From ISyE to Meta

The ISyE fundamental courses and the course in Game Theory impacted Zu the most because both helped her to understand and further her passion for making optimal decisions. The courses also provided a level of rigor and range of learning that greatly appealed to her. Equally, the department’s culture and size allowed for opportunities to connect with many other professors and peers who have a wide range of research areas. Zu notes that these connections even stretch beyond her fellow Ph.D. peers.

Not only was she drawn to the culture of the department, but the department’s professors aligned with her research interests - Bayesian Persuasion and Information Design.

As Zu explains, Information Design “studies how information can be strategically used to influence decision-making processes, particularly when the sender has more information than the receiver and can control the flow of that information.”

Specifically, Zu’s research is about information sharing in dynamic environments including online platforms and marketplaces, and remarks that the appeal of information design stems from the interest in various applications of the theoretical strategies that she learned and has used throughout her research journey.

Zu’s interests in her research seeded from her first project with Associate Professor Krishnamurthy Iyer as a Ph.D. student, which focused on learning to persuade on the fly - robustness against ignorance, and it has been recently accepted by the journal Operations Research.

“It introduced me to the fascinating work of information design and how to design the strategies that can effectively influence the decision-making process.”

This initial project led to later collaborations with other ISyE professors and an expert in Information Design in the University of Chicago’s Computer Science department. Professor Iyer, who is also Zu’s Ph.D. Advisor, also remarks on Zu’s journey through her research and the program: “It has been a wonderful experience advising Zoe, and seeing her mature as a researcher over the years. She's been extremely productive during her doctoral studies, publishing two conference papers and a journal paper, and having a few manuscripts in submission. At the same time, she has been able to get valuable industry experience through various internships. She has thus made perfect use of the time during her PhD as a launchpad for a successful career ahead.”

As Zu nears the completion of her Ph.D. journey and defends her dissertation in September 2024, she notes the challenge of finding a job in the current job market. Thankfully, the program best prepared her for her 2024 summer internship at Microsoft, which has led to full time employment at Meta in Washington state where she will begin as a Research Scientist working on resource management projects on the Monetization Ads Ranking team. Ultimately, Zu looks forward to her new position and using all she has learned while in the department.

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