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Boston College, Carroll School of Management
Chestnut Hill, MA, United States

Contact
Office: Fulton Hall 454B, 140 Commonwealth Avenue
Email: zijin.zhang [at] bc.edu
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I am an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the Carroll School of Management, Boston College. I received my Ph.D. in Technology & Operations from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and a B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics from Nanjing University.

My research focuses on data-driven decision-making in operations management. Specifically, I study how data can be strategically managed and applied to improve operational decisions, centered around three core dimensions of data value:

  1. (1) engineering value: how to design data-driven algorithms that support real-time and large-scale decision making under uncertainty;
  2. (2) economic value: how to balance the cost of data acquisition with its decision impact via smart data selection and active learning;
  3. (3) social value: how data practices impact society, fairness, and well-being, particularly related to data ethics and technology regulation.
These problems are studied through real-world applications, including offline data use in retail decisions, data limitations in emerging AI markets, and resource disparities in public-sector operations. Methodologically, I employ tools from optimization, probability, game theory, and machine learning.