Yuanchen Zeng
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Education
- B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering, Zhejiang University, 2016
- Ph.D. in Vehicle Operation Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, 2022
- Ph.D. in Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2023
Biography
Dr. Yuanchen Zeng is a new faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research spans the inspection, monitoring, assessment, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure and vehicles through the development and integration of intelligent sensing, signal processing, modal analysis, data fusion, machine learning, digital twin, and predictive maintenance technologies.
Dr. Zeng has over ten years of research experience in railway infrastructure and rolling stock. Before joining Illinois, he served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Delft University of Technology, where he contributed to several major research projects sponsored by the European Commission, government ministries, and ProRail. He also contributed to graduate courses on vehicle-track dynamics and structural health monitoring and supervised undergraduate, master's, and Ph.D. students.
Dr. Zeng received his Ph.D. in Railway Engineering from Delft University of Technology in 2023, where his dissertation was recognized by the European Railway Research Advisory Council (ERRAC). He also holds a Ph.D. in Vehicle Operation Engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University, where his research on wheel life-cycle management has been deployed in high-speed train applications since 2019.
Dr. Zeng has authored over 20 journal publications. He received the Young Researcher Award at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2026, organized by the European Commission. He serves as a guest editor, scientific committee member, and reviewer for several leading journals and international conferences.
Academic Positions
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Delft University of Technology, 2023–2026
Resident Instruction
- CEE 408 Railroad Transportation Engineering
Research Interests
- Inspection and Monitoring
- Advanced Sensing and Laser Doppler Vibrometry
- Vehicle–Track Interaction
- Railway Infrastructure
- Rolling Stock
- Predictive Maintenance
Research Areas
Selected Articles in Journals
- Zeng, Yuanchen, Alfredo Núñez, Christian Rembe, and Zili Li. "Laser Doppler vibrometers on moving platforms: advancements, challenges, and future opportunities." Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 253 (2026): 114312.
- Zeng, Yuanchen, Alfredo Núñez, Rolf Dollevoet, Arjen Zoeteman, and Zili Li. "A train-borne laser vibrometer solution based on multisignal fusion for self-contained railway track monitoring." IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics 21, no. 2 (2024): 1585-1594.
- Zeng, Yuanchen, Chen Shen, Alfredo Nuñez, Rolf Dollevoet, Weihua Zhang, and Zili Li. "An interpretable method for operational modal analysis in timeâ€frequency representation and its applications to railway sleepers." Structural Control and Health Monitoring 2023, no. 1 (2023): 6420772.
- Zeng, Yuanchen, Dongli Song, Weihua Zhang, Bin Zhou, Mingyuan Xie, and Xu Tang. "An optimal life cycle reprofiling strategy of train wheels based on Markov decision process of wheel degradation." IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 23, no. 8 (2021): 10354-10364.
- Rembe, Christian, Izhak Bucher, Benjamin Halkon, Yanlu Li, Valerio Mazzoni, Lorenzo Scalise, Marvin Schewe, and Yuanchen Zeng. "Laser Doppler vibrometry." Nature Reviews Methods Primers 6, no. 1 (2026): 30.
Honors
- ERRAC Best PhD Dissertation 2024 (2024)
- IEEE TIM Outstanding Reviewer of 2025 (2025)
- TRA VISIONS Young Researcher Award 2026 (2026)
Recent Courses Taught
- CEE 408 - Railroad Transportation Engrg