Weiliang Liu

Weiliang Liu

About Me

Hello! I am a principal researcher at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, working with Professor Amy Ward. I obtained my Ph.D. at the National University of Singapore, advised by Professors Loon Ching Tang and Zhisheng Ye. I was fortunate to visit Professor Timothy Chan in the Fall of 2023 at UofT, and Professor Xu Sun in the Summer of 2019 at UF. Previously, I obtained my B.E. in Industrial Engineering from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2020.

My CV can be downloaded here.

Research Interests

My research tackles complex challenges in modern service operations and socially responsible operations. Using tools from stochastic process, optimization, queuing control, and data analytics, my work bridges theory and practice to develop efficient solutions and offer actionable insights:

  • Modern service operations [1,2,4,5,6]: Improve efficiency in service environments featured by innovative business models, technologies and initiatives, including managing on-demand workforces [1], controlling drone delivery systems [2], and matching demand with supply on online platforms [4].
  • Socially responsible operations [3,5,6,7]: Enhance service systems to meet societal needs and create public impact, such as crowdsourcing community volunteers during emergencies [5], designing ambulance-drone networks for cardiac arrest response [6], and deploying rescue teams for lift-trap incidents [7].

I am also pursuing a theory-centered research agenda at data-driven queuing control. By integrating statistical learning with queuing asymptotics, my focus is to develop data-driven and provably "optimal" policies for queuing systems with unknown primitives [4].

Journal Publications

  1. Expanding Service Capabilities Through an On-Demand Workforce [Paper]
    Xu Sun, Weiliang Liu
    Forthcoming at Operations Research
  2. Energy-Aware and Delay-Sensitive Management of a Drone Delivery System [Paper]
    Weiliang Liu, Xu Sun
    Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2022
  3. Modeling and Optimization for Emergency Medical Services Network
    Ran Liu, Weiliang Liu, Yuxin Liu, Ershun Pan and Xiaolan Xie
    IEEE Trans. on Automation Science and Engineering, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2022

Working Papers

  1. Data-Driven Matching for Impatient and Heterogeneous Demand and Supply
    Weiliang Liu, Amy Ward, Xun Zhang
    In Preparation for Mathematics of Operations Research
  2. Community Responder Crowdsourcing for Time-Sensitive Medical Emergencies [SSRN]
    Weiliang Liu, Timothy Chan, Loon Ching Tang, Zhisheng Ye
    Major Revision at Management Science
    Finalist, POMS-HK Best Student Paper Award, 2025
  3. Robust Data-Driven Design of a Smart Cardiac Arrest Response System [SSRN]
    Weiliang Liu, Qiuzhuang Sun, Loon Ching Tang, Zhisheng Ye
    Major Revision at Production & Operations Management
    First Place, INFORMS Society on Location Analysis Best Student Paper Award, 2023
  4. Location-Allocation of Emergency Service Systems in Light Traffic: Application to Lift-Trap Rescue [Upon Request]
    Xin Wang, Weiliang Liu, Loon Ching Tang, Zhisheng Ye
    Submitted to Operations Research

Selected Awards

  • Finalist, 2025 POMS-HK Best Student Paper Award [Info]
  • First Place, 2023 INFORMS SOLA Best Student Paper Award [Info]
  • President's Graduate Fellowship [Info]
  • Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad [Info]

Contact

  • Email: weiliang.liu@chicagobooth.edu
  • McGiffert House, 5751 S Woodlawn Ave
    Chicago, IL 60637, United States

Flag Counter