Wei Tang

About Me

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Data Science Institute, Columbia University, mentored by Shipra Agrawal. I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis, where I was fortunate to be advised by Chien-Ju Ho. I received my bachelor degree from Tianjin University, China.


My current research focuses on developing theoretically rigorous and empirically grounded algorithms for decision-making schemes in dynamic, uncertain, and human-centric economic systems. Towards this end, I pursue three complementary research themes using ideas from machine learning (e.g., online learning), algorithmic economics, and behavioral (social) sciences:

  1. Designing data-driven algorithms to influence desired human actions in uncertain dynamic environments.
  2. Designing behavior-aware algorithms that take into account various human behaviors when they take actions. I also conduct behaviroal experiments to understand human behavior in practice.
  3. Designing socially-aware algorithms that consider societal impact when deploying the designed algorithms in modern socitety.
My research has applications in online marketplaces (e.g., recommendation systems); crowdsourcing; and more broadly, has implications for human-ML interactions.


I am on the 2023-2024 job market. My [CV]. Email: wt2359 at columbia dot edu

Upcoming Talks:
  1. Oct 06 Harvard EconCS Seminar:
    Learning to Leverage the Information Lever: Online Recommendation and Dynamic Pricing
  2. INFORMS Annual Meeting -- Session TC67 (Applied Online Learning and Decision-making)
    Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM; CC-West 104A; Talk 2
    Dynamic Pricing and Learning with Bayesian Persuasion

Working Paper

Publications

Misc.

It's also been my good fortune to be working with: Bolin Ding, Yiding Feng, Yang Liu, Saumik Narayanan, Haifeng Xu, Ming Yin, Guanghui Yu.