Yunan Li
Bio
Yunan Liu joined the department as an assistant professor in 2011. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University and his MS and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He was born and grew up in Beijing, China, where he attended the number 4 high school. In 2024, Liu moved to an adjunct faculty position so he could join Amazon as an Amazon Scholar, where he has worked closely with Amazon’s Customer Service Department and Inventory Planning Control Department.
In his free time Liu enjoys running, rock climbing and basketball. he also enjoys making music with a guitar and ocarina.
Education
Ph.D. Operations Research Columbia University 2011
MS Operations Research Columbia University 2008
BS Electrical Engineering Tsinghua University 2002
Area(s) of Expertise
Liu's research interests include stochastic modeling, applied probability, simulation, queueing theory, optimal control and reinforcement learning, with applications to customer contact centers, healthcare, supply chain and transportation systems. He has been published in journals including Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, INFORMS Journal on Computing, IISE Transactions, Naval Research Logistics, Stochastic Systems, European Journal of Operational research and Queueing Systems.
Publications
- Online Learning and Optimization for Queues with Unknown Arrival Rate and Service Distribution , Operations Research (2026)
- Order Ahead for Pickup: Promise or Peril? , Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2026)
- Proactive Remote Operation of Automated Vehicles: Supporting human controllability , (2026)
- Proactive Remote Operation of Automated Vehicles: Supporting human controllability , (2025)
- Capacity planning to cope with demand surges in fourth-party logistics networks under chance-constrained service levels , Computers & Operations Research (2024)
- Mail back or in-store dropoff? Optimal design of product-exchange policies in omnichannel retailing systems , Omega (2024)
- Service Level Prediction in Non-Markovian Nonstationary Queues: A Simulation-Based Deep Learning Approach , (2024)
- An Online Learning Approach to Dynamic Pricing and Capacity Sizing in Service Systems , Operations Research (2023)
- An Online Learning Approach to Dynamic Pricing and Capacity Sizing in Service Systems , Operations Research (2023)
- Improving Workers’ Musculoskeletal Health During Human-Robot Collaboration Through Reinforcement Learning , Human Factors The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2023)