Yi-Chun Akchen

Yi-Chun Akchen is an Assistant Professor at the UCL School of Management, University College London. His research focuses on customer choice modeling, leveraging machine learning and optimization techniques. He holds a PhD from UCLA Anderson School of Management, an M.S. from Stanford University, and a B.S. from National Taiwan University.

• Education:
• PhD in Management, UCLA Anderson School of Management
• M.S. in Computational & Applied Math, Stanford University
• B.S. in Physics, National Taiwan University

His research explores data-driven decision-making, with a focus on irrational choice modeling, assortment optimization, and consideration set dynamics. Key contributions include the Decision Forest model and applications in retail analytics.

Publications span operations research, machine learning, and marketing, addressing topics like POMDPs, Bayesian networks, and multi-agent systems. Notable awards include the Nicholson Student Paper Prize and Decision Analysis Award.

• Awards:
• Finalist, Service Science Best Cluster Paper Competition (2024)
• Honorable Mention, George Nicholson Student Paper Prize (2020)
• 1st Place, Decision Analysis Student Paper Award (2019)

His work integrates theoretical rigor with practical applications, evidenced by contributions to open-source code for the Decision Forest model on GitHub.