About

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Data Sciences and Operations at the USC Marshall School of Business. Before joining USC, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Global Development. I received my Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT, supervised by Professor Retsef Levi and Professor Y. Karen Zheng in Spring 2020. Previously, I graduated from Cornell University in 2015 with S.B. (Hons.) in Operations Research and Engineering.

Using a multi-method approach that combines field-based research with data-driven modeling, my research focuses on developing decision support tools to improve operational efficiency and social welfare in supply chains of developing and emerging markets. My work has received several recognitions, including the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award (2021), POMS Applied Research Challenge (2021), MSOM Responsible Research Award (2020) and INFORMS Public Sector Operations Best Paper Award (2020).

Media

You can watch a short video on my research projects here and here.

PhD Thesis

Improving Farmers' and Consumers' Welfare in Agricultural Supply Chains via Data-Driven Analytics and Modeling: From Theory to Practice preprint

Completed & Working Papers

Buying Cheap: Brand Switching During Economic Distress and Its Disparate Impact on Consumers (with S Dutta and D Singhvi) preprint

Increasing Charity Donations: A Bandit Learning Approach (with D Singhvi) preprint

Improving Cash Constrained Smallholder Farmers' Welfare: The Role of Government Storage and Loan Policies (with W Pay and Y Zheng) preprint

Improving Farmers' Income on Online Agri-platforms: Theory and Field Implementation of a Two-stage Auction (with R Levi, M Rajan and Y Zheng) preprint

Artificial Shortage in Agricultural Supply Chains (with R Levi and Y Zheng), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, vol. 24, no. 2 (2022). article

Unifying Agricultural Wholesale Markets: Impact on Market Prices and Farmers' Profitability (with R Levi, M Rajan and Y Zheng), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117, no. 6 (2020):2366-2371. article

Economically Motivated Adulteration in Farming Supply Chains (with R Levi and Y Zheng), Management Science, vol. 66, no. 1 (2020): 209-226 article

A Path to Resiliency: Mitigating the Impacts of COVID-19 on Essential Medicine Supply Chains (with A McDonnell, E Pisani K Chalkidou and P Yadav), CGD Policy Paper 213 (June 2021). article

Predicting Bike Usage for New York City's Bike Sharing System (with D Singhvi, P Frazier, S Henderson, E Mahony, D Shmoys and D Woodard), AAAI Workshop on Computational Sustainability (2015). article

In Progress

Platform Design to Increase Resellers' Income in Rural India (with I Morgenstern, D Saban and D Singhvi)

Influence Maximization in Rural Networks (with R Levi, X Liu and Y Zheng)

Honors and Awards

• 2021 - First Place, INFORMS George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award
• 2021 - First Place, POMS Applied Research Challenge
• 2020 - First Place, INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award
• 2020 - First Place, MSOM Award for Responsible Research in Operations Management
• 2020 - First Place, POMS Behavioral OM Junior Scholar Paper Competition
• 2020 - First Place, POMS Sustainable Operations Student Paper Competition
• 2020 - First Place, POMS Supply Chain Management Student Paper Competition
• 2020 - People's Choice Award, Early Career Sustainable OM Workshop
• 2019 - First Place, INFORMS Doing Good With Good OR Competition
• 2019 - First Place, POMS College of Sustainable Operations Best Student Paper Competition
• 2017-2019 - Tata Fellowship, Tata Center for Technology and Design at MIT
• 2011-2015 - Tata Scholarship for Students from India, Cornell University