I grew up in China and Canada, and studied at Duke University for my bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science. I obtained a PhD in operations research from MIT ORC in June 2016, under the guidance of Professor Itai Ashlagi, my academic advisor.

My PhD research was on prediction and optimization in school choice. In a school choice system, such as the one implemented in Boston, each student is given a list of public schools based on home location and ranks the available options in his/her order of preference. Schools also give priorities to various types of students. A centralized algorithm determines the assignment, while using the priorities and lottery numbers to break ties. My research was on optimizing these assignment systems so that students have equitable chances to go to the schools they want, while the city’s school busing cost is controlled. My research was applied to real data in Boston, and the Boston Public Schools implemented one of the plans I proposed in 2014. Various parts of my research were published in Interfaces, an operations research and management science journal.

After graduating, I will pursue a one-year postdoc at Microsoft Research New England, before taking a tenure-track faculty position at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. I plan to continue my research agenda in developing quantitative methodologies that benefit society, with a focus on optimization in matching markets. I will also be teaching classes in operations management. What excites me about this work is the opportunity to play with interesting mathematics while thinking about real-world problems, as well as the opportunity to interact with students.

I encourage prospective students to think about the years at graduate school not only as a time for intellectual and career development, but also as an opportunity to develop deep friendships and grow as a person holistically. In my five years at MIT, the friendships that I developed are what will remain with me the longest and will always be cherished.