Lecture Title: From Life to Research
Speaker: Professor Wang Yu
Moderator: Professor Li Yongjian
Time: 5:00 PM, October 8, 2026
Venue: A501-3, Business School, Nankai University
Lecture Abstract:
This seminar will draw on several research projects published in UTD journals to share the process and methods of starting from daily observations and gradually distilling them into researchable questions. The presentation will not focus on the technical details of a specific model, but rather on two more general questions: first, how to identify and judge whether a daily phenomenon has research value—that is, discovering the underlying structures and patterns within seemingly ordinary phenomena; second, how to further abstract, model, and transform such plain life issues into research questions that meet the requirements of mainstream journals.
Speaker Biography:
Wang Yu received his bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He previously served as an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University. After returning to China, he joined the Business School at the Southern University of Science and Technology, where he is currently a tenured Professor, holding a joint appointment with the School of Science and the School of Life Sciences.
His research focuses on operations management. His primary research areas include: analysis and control of operations systems, operations design and optimization driven by practical problems, data-driven research on operations issues in the Chinese context, and innovation and development of business operations models.
He has published 12 papers in top international UTD business journals. He currently serves as a Senior Editor for Production and Operations Management and an Associate Editor for Decision Sciences. He was awarded the Third Prize of the Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award. His decision-making consultation reports were adopted by the General Office of the State Council, and his policy research reports received written comments from the Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee. His scientific research and practice projects have been featured in exclusive interviews and reports by CCTV News, People's Daily, China Youth Daily (front page), among others. He has been selected as a Young Distinguished Expert of the National Overseas High-level Talent Introduction Plan, a Young Top-notch Talent of the Guangdong Province Pearl River Talent Plan, and a Distinguished Professor of the Shenzhen Pengcheng Peacock Plan, among others.
