About Me

I am a PhD student in the Decision, Risk, and Operations (DRO) division at Columbia Business School. My research explores the intersection of economics and computer science, develops mathematical models to illuminate complex phenomena, and designs algorithms to facilitate informed decision-making. I have been working with Hongyao Ma on pricing problems in ridesharing markets and fraud detection in online platforms.

I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (Yao Class) at Tsinghua University. During my undergraduate studies, I spent a summer at the University of Michigan, working with Grant Schoenebeck on mechanism design, and spent six months at Caltech, working with Adam Wierman on online optimization and learning.

My name in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): YU [y˧˥] Chen [tʂʰən˧˥] Kai [kʰaɪ˨˩˧]. “Yu” sounds like the French “u”.