Yuan Qu

曲源

Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Data and Systems Engineering
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
+1 (929) 507-6032 · yuanqu@hku.hk

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Data and Systems Engineering at the University of Hong Kong, collaborating with Prof. Max Zuo-Jun Shen. I was an Instructor at Rutgers University.

I got my Ph.D. degree, with the concentration on Operations Research, from the Department of Management Science and Information Systems at Rutgers University, under the supervision of Prof. Jian Yang. Before that, I received my M.Sc. in Information Technology and Analytics from Rutgers University, under the supervision of Prof. Hui Xiong, and my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and B.A. in Business Administration from University of Electronics Science and Technology of China (UESTC).

Research Interests: Pricing and Revenue Management, Inventory Control, Game-theoretic Applications, Data-driven Modeling, Transportation, AI in Operations Management

Last updated July 7, 2025


Education

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Doctor of Philosophy
Management (with concentration on Operations Research)
Dissertation: Understanding Opaque Selling from an Inventory-control Perspective
Adviser: Jian Yang

Committee: Andrzej Ruszczynski, Endre Boros, Thomas Lidbetter, and Ming Hu

Sep. 2018 - May 2023

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Master of Science
Information Technology & Analytics

Adviser: Hui Xiong

Jan. 2017 - May 2018

University of Electronics Science and Technology of China (UESTC)

Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Management
Electrical Engineering & Business Administration
Sep. 2013 - May 2017

Research

Publication

How Many Are Too Many? Analyzing Dockless Bikesharing Systems with a Parsimonious Model
Hongyu Zheng, Kenan Zhang, Macro Nie*, Pengyu Yan*, Yuan Qu
Transportation Science, 58(1):152-175, 2023.

Under Review

When Airline Insurance Meets a Pandemic: Designing Machine Learning Resilience Under Volatile Drift and Data Deficiency
Jingjing Li*, Yuan Qu, Jingyuan Yang (author names in alphabetical order)
Information Systems Research, R & R, Under Review. Abstract Available on SSRN

Opaque Selling to Strategic Buyers
Yuan Qu*, Jian Yang
Under Review. Available on SSRN

Dynamic Inventory-price Control during Opaque Selling of Horizontally-differentiated Products
Yuan Qu*, Jian Yang
Under Review. Available on SSRN

Diminishing Social Capital Returns from Employee Ambassadorship: Evidence from WeChat
Chaitanya Kaligotla, Sarah Wittman, Jingyuan Yang, Yuan Qu, Wei Zeng
Under Review, Available on SSRN

Matching-while-learning Algorithm for Dynamic Matching Problem of Cloud Manufacturing Platforms with Incomplete Information
Liu Yang, Yuan Qu, Pengyu Yan*
Under Review

Research in Progress

Operation Strategy for Styling Box Platform
with Max Z.J. Shen

A Personalized Online Learning Framework for Styling Box Recommendation
with Pujun Zhang, Shangyu Yao, Max Z.J. Shen

Who Should Pay for the Sharing? A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Resource Allocation in Headquarters-Branch Networks
with Shan Li

Everyone Contribute! A Public-Good-Incentivized Mechanism for LLM Cooperation
with Yunhao Liang, Jingyuan Yang, Shaochong Lin

How Large Are Too Large? Deployment Region Analysis of Dockless Electronic Bike-Sharing Systems
Yuan Qu, Tianyun Jin, Pengyu Yan, Max Z.J. Shen

One Size Does Not Fit All: Personal Match and Marketing Message Effectiveness on Social Networks
with Jingyuan Yang and Wei Zeng


Experience

Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Data and Systems Engineering,
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Collaborate in research principally with Professor Max Z.J. Shen of the Department of Data and Systems Engineering, or other researchers as appropriate.
Advanced Industrial Engineering Technology Seminar 2024-25, IMSE7002, Spring 2025

Sep. 2023 - present

Instructor & Lecturer

Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University, Newark & New Brunswick, NJ

Product and Operations Management, Undergraduate, 29:623:311, Fall 2022
Management Information System, Undergraduate, 33:136:370, Spring 2020 - Spring 2022
Statistical Methods for Business, Undergraduate, 33:136:385, Fall 2019
Business Data Management, Graduate, 26:198:603 & 26:544:603, Fall 2019

Sep. 2019 - Dec. 2022

Seasonal Data Scientist

Allianz Partners, Richmond, VA

Built an offline evaluation pipeline for online recommendation algorithms.

May. 2021 - Aug. 2021

Teaching Assistant

Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

Business Data Management, Graduate, 544:603, Spring 2018
Data Mining, Graduate, 198:650, Spring 2018

Jan. 2018 - Jun. 2018

Co-founder

Chengdu Value-fan Information Service, Chengdu, China

Develop web system and stock evaluation system. Collect all financial report data from SZSE & SSE. Estimate stock price by using absolute & relative value assessment model.
Develop stock investment strategy system. Build auto-investment system based on specific strategy.

Jan. 2016 - Jun. 2017

Professional Activities

  • Presentations

    Stylized Model in Business Research
    Advanced Industrial Engineering Technology Seminar, HKU, 2025

    Operation Strategy for Styling Box Platform
    The Seventeen International Conference of the Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE), Chengdu, China, 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 2024
    Invited Research Seminar, UESTC, Chengdu, China, 2024

    Inventory Control involving Opaque Selling
    14th POMS-HK International Conference, Hong Kong, 2024
    INFORMS Annual Meeting, Phenix, AZ, 2023

    Understanding Opaque Selling from an Inventory-control Perspective
    Invited Research Seminar, UESTC, Chengdu, China, 2023
    Northeast Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference, Washington, DC, 2023
    INFORMS Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, 2022
    Invited Research Seminar, Stony Brook University, Virtual, 2020

    Drivers For Personal Social Marketing Effectiveness: A Joint View Of Content And Diffusion
    INFORMS Annual Meeting, Virtual, 2020
    Invited Research Seminar, UESTC, Chengdu, China, 2020
    Rutgers-NJIT Business School Joint Ph.D. Seminar, Newark, NJ, 2019
    INFORMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 2019

  • Conferences

    Organizing Committee, The Seventeen International Conference of the Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE), Chengdu, China, 2025

    Session Chair, The Seventeen International Conference of the Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE), Chengdu, China, 2025

    Session Chair, INFORMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 2024

  • Reviews
    Ad hoc Reviewer for
  • Operations Research Letters
  • INFORMS Workshop on Data Science (DS 2022)
  • Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2022)
  • ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD)
  • International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management (KSEM)
  • Supervising
    Dissertation Superviser for
    M.Sc. Students at HKU (co-advise with Max Z.J. Shen and Shaochong Lin)
    Class of 2024: Jiaxuan Bai (Tencent), Sijia Liu (AIA), Yiting Cai (Keeta), Jiayu Li (TP-Link), Ziang Liang, and Zhongda Yang
    Class of 2025: Min Lin, Lang Wang, Yuanjie Cai, Shangyu Yao, Siyuan Cheng, Jingchen Zhou, Shilu Huang, Yuanyan Song, Kanghui Li, Yaowu Cui, Yifan Yang, and Qidong Ge
    Tianyun Jin, Best Conference Paper Award, 2nd Prize, Frontiers of Digital Twins in Intelligent Manufacturing and Smart Cities, NSFC/RGC Conference, Hong Kong, 2025
  • Funding
    4-VA Collaborative Research Grants, 2024
    Role: Participant (PI: Jingjing Li)
    Title: Building Machine Learning Resilience During Disasters.
    National Key Research and Development Project - Key Special Project, Dec. 2024 - Nov. 2027
    ¥27,000,000, HKU-SIRI (¥1,440,000)
    Role: Co-I (Co-PI: Shaochong Lin)
    Title: New-generation Smart Manufacturing ERP.

Skills

Data Science & Optimization
Database & Systems
Website Development
Other Programming Languages & Tools

Awards & Certifications

  • Best Conference Paper Award, 2nd Prize, Frontiers of Digital Twins in Intelligent Manufacturing and Smart Cities, NSFC/RGC Conference, Hong Kong, 2025
  • Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, Rutgers Graduate School-Newark, 2022
  • Dean’s Competition for Summer Ph.D. Research Assistants, Rutgers Business School, 2022
  • Dean’s Competition for Summer Ph.D. Research Assistants, Rutgers Business School, 2021
  • Dean's Office Summer Scholarships, Rutgers Business School, 2020
  • Graduate School-Newark Scholarship, Rutgers University, 2020
  • University Merit Graduate Scholars Award, Rutgers University, 2019
  • The Sceond Prize People's Scholarship, UESTC, 2016
  • China National College Student Information Security Contest, Bronze Award, 2016
  • China National College Student Entrepreneurship Contest, Bronze Award, 2016
  • China National College Student Information Security Contest, Bronze Award, 2015
  • The Western Star of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 4th Place - Bronze Award, 2015
  • The Second Level Athletic in China, Weiqi (Go), 2012
  • Weiqi (Go) Amateur 5 dan, 2012