Ningyuan Chen

Ningyuan Chen is a faculty member at the University of Toronto with affiliations at the Rotman School of Management and University of Toronto at Mississauga's Department of Management. His research spans operations management with a focus on algorithmic decision-making, revenue management, and data analytics.

Chen's research interests center on the intersection of algorithms and human decision-making processes, with particular emphasis on how human knowledge can safeguard and improve algorithmic recommendations. His work addresses critical challenges in commercial AI solutions where human analysts have domain-specific insights that may conflict with algorithmic outputs. He investigates conditions under which human knowledge augmentation benefits algorithmic decision-making, particularly when facing algorithmic pitfalls like lack of domain knowledge, model misspecification, and data contamination.

Chen's publication trends reveal a strong focus on practical business applications of operations research, with recent work examining assortment pricing with transaction data, vaccine allocation under limited supply, and simultaneous versus sequential product release strategies. His research combines theoretical modeling with practical business implications, often collaborating with Ming Hu and other researchers at the Rotman School.

His work demonstrates how data-driven approaches can be enhanced through human expertise, particularly in contexts where pure algorithmic recommendations might fail due to real-world complexities that data alone cannot capture. This research has important implications for business intelligence systems across various industries where human judgment remains critical alongside algorithmic recommendations.