I am a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Operations Management at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, affiliated with the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society and the Maryland Language Science Center. I am very fortunate to be advised by Professor Wedad J. Elmaghraby. Prior to my doctoral studies, I earned a Master’s degree in Applied Statistics from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Financial Management and Mathematical Statistics from Xiamen University.

I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

Research Interests

My research studies how artificial intelligence can improve decision-making in operations, particularly in business environments shaped by human interaction and unstructured data. I focus on problems at the intersection of marketplace analytics, service operations, and AI for social good. Methodologically, I draw on optimization, causal inference, and machine learning, particularly natural language processing, to analyze unstructured data, uncover business insights, and tackle complex operations challenges.

My recent work has received several awards, including CIST 2025 Best Student Paper Runner-up, Best Student Paper Presentation Finalist at the AI in Business Conference at OSU, and Winner of the INFORMS MIF Summer Webinar Competition. It has also been covered by The New York Times, Business Insider, El Confidencial, and The Register.

Upcoming Talks

• AI and Economics (AIE) Summer Conference
  Escaping the Nash Trap: Structural Estimation and Alignment of Strategic Reasoning in Large Language Models
  August 11, 2026, 1:20-1:40
  Room 021, Saieh Hall for Economics, University of Chicago

Scheduled Posters

• Business & Generative AI Conference 2026
  September 9-10, 2026
  Wharton San Francisco

• Conference on Language Modeling 2026
  October 6-9, 2026
  Hilton Union Square, San Francisco

Contact

Email: jiannan@umd.edu