • Track co-chair: the Cloud & Edge Track of IEEE ICPADS 2022.
  • Web chair: ACM BuildSys 2021
Awards
  • Best Paper Award, ACM/IEEE IoTDI, 2024. (Miaomiao Liu, Sikai Yang, Arya Rathee, and Wan Du)
  • UC Merced Academic Senate Distinguished Early Career Research Award 2023-2024
  • NSF CAREER Award 2023.
  • Best Paper Runner-up Award, ACM BuildSys, 2023. (Zhiyu An, Xianzhong Ding, Arya Rathee, and Wan Du)
  • Distinguished Member of the IEEE INFOCOM Technical Program Committee, 2022, 2020, 2018.
  • Best Paper Runner-up Award, IEEE DCOSS, 2021. (Kang Yang, Xi Zhao, Jianhua Zou, and Wan Du)
  • Best Paper Runner-up Award, ACM BuildSys, 2020. (Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa)
  • Best Presentation Award, ACM BuildSys, 2020. (Xianzhong Ding, Wan Du, and Alberto Cerpa)
  • Exemplary Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2018, 2017.
  • IoT OpenInnov Challenge Winner, by ENGIE and SIGFOX, 2016.
  • Best Paper Award, ACM SenSys 2015. (Wan Du, Jansen Christian Liando, Huanle Zhang and Mo Li)
  • Best Demo Award, IEEE SECON 2014. (Wan Du, Mo Li, Zikun Xing, Bingsheng He, Lloyd Hock Chye Chua, Zhenjiang Li, Yuanqing Zheng, and Pengfei Zhou)
  • Best Paper Award, ICSNC 2010. (Wan Du, Fabien Mieyeville, and David Navarro)