Semi-Plenary Lecture 8

Room: E214
Time: Thursday, 1. October 2026, 9:40 - 10:20
Chair: Alba Sofi

Wang-Ji Yan

Associate Professor
State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Macau, China

Bayesian Scientific Computing in Structural Dynamics: Towards Dimensionality, Complexity, Credibility, and Scalability

Bayesian inference offers a rigorous framework for uncertainty quantification in structural dynamics, particularly in system identification and structural health monitoring (SHM). However, its deployment in real-world applications remains hindered by fundamental challenges such as high-dimensional parameter spaces, complex non-Gaussian and multi-modal posteriors, limited credibility under non-ideal conditions, and poor scalability with large-scale or streaming SHM data. This talk presents some recent innovations in Bayesian scientific computing for system identification: (i) neural-networked variational inference for mitigating the curse of dimensionality and optimization collapse; (ii) deep generative variational inference for complex posterior distributions; (iii) error-resilient probabilistic modeling for enhanced credibility under model variability and non-white-noise prediction errors; and (iv) streaming and parallel inference for evolving SHM data. Remaining challenges and future opportunities are discussed, including ill-posedness, prior specification, interpretability, and trade-offs between model fidelity, computational efficiency, and real-time applicability in structural dynamics.

Short Bio

Dr. Wang-Ji Yan is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Urban Safety and Disaster Prevention Institute at the State Key Laboratory of the Internet of Things for Smart City, University of Macau. His main research areas include structural health monitoring, Bayesian system identification, and stochastic dynamics. He obtained his PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2013. He subsequently worked at Hefei University of Technology as a Full Professor and at the University of Nottingham as an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow before joining the University of Macau in 2019. He has published over 100 top-tier journal papers (including around 40 in MSSP and JSV, two leading journals in the field of vibration), and has secured around 20 research projects. His research has earned over 2,500 citations, inspiring extensive follow-up studies. Dr. Yan currently serves on the editorial board of five international journals. He has been awarded the 2023 EASD Junior Research Prize, the Natural Science Award from China’s Ministry of Education, the Arup Research Prize, and several Best Paper Awards, among others.