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I am an Associate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining ND, I was on the faculty of George Washington University and National University of Singapore. I received my Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley and B.Eng. from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. My current research combines data-driven optimization and ML/AI to address practical problems in smart city operations, sustainable energy systems, and supply chain management. This line of research has been recognized with the M&SOM Journal Best Paper Award, TSL Best Paper Award, the ENRE Best Publication Awards in Energy and in Natural Resources, and the Daniel H. Wagner Prize from INFORMS. I currently serve as an Associate Editor for Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) and Omega.

Journal Articles

1. “Proactive policing: Resource Allocation for Crime Prevention with Deterrence Effect.” (with Xiaobo Li and Yue Zhao). Operations Research. 74(2), 700-721. 2025.

2. “Robust Capacity Planning with General Upgrading.” (with Zhaowei Hao, Zhenyu Hu and Jun Jiang). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 27(6), 1975-1994. 2025.

3. “Spatial-Data-Driven Facility Location Planning.” (with Irfan Soudagar and Yuli Zhang). Production and Operations Management. 35(4), 1313-1332. 2025.

4. “On the Equivalence and Performance of Distributionally Robust Optimization and Robust Satisficing Models.” (with Zhiyuan Wang, Lun Ran, and Minglong Zhou). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 27(4), 1295-1312. 2025.

5. “Does Locker Alliance Network Improve Last Mile Delivery Efficiency?” (with Quanmeng Wang, Guodong Lyu and Chung-Piaw Teo). Management Science. 72(5), 4124-4143. 2025.

6. “From Curtailed Renewable Energy to Green Hydrogen: Infrastructure Planning for Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles.” (with Nan Ke, Ruijiu Mao, Wei Qi and Hongcai Zhang). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 26(5), 1750-1767. 2024.

   • ENRE Best Publication Award in Natural Resources, INFORMS, 2025

7. “Crowd-starting a Shared (Shuttle) Service with Customer Suggestions.” (with Tu Ni). Production and Operations Management. 33(8), 1739-1758. 2024.

8. “An Exponential Cone Programming Approach for Managing Electric Vehicle Charging.” (with Li Chen and Yangfang Zhou). Operations Research. 72(5), 2215-2240. 2023.

   • Runner-up, Harvey J. Greenberg Research Award, INFORMS Computing Society, 2023

9. “Taming the Long Tail of Inventory: The Gambler’s Fallacy in Intermittent Demand Management.” (with Sheng Bi and Chung-Piaw Teo). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 25(5), 1692-1710. 2023.

10. “Humanitarian transportation network design via two-stage distributionally robust optimization.” (with Guowei Zhang, Ning Jia, Ning Zhu and Yossiri Adulyasak). Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 176, 102805. 2023.

11. “Smart Urban Transport and Logistics: A Business Analytics Perspective.” (with Sheng Liu and Z. Max Shen). Production and Operations Management. 31(10), 3771-3787. 2022.

12. “On-Time Last-Mile Delivery: Order Assignment with Travel-Time Predictors.” (with Sheng Liu and Z. Max Shen). Management Science. 67(7), 4095-4119. 2021.

13. “Charging an Electric Vehicle-Sharing Fleet.” (with Guangrui Ma, Wei Qi, and Xin Wang). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 23(2), 471-487. 2021.

    • ENRE Best Publication Award in Energy, INFORMS, 2022

14. “Spatial pricing and product allocation in online retailing.” (with Mengying Xue). Naval Research Logistics (NRL). 67(8), 670-684. 2020.

15. “Robust Vehicle Pre‐Allocation with Uncertain Covariates.” (with Zhaowei Hao, Zhenyu Hu and Jun Jiang). Production and Operations Management. 29(4), 955-972. 2020.

16. “Product Sourcing and Distribution Strategies under Supply Disruption and Recall Risks.” (with Ying Rong and Z. Max Shen). Production and Operations Management. 29(1), 9-23. 2020.

17. “Robust Repositioning for Vehicle Sharing.” (with Zhenyu Hu and Meilin Zhang). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 22(2), 241-256. 2020.

18. “Service Region Design for Urban Electric Vehicle Sharing Systems.” (with Ho-Yin Mak, Ying Rong, and Z. Max Shen). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 19(2), 309–327. 2017. [M&SOM Review Blog]

    • M&SOM Journal Best Paper Award, INFORMS, 2019
    • Transportation Science & Logistics (TSL) Best Paper Award, INFORMS, 2019

19. “Stochastic Control for Smart Grid Users with Flexible Demand.” (with Yong Liang, Xinyu Cao, and Z. Max Shen). IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. 4.4 (2013) 2296-2308.

Working Papers

1. “Spatial Flexibility of Autonomous Vehicles in Shared-Mobility.” (with Runyu Tang, Yong Liang, and Jeannette Song). Under Revision in Management Science.

2. “Spatial Competition in Fast-Charging Networks.” (with Philipp Artur Kienscherf, Yixin Lu, and Wolfgang Ketter). Under Revision in Information Systems Research.

3. “The Role and Optimization of Staff Picks in Crowdfunding.” (with Ting Hou, Jussi Keppo, and Xihan Guo). Under Revision in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.

4. “Rebalancing and Clearance Pricing of Near-Expiry Inventory in Online Grocery Retail.” (with Zhengling Qi, Ziyuan Zhou, Guangrui Ma, Yuanbo Peng, Yushu Yao, Zhongyi Zha, Mingyong Zhao, and Zhenyu Zhuo).

• Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in the Practice of Advanced Analytics and Operations Research, INFORMS, 2025
• Accepted at NeurIPS 2025 MLxOR Workshop

5. “Dispatch or Hold? An Inverse Optimization and Reinforcement Learning Approach for Multi-Objective On-Demand Delivery.” (with Yihua Wang, Zhengling Qi, and Stefan Minner). Under Revision in Transportation Science.

• Runner-Up, the First INFORMS TSL Data-Driven Research Challenge, 2025

6. “Prescriptive PCA: Dimensionality Reduction for Two-stage Stochastic Optimization.” (with Ho-Yin Mak).

   • Preliminary version In Proceedings of the 29th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD ’23).

Book Chapter

• “Operations Management of Vehicle Sharing Systems.” (with Ho-Yin Mak and Ying Rong). 2018. Sharing Economy: Making Supply Meet Demand, M. Hu (Ed.), in Springer Series in Supply Chain Management, C. Tang (Series Ed.)

GWU

1. Supply Chain Analytics (BBA/MSBA)
2. Machine Learning I/II (MSBA)
3. Optimization I/II (MSBA)

NUS

1. Introduction to Optimization (BBA)
2. Predictive Analytics in Business (BBA)
3. Forecasting for Managerial Decisions (BBA)
4. Foundation in Business Analytics (MSBA)
5. Logistics and Supply Chain (PhD)

PhD Students

• Sheng Bi (2021, Associate Professor, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics)
• Irfan Soudagar (2021, Development Scientist, A*STAR, Singapore)
• Tu Ni (2023, incoming Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences and Analytics, ETH Zurich)
• Quanmeng Wang (2023, Assistant Professor, Tongji University)
• Ruijiu Mao (2025, Assistant Professor, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta)

Postdoc Fellows

• Zhaowei Hao (2018-2020, Associate Professor, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics)
• Bomin Bian (2020-2023, Associate Professor, Dalian University of Technology)
• Yue Zhao (2022-2024, Assistant Professor, Peking University HSBC Business School)