Jingyuan Zhao, Ph.D.

Dr. Jingyuan Zhao is currently an Assistant Professional Researcher (Independent PI) at the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis. His research focuses on advancing energy and transportation technologies through:

• Foundation AI and lifelong machine learning for predictive energy systems
• Digital twin platforms for lifecycle management of batteries and vehicles
• Multi-scale modeling of zero-emission freight and infrastructure systems
• Techno-economic and policy analysis for global energy transitions

He pioneered transformer-based, large-scale AI architectures encompassing supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and self-supervised learning, tailored for specific tasks such as battery health estimation, lifetime forecasting, and safety diagnostics—including state-of-the-art thermal runaway early-warning systems. Deployed across more than one million electric vehicles in real-world fleets, these models seamlessly integrate deep learning with physics-grounded energy simulations, establishing a new paradigm for predictive accuracy and operational reliability.

He developed IMPACT (Integrating Market Penetration and Cost Technologies), a data-driven framework that integrates a vehicle cost model, a dynamic vehicle choice model, and an infrastructure deployment model. Beyond a technical tool, IMPACT serves as a holistic platform to capture the interactions among energy, economics, environment, and emissions, providing actionable foresight into the transition from internal-combustion vehicles to battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles across light-, medium-, and heavy-duty sectors.

His research is deeply collaborative, spanning leading universities such as Stanford, MIT, the University of Washington, Tsinghua University, Peking University, etc.; U.S. national laboratories including LBNL, PNNL, LANL, ANL, NREL, etc.; and industry innovators such as BYD, NIO, FAW, etc. By bridging technology innovation, economic modeling, and policy foresight, his work aims to provide a rigorous scientific foundation for zero-emission freight transitions and to contribute to global decarbonization strategies at scale.