Welcome!
About Me
I am an Ezra Systems Postdoctoral Associate and Visiting Lecturer in Systems Engineering at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, working with Prof. H. Oliver Gao. I earned my Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering from The University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Prof. George Q. Huang.
My research lies at the intersection of blockchain systems, trustworthy artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision-making, with a focus on sustainability, climate action, and complex industrial systems. A central theme of my work is leveraging blockchain and trustworthy AI to enable credible multi-stakeholder collaboration and to transform complex product and lifecycle data into actionable insights for societal and operational decision-making.
I develop blockchain-based and AI-powered systems for carbon registries and markets, corporate ESG assessment, and production and supply chain management. More broadly, I aim to design trustworthy socio-technical systems in the AI era that bridge methodological rigor with real-world impact across manufacturing, energy, and emerging immersive technologies.
Research Interests
Trustworthy AI and agentic systems
AI-powered sustainability reporting and auditing, multi-agent retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and human-in-the-loop trustworthy AI.Blockchain systems and mechanism design
Ethereum, Layer-2 solutions, and Hyperledger Fabric for multi-stakeholder collaboration; smart contracts and tokenization for incentive and mechanism design.Corporate sustainability and ESG
Data-driven environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assessment and corporate sustainability performance evaluation.Production and supply chains
Cloud computing, optimization, and analytics for large-scale, complex production and supply chain systems.
I am always open to collaborative opportunities and welcome interdisciplinary projects with meaningful societal impact. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in exchanging ideas or working together.
Outside of research, I enjoy reading, playing basketball, and watching the NBA. I am always happy to connect and exchange ideas for the betterment of society and future generations.
Education
- Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, 2023
- M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, 2019
- B.Eng. in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing, and Automation, Shenzhen University, 2016
News
May 2026: Served as Session Chair of the “Circular Economy: Design, Innovation, and Industrial Systems” track at the IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2026, Arlington, TX.
May 2026: Poster and oral presentation at IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2026, Arlington, TX — “A Blockchain-Based Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling Platform Towards Circular Economy.”
Apr 2026: 2026 Fund for Undergraduate Research on Solutions to Climate Change, “Global Climate Innovation Assessment Through the Lens of Patent Data” (mentee: Joshua Dirga), has been selected for funding.
Apr 2026: 2026 Engaged Engineering Undergraduate Research Award, “Physics-Informed Trustworthy AI for Emission Auditing of Global Renewable Energy Carbon Offset Projects” (mentee: Jim Wang), has been selected for funding.
Mar 2026: Paper published: Liu, X., Bagchi, T., Harish, A.R., Sy, C. L., & Gao, H. O. (2026). Blockchain and Double Auction for Credible and Efficient Voluntary Carbon Market. Applied Energy, 412(1), 127719.
Mar 2026: 2026 EDF–Cornell Atkinson Joint Research Project, “Towards Battery Circularity: Blockchain-Enabled Semantic Traceability and Incentive Design for EV Battery Recycling,” has been approved for funding.
Feb 2026: Paper published: Liu, X., Bagchi, T., Sy, C. L., & Gao, H. O. (2026). A blockchain-based carbon registry platform for credible climate action in transportation. npj Climate Action, 5(1), 23.
Jan 2026: The Industrial Blockchain Systems and Applications course at Cornell received Boeing Gift Funding to support student-led, project-based innovation in Systems Engineering. Theme: “Blockchain: A Trustworthy Friend in the Era of AI.”
- May 2025: Poster and oral presentation at IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2025, Atlanta — “A Double Auction Mechanism for Token-Based Carbon Credit Trading in Blockchain-Based Carbon Markets.”
- Feb 2025: Speaker at the 2025 Emissions Tracking, Reporting, and Compliance Conference, Houston. Presented work on emissions tracking and agentic AI for climate action.
- Nov 2024: Achieved Associate Level in the CIRTL Certificate Program, Cornell University.
- Oct 2024: Deployed SMARAG, an AI-powered carbon reporting system, with the Cornell Sustainability Office, reducing report generation time from months to minutes.
https://smarag.cee.cornell.edu - Sep 2023: Joined Cornell University as Ezra Systems Postdoctoral Associate and Visiting Lecturer in Systems Engineering.
- Aug 2023: Poster and oral presentation at International Conference on Resource Sustainability (icRS 2023), Guildford, UK — “Data-Driven Dual ESG Index Using Random Forest Regression.”
- Aug 2023: Completed Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong.
- Oct 2022: Awarded Teaching Assistant Certificate and Postgraduate Scholarship, The University of Hong Kong.