Yike Li - Eager to Learn

Last Friday (2/14/2020), Yike Li defended his MS thesis, Optimal Weather Station Selection for Electric Load Forecasting.

Yike Li's MS thesis defense
From left to right: Dr. Tao Hong, Yike Li, Dr. Pu Wang and Dr. Linquan Bai

Yike received his B.S. degree in Applied Physics from Tianjin University, China, in 2010, and his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2012. He joined our MSEM program in Fall 2018. Meanwhile, he also enrolled in our INES PhD program. From 2012 to 2019, he had a progressive career in the power industry. His was promoted to a consulting manager at Accenture last year, and then decided to come back to school to pursue his PhD.

I got to know Yike since his days at NC State University. I was giving lectures on load forecasting and demand response, when he was one of the students in the class. At that time, he was definitely the student showing most interest in the subject. He was eager to learn, and asking me many questions about the software, models, and applications. Since then, we have been keeping in touch. Occasionally, he sent me greeting messages and updates about his progress in the industry. 

Couple years ago, Yike asked me about pursuing a PhD degree under my supervision. Since he didn't have thesis writing experience, I asked him to complete a master thesis first. Although I've known him for years, I still had him going through the BigDEAL interview process including the screening tests. He passed them without a surprise. His thesis topic is a continuation of my IJF paper on weather station selection. The task was to propose a method beating the one in my IJF paper. It was not an easy task, but he nailed it. He was able to complete the thesis research while working full time. 

Now he can focus on his dissertation research!

Congratulations, Yike!