Yuchen Hu

Hi! I am a Postdoctoral Associate in the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, working with with Professors Stephen Bates and Martin Wainwright. I am interested in a wide range of topics related to causal inference and data-driven decision-making.

I obtained my PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 2025, where I was fortunate to be advised by Professor Stefan Wager. I will be joining Columbia University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) in July 2026.

Research

  • Optimal Targeting in Dynamic Systems. [arxiv]
    Yuchen Hu, Shuangning Li, Stefan Wager.
    In preparation.
  • Switchback Experiments under Geometric Mixing. [arxiv]
    Yuchen Hu, Stefan Wager.
    Major revision at Management Science.
  • Estimating Treatment Effects under Recommender Interference: A Structured Neural Networks Approach. [arxiv]
    Ruohan Zhan, Shichao Han, Yuchen Hu, Zhenling Jiang.
    Preliminary version accepted by ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2024.
    Major revision at Management Science.
  • Minimax-Regret Sample Selection in Randomized Experiments. [arxiv]
    Yuchen Hu, Henry Zhu, Emma Brunskill, Stefan Wager.
    ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2024.
    Winner, Decision Analysis Society (DAS) Student Paper Award, 2024.
  • Analysis of the Privacy-Performance Tradeoff of Reference Testing in Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy. [paper]
    Yuchen Hu, Lawrence M. Wein.
    Journal of Forensic Sciences, 69(5), 2024.
  • Off-Policy Evaluation in Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes under Sequential Ignorability. [paper, arxiv, replication]
    Yuchen Hu, Stefan Wager.
    Annals of Statistics, 51(4), 2023.
  • Average Direct and Indirect Causal Effects under Interference. [paper, arxiv]
    Yuchen Hu, Shuangning Li, Stefan Wager.
    Biometrika, 109(4), 2022.
  • Comparison of Empirical and Dynamic Models for HIV Viral Load Rebound after Treatment Interruption. [paper]
    Ante Bing*, Yuchen Hu*, Melanie Prague, Alison L. Hill, Jonathan Z. Li, Ronald J. Bosch, Victor DeGruttola, Rui Wang.
    Statistical Communications in Infectious Diseases, 12(s1), 2020.
  • A Flexible Nonlinear Mixed Effects Model for HIV Viral Load Rebound after Treatment Interruption. [paper]
    Rui Wang, Ante Bing, Cathy Wang, Yuchen Hu, Ronald J. Bosch, Victor DeGruttola.
    Statistics in Medicine, 39(15), 2020.
  • Impact of Changes in Chain Restaurant Calories over Time on Obesity Risk. [paper]
    Sara N. Bleich, Jesse C. Jones-Smith, Marian P. Jarlenski, Julia A. Wolfson, Johannah M. Frelier, Huiru Tao, Yuchen Hu, Anna Zink, Caroline G. Dunn, Mark J. Soto, Bradley J. Herring.
    Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(6), 2020.

Teaching