I am a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Operations & Technology Management department at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University. Before joining BU, I was an Assistant Professor at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, Purdue University. My CV can be found here.
My research studies the design and analysis of marketplaces in dynamic settings, using tools from probability, optimization and game theory. I am interested in foundational models driven by challenges in sharing economy and the allocation of public resources. My research emphasizes algorithms/mechanisms that not only have good theoretical guarantees, but also are simple, robust, and hence practical for real-world systems.
You can reach me at pqian20 at gmail dot com.
- Market Design
- Platform
- Stochastic Systems
- Online Algorithms
PhD in Decision, Risk, and Operations, 2021
Columbia Businss School
BS in Mathematics, 2015
Peking University
What’s New
Jun 2025 | Our paper "Congested Waiting Lists and Organ Allocation" is now available online! |
Jun 2025 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" was accepted to Management Science. |
Mar 2025 | Our paper "Optimal Incentive Design for Decentralized Dynamic Matching Markets" is now available online! |
Oct 2024 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" won First Place in 2024 INFORMS Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG) Paper Competition! |
Jul 2024 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" won First Place in 2024 Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE) Paper Competition! |
Jun 2024 | I have moved to the Questrom School of Business, Boston University! |
Mar 2024 | Our paper "The Competition for Partners in Matching Markets" was accepted to Management Science. |
Jan 2024 | Excited to serve as a co-chair of the Auctions and Market Design (AMD) cluster at INFORMS 2024. |
Working Papers
10. Priority Matching in Kidney Exchange
with Itai Ashlagi and Elaine Liu
Work in progress.
9. Fair Real-Time Matching
Work in progress.
8. Achieving Constant Regret for Dynamic Matching via State-Independent Policies
with Süleyman Kerimov, Mingwei Yang, and Sophie H. Yu [ arXiv ]
Working paper.
7. Optimal Incentive Design for Decentralized Dynamic Matching Markets
with Chen Chen and Jingwei Zhang [ SSRN ]
Under revision.
6. Congested Waiting Lists and Organ Allocation
with Itai Ashlagi and Ravi Jagadeesan [ SSRN ]
Working paper.
5. Price Discovery in Waiting Lists
with Itai Ashlagi, Jacob Leshno and Amin Saberi [ SSRN | EC Version | Al Roth's blog post ]
Working paper.
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 20)
4. Large Deviations Optimal Scheduling of Closed Queueing Networks
with Siddhartha Banerjee and Yash Kanoria [ arXiv | SIGMETRICS Version ]
Under revision.
Preliminary version: SIGMETRICS 18
Publications
3. Incentivizing Resource Pooling
with Chen Chen and Yilun Chen [ SSRN | EC Version ]
Management Science (2025+)
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 24)
Presentation at MSOM Service Management SIG Meeting 2024
First Place, 2024 INFORMS Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG) Paper Competition
First Place, 2024 Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE) Paper Competition
2. The Competition for Partners in Matching Markets
with Yash Kanoria and Seungki Min [ arXiv | SODA Version | MS Version | Al Roth's blog post ]
Management Science (2025)
Preliminary version: ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 21)
1. Blind Dynamic Resource Allocation in Closed Networks via Mirror Backpressure
with Yash Kanoria [ arXiv | EC Version | MS Version ]
Management Science (2024)
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 20)
Honorable Mention, 2021 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Student Paper Competition