Evelyn Xiao-Yue Gong

B P Junior Faculty Chair

Assistant Professor

Carnegie Mellon University

Hello. I am B P Junior Faculty Chair and Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

My main research lies in artificial intelligence for supply chain and sustainability. I am also interested in assortment optimization, pure exploration, algorithms and data-driven decision making in general.

I completed my PhD in Operations Research at MIT, advised by Professor David Simchi-Levi and Professor Jim Orlin. My industry experience includes summer months at Google Research, at Microsoft Research AI, at HelloFresh and at D.E. Shaw.

Interests

Reinforcement Learning
Supply Chain
Sustainability
Artificial Intelligence

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PhD in Operations Research, 2023
New York University, graduated with Summa Cum Laude

BS in Honors Mathematics, 2017

BS in Interactive Media Arts, 2017

News

Our manuscript How Not to Overpackage: AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain was awarded Runner-Up for the 2025 INFORMS Service Science Best Paper Award (Socially Responsible Track).
Our manuscript Bandits Atop Reinforcement Learning: Tackling Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands received an Honorable Mention for the 2025 INFORMS Computing Society Harvey J. Greenberg Award.
Our manuscript How Not to Overpackage: AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain is a Finalist in 2025 INFORMS Service Science Best Paper Competition. Winners to be announced in October 2025.
I appeared in this Forbes article on the Seine and Sustainable Paris on September 7, 2025.
I appeared in this Forbes article on Tokyo's Carbon-Neutral Hotels and Green Apartments on July 27, 2025.
I appeared in this Association of National Advertisers Magazine article on the environmental impact of AI use in brands and marketing on June 20, 2025.
I gave a talk at the Boston University's Questrom School of Business on March 6, 2025.
Our manuscript Efficient Cloud Server Deployment Under Demand Uncertainty was recently published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. This paper is a collaboration with Microsoft Research AI.
I gave a talk at School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University on August 2, 2024.
I won National Championship in Splendor (original version) hosted by Hunter Board Game Club in Beijing, China on July 27, 2024!
I gave a talk at Rideshare Seminar at Lyft on June 6, 2024.
I appeared in this Business Insider article on Shein's plan to sell its supply chain tech on June 6, 2024.
I gave a talk at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business Operations Management Seminar on April 12, 2024.
I appeared in this Wall Street Journal article on Material Suppliers' Next Moves on April 10, 2024.
I was interviewed by the Optimizing You Podcast in April, 2024.
I appeared in this Forbes article on Sustainable Tourism on October 13, 2023.
I am excited to receive Best Dissertation Prize at the Annual Supply Chain Management in the Post-Pandemic and AI Age Conference in June, 2023.
I gave a talk at University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management's OM&S Data Science Seminar on April 29, 2023.

Research

(2025) Evelyn Xiao-Yue Gong, Michael Johnson How Not to Overpackage: AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain.
Runner-Up at 2025 INFORMS Service Science Best Paper Award (Socially Responsible Track).

Preprint

(2025) Rui Peng Liu, Konstantina Mellou, Evelyn Xiao-Yue Gong, Beibin Li, Thomas Coffee, Jeevan Pathuri, David Simchi-Levi, Ishai Menache Efficient Cloud Server Deployment Under Demand Uncertainty.
Published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 27(2), 2025. pp. 425-440.

Publication

(2023) Xiao-Yue Gong, David Simchi-Levi Bandits Atop Reinforcement Learning: Tackling Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands.
Published in Management Science, 70(9), 2024. pp. 5627-6482.
Honorable Mention for the 2025 INFORMS Computing Society Harvey J. Greenberg Award.

Publication

(2021) Xiao-Yue Gong, Vineet Goyal, Garud N Iyengar, David Simchi-Levi, Rajan Udwani, Shuangyu Wang Online Assortment Optimization with Reusable Resources.
Published in Management Science, 68(7), 2022. pp. 4772-4785.
Spotlight Talk at the 2021 INFORMS Revenue Management & Pricing Section Conference.

Publication

(2023) Evelyn Xiao-Yue Gong, Mark Sellke Asymptotically Optimal Pure Exploration for Infinite-Armed Bandits.
Accepted at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).

Proceedings ArXiv

(2021) Jim Orlin, Xiao-Yue Gong A Fast Maximum Flow Algorithm.
Published in Networks, Nov 2020.
Published in Special Issue on Celebrating 50 Years of Networks: Part 2.

Publication

(2020) Xiao-Yue Gong, David Simchi-Levi Provably More Efficient Q-Learning in the One-Sided-Feedback/Full-Feedback Settings.
Accepted in ICML Workshop (Theoretical Foundations of Reinforcement Learning), July 17, 2020.

Website

(2018) Yiming Zhang Quan Vuong Kenny Song Xiao-Yue Gong, Keith Ross Efficient Entropy For Policy Gradient with Multi-Dimensional Action Space.
Accepted in ICLR Workshop.

Website

Recent Invited Talks

Boston University's Questrom School of Business

March 6, 2025 How Not to Overpackage: AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain.

Purdue Operations Conference

August 25, 2024 How Not to Overpackage? -- AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain.

Tsinghua University Economics and Management Seminar

August 2, 2024 How Not to Overpackage? -- AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain.

Lyft Rideshare Seminar

June 6, 2024 How Not to Overpackage? -- AI for Sustainability in HelloFresh's Service Supply Chain.

Duke University Fuqua Operations Management Seminar

Apr 12, 2024 How Not to Overpackage? -- Towards a Sustainable HelloFresh Service Supply Chain.

CMU SQUALL Seminar

Apr 8, 2024 How Not to Overpackage? -- Towards a Sustainable HelloFresh Service Supply Chain.

YinzOR 2023 Conference

Aug 26, 2023 Provably Optimal Reinforcement Learning for Inventory Problems with Unknown Cyclic Demands

Supply Chain Management in the Post-Pandemic and AI Age Conference

Jun 13, 2023 Data-Driven Decision Making in Operations Management

University of Toronto Rotman OM&S Data Science Seminar

Apr 29, 2023 Bandits Atop Reinforcement Learning: Tackling Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands

Wharton OID Seminar

Mar 18, 2022 Bandits Atop Reinforcement Learning: Tackling Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands

MIT Data Science Lab Seminar

Oct 18, 2021 Bandits Atop Reinforcement Learning: Tackling Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands

MIT ORC Student Seminar

Sep 24, 2021 Provably Optimal Reinforcement Learning for Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands

Google Intern Research Talks

Jul 22, 2021 Provably Optimal Reinforcement Learning for Online Inventory Models With Cyclic Demands

Spotlight Session at INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Conference

Jun 30, 2021 Online Assortment Optimization with Reusable Resources

MIT LIDS & Stats Tea Talk

Apr 28, 2021 Provably More Efficient Q-Learning in the One-Sided-Feedback/Full-Feedback Settings

Professional Services

Reviewer for Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Mathematics of Operations Research and others.

Reviewer for NeurIPS 2025.

Reviewer for the 26th Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization (IPCO 2025).

Reviewer for INFORMS MSOM 2025 SIG Conference.

Committee Member for 2025 INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award.

Committee Member for 2024 INFORMS Service Science Best Student Paper Award.

Judge for 2024 CSAMSE Best Paper Competition.

Reviewer for INFORMS MSOM 2024 Sustainable Operations SIG Conference.

Session Chair for INFORMS Annual Meeting 2024.

Session Chair for INFORMS Annual Meeting 2023.

Session Chair for INFORMS Annual Meeting 2021.

Awards

China's National Championship in Splendor (original version) hosted by Hunter Board Game Club, 2024
First Place in the Best Dissertation Competition, Supply Chain Management in the Post-Pandemic and AI Age Conference, 2023
Recipient, Accenture Fellowship, 2022 - 2023
Bayer Women in Operations Research Scholarship Recipient, INFORMS Analytics Society, 2021
Best Presentation Award, MIT LIDS Student Conference, 2019
Grand Prize, MIT Lockheed Martin Tech for Truth Hackathon (Supply Chain Track), 2019
Winner, MIT IDEAS Global Challenge, 2018
ARCC Best Social Good Hack Prize, MIT Bitcoin Hackathon, 2018
NYU Shanghai Provost’s Award, NYU Shanghai, 2017
Summa Cum Laude, New York University, 2017
NYU President’s Service Award, New York University, 2016
Resolution Fellowship, Resolution Project at Youth Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters, 2016
Best Venture, NYU Reynolds Changemaker Challenge, 2015