STUDENT PLACEMENT
Every year around 50% of ORC’s graduating doctoral students accept academic positions in leading universities around the world. The other 50% of graduating doctoral students and all of our Master’s and Master of Business Analytics students find jobs in leading companies around the world.
Graduate Student Directory
The Graduate Student Directory is a booklet of ORC student resumes that is compiled each year and is circulated to universities and private companies. The primary focus of this effort is on permanent job placement; however, students have also had success in finding summer jobs through this vehicle. Employers who are interested in hiring a student can contact the student directly.
The latest Graduate Student Directory can be found here. We hope that you will take a moment to look through this document, because it gives a profile of a representative sample of the student population of the ORC, which seems to grow stronger each year.
Students on the Market
A listing of ORC students on the job market.
Julia Allen
Degree: PhD
E: julallen@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Daniel Freund, Alexandre Jacquillat
Houssam El Cheairi
Degree: PhD
E: houssamc@mit.edu
Advisor(s): David Gamarnik
Shauna Kwag
Degree: SM
E: kwags@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Andrew Lo
Brian Liu
Degree: PhD
E: briliu@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Rahul Mazumder
Research Interests: I am broadly interested in using analytics to improve decision-making and in advancing the responsible, trustworthy application of machine learning and AI. More specifically, my research focuses on leveraging techniques from discrete and combinatorial optimization to develop efficient, explainable algorithms for machine learning. I am looking for tenure-track positions starting in the 2026-2027 academic year.
Xiang Meng
Degree: PhD
E: mengx@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Rahul Mazumder
Emily Zhang
Degree: PhD
E: eyzhang@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Georgia Perakis, Retsef Levi
Research Interests: My research develops new analytical methods to address critical problems in food systems, with the dual goals of reducing food waste and improving access to healthy food. I design models and algorithms that shape practical solutions while advancing general methodologies in optimization, causal inference, inventory management, and data-driven operations. I am looking for an academic position where I can further my research on food systems and teach undergraduate, graduate, or MBA students.
Daihan (Jack) Zhang
Degree: PhD
E: jackz111@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Patrick Jaillet, Saurabh Amin
Research Interests: My general research area is in the use of reinforcement learning to develop robust decision-making schemes with provable (sub) optimality guarantees, including partially observable reinforcement learning, multi-agent reinforcement learning, game theory, etc.
General job interest: I am looking for an industry research position to further my research on learning algorithms and learning theory in general and to expose myself to more relevant research areas.
Junhui Zhang
Degree: PhD
E: junhuiz@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Patrick Jaillet
Research Interests: I am broadly interested in optimization, with a focus on developing (communication, oracle, memory, etc.) efficient algorithms for large scale problems and for sequential decision making. I’m open to tenure-track faculty, research faculty, postdoctoral, and research scientist positions.
Karl Zhu
Degree: PhD
E: karlzhu@mit.edu
Advisor(s): Dimitris Bertsimas
Research Interests: My general research interests are in modeling multistage optimization problems under uncertainty. I have successful applications in energy systems and healthcare, using methods including adaptive robust optimization, mixed-integer programming, Markov decision processes, deep learning, and LLMs. I’m currently looking for an industry R&D position where I can contribute with my skills in applied optimization and machine learning.