Dennis Zhang

Education

Ph.D. and M.S., managerial economics and operations management, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

Summary of Experience

Professor Zhang works at the intersection of AI and digital economics, with a focus on platforms, retail, advertising, and generative AI. His methodological interests include machine learning, causal inference, large language models, and structural econometrics. Professor Zhang’s applied work addresses pricing, recommender-system design, advertising effectiveness, and large-scale experimentation across e-commerce, online marketplaces, online education, content-sharing platforms, and supply chain and manufacturing. He has conducted research involving major digital platforms and retailers such as Alibaba, Amazon, Airbnb, Cainiao, Kuaishou, NetEase, VIPKid, and Halara. Media outlets, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, and The Globe and Mail, have referenced Professor Zhang’s analyses. His research has been recognized with the 2023 Best Operations Management Paper in Management Science and the 2022 Early Career Award from the Production & Operations Management Society. Professor Zhang is the area editor for machine learning and data science – a senior editorial role dedicated to evaluating methodological contributions in machine learning – at Operations Research. Widely published, he also serves as an associate editor at Management Science, Marketing Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and the Journal of Marketing Research. Prior to his academic career, Professor Zhang worked at Google.