About

I am Henry Lin. I am a final-year Ph.D. student in Operations and Decision Technologies at the Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine, advised by Professor Luyi Gui. I hold a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from UCLA and an M.S. in Interdisciplinary Statistics and Operations Research from UNC Chapel Hill.

My research interest focuses on analyzing new business models in e-commerce and retail operations using game theory, optimization models, and machine learning. My current research centers around livestream commerce and studies several aspects of this emerging trend in retail:

1. stakeholder interactions such as negotiation between influencers and brands,
2. pricing and revenue sharing,
3. consumer behavior and revenue impact,
4. social implications such as the application of livestream commerce in rural areas for poverty reduction purposes,
5. inventory management and environmental impact,
6. information design problem pertinent to livestreaming in online medical consultation platforms using video analytics.

Another application that I am working on is retail operations for food recovery such as pricing schemes of food waste supermarkets. I am also broadly interested in business model innovations for socially responsible operations.

I am on the 2024-2025 job market.

I will be giving two presentations at the 2024 DSI Annual Conference.

• "The Environmental and Social Implications of Pay-What-You-Want Food Waste Supermarket". Monday, November 25, from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM at JW Marriott, Level 1, Grand Canyon 4;
• "Empowering or Exploiting? The Implications of Direct Market Access for Improving Smallholder Farmers’ Welfare". Monday, November 25, from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM at JW Marriott, Level 1, Grand Canyon 4.

Research

Publication

Lin, X., Gui, L., Lu, Y. Managing Sales via Livestream Commerce: Implications of Price Negotiation and Consumer Price Search. Production and Operations Management, Published Online in Advance of Print. February 8, 2024.

Working Paper

Lin, X., Gui, L., Lu, Y. Empowering or Exploiting? The Implications of Direct Market Access for Improving Smallholder Farmers' Welfare. Major revision at Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.

Work in Progress

Lin, X., Gui, L., Yang, L. The Environmental and Social Implications of Pay-What-You-Want Food Waste Supermarket.

Liu, Y., Lin, X., Lu, Y. Persuasion via Livestreaming: Evidence from Online Medical Consultation.

Awards

Ray Watson Doctoral Fellowship, UC Irvine
Long US-China Institute Graduate Student Research Fellowship, UC Irvine
Wenqiang and Michelle Bian Sustainability Award Endowment, UC Irvine

Presentations

Managing Sales via Livestream Commerce: Implications of Price Negotiation and Consumer Price Search:

• Annual POMS-Conference 2024
• Annual POMS-Conference 2023
• INFORMS Annual Meeting 2022

Empowering or Exploiting? The Implications of Direct Market Access for Improving Smallholder Farmers' Welfare:

• DSI Conference 2024 (scheduled)
• INFORMS Annual Meeting 2024
• Purdue Operations Conference 2024
• MSOM 2024 Conference
• SoCal OR/OM Day 2024
• Annual POMS-Conference 2024
• INFORMS Annual Meeting 2023
• Annual POMS-Conference 2023

The Environmental and Social Implications of Pay-What-You-Want Food Waste Supermarket:

• DSI Conference 2024 (scheduled)
• INFORMS Annual Meeting 2024

Teaching

Instructor

MGMT 101 Mangement Science, Summer 2024

Teaching Assistant

MGMT 101 Management Science
MGMT 182 Supply Chain Management
MGMT 189 Operations Management
MGMT FE/MBA 208 Operational Excellence
MGMT FE 281 Analytical Decision Making Models for Management
MGMT MBA 290 Revenue Management