​Academic Director
Kejia Hu
Kejia Hu is an Associate Professor in Management Science at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and a Governing Body Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University. Kejia earned her PhD from Kellogg School of Management in 2017, an MS from UC Davis in 2013 and a BS from Fudan University in 2011. Her research focuses on unlocking business value from data through human-AI collaboration, emphasising human insight. Collaborations with Fortune 500 companies have led to top-tier research, multiple awards, and recognition on the Poets and Quants '40 Under 40' 2023 list. Her Jointown Pharmaceutical Group case study is a Top 100 MBA Case Study in China. Kejia is an Academic Scholar at Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, holds board positions at POMS College of Service Operations and INFORMS Service Science section, and has worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Morgan Stanley, and Yiwu Government. She is on the editorial board for Journal of Operations Management and a Senior Editor for Production and Operations Management. She received the 'Rising Star' Award at QUIS for her contributions to Service Operations studies.

Selected publications:
1) Delegation with Technology Migration: An Empirical Analysis of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (2024) 
2) Supplier Selection Criteria under Heterogeneous Sourcing Needs: Evidence from an Online Marketplace for Selling Production Capacity (2024) 
3) WeStore or AppStore: How Customers Shop Differently in Mobile Apps vs. Social Commerce (2024) 
4) The Impact of Financial Incentives in Last-Mile Operations: An Empirical Investigation (2023)

Executive Director
Yiju Jia​
​​Yiju Jia is the Industrial Co-Director of Oxford SBS Human-Algorithm Interaction (HAI) Lab. Yiju brings a wealth of experience from her impressive career, which includes key leadership roles such as Chief Marketing Officer at Umy.com and L2 Lab Foundation, where she excelled in global operations, strategic market growth in emerging market. Yiju’s role will focus on strengthening the bridge between academia and industry through impactful industry engagement, innovative media strategies, and the development of a dynamic AI community platform. Her recent completion of the AI for Business program at Oxfor​d Saïd Business School underscores her commitment to advancing AI applications and her deep understanding of how AI can be applied practically to drive transformation. This unique blend of academic insight and extensive industry expertise positions her perfectly to guide the lab’s initiatives and connect theoretical research with real-world impact.​

Faculty Member
Eric Zhao​
Eric Zhao is Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Strategy at the Saïd Business School and St Hugh's College, University of Oxford. Before joining Oxford, he was a visiting faculty at Stanford University and the Samuel and Pauline Glaubinger Chair of Entrepreneurship at Indiana University. Eric’s research is cross-disciplinary in nature and sits at the intersection of strategic management, organization theory, and entrepreneurship. His 2017 SMJ article “Optimal Distinctiveness: Broadening the Interface between Institutional Theory and Strategic Management” and his solo-authored book “Optimal Distinctiveness: A New Agenda for the Study of Competitive Positioning of Organizations and Markets” are widely regarded as foundational contributions to the burgeoning literature on optimal distinctiveness. His second stream of research focuses on how societal-level institutions, such as patriarchy, racial and ethnic segregation, religious diversity, and social class, shape entrepreneurial actions and performance, with broader implications for organizations’ role in addressing grand social challenges. Eric’s research has been published in leading management and entrepreneurship journals and is widely cited. Eric won the Academy of Management Emerging Scholar Award in Entrepreneurship in 2019 and the Strategic Management Society Emerging Scholar Award in 2022, making him the first scholar who has been recognized by top early career awards in both strategy and entrepreneurship.

Faculty Member
James Taylor​
James Taylor is a Professor of Decision Science at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. James’ main research interest is probabilistic forecasting applied to a variety of contexts, including energy, the environment, finance and retail. The journals in which he has had papers published include Management Science, Operations Research, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, and Monthly Weather Review.  James is a former Associate Editor of the International Journal of Forecasting  and Management Science. He has an undergraduate degree in Maths from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Operational Research from the University of Lancaster, and a PhD in Time Series Forecasting from London Business School. He taught at London Business School for three years before joining Saïd Business School in 1999.

Faculty Member
Ivona Hideg
Ivona Hideg is a Professor of Organisation Studiesis at the Saïd Business School and a Fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford. Her main programme of research includes workplace equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In her work, she focuses on gender, but also examines issues surrounding race, ethnicity, language and accent including intersection of various identities that we all hold. Ivona’s work has provided important insights for leaders, organisations and governments on how to effectively manage and leverage an ever increasingly diverse workforce to thrive in today’s global economy. Importantly, her work has provided insights into how to do so in a socially responsible way by promoting and increasing equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She was appointed as a Research Fellow with Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in 2019. This fellowship recognised the contributions of her work for public and government policy making. She also served as Associate Editor at the Academy of Management Journal and currently serves on the Methods Advisory Panel at Administrative Science Quarterly. Ivona received a PhD in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Faculty Member
Siddharth Arora
Siddharth Arora is a Senior Lecturer in Management Science at Saïd Business School. He obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford and his research is primarily aimed at developing statistical models for time series forecasting. Siddharth’s research interests include: time series analysis, probabilistic forecasting, biomedical signal processing, chaos synchronization, and model combination. His research has applications in the following areas: Healthcare (modelling disease symptom severity using wearable technologies), Energy (predicting residential and SME electricity consumption recorded using smart meters), Macroeconomics (modelling GNP), and Climate (comparing forecasts from GCMs with statistical time series models).

Team Member
Ruijie Zhang
Ruijie Zhang is an Assistant Professor at ShanghaiTech University, School of Entrepreneurship and Management. She received her Ph.D. in Operations Management from Singapore Management University in 2023. She also holds a B.A. in Industrial Engineering from South China University of Technology, China. Her research interests include human-machine interaction, platform operation, medical management and behavior operation management. Her research has been published in renowned journals, including Production and Operations Management and Transportation Research Part B. She has been honored with the BOM Best Student Paper Award and the POMS-HK Best Student Paper First Prize for two of her outstanding studies. 

​Team Member
Zhenzhen Jia
​Zhenzhen Jia is an assistant professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University, Department of Operations Management and Industrial Engineering, School of Management. She received her Ph.D. in Management Science from Fudan University, and she is a visiting scholar of Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include healthcare operations management, service operations management and artificial intelligence. 

Team Member
Yirui Jiang
Dr. Yirui Jiang is a research fellow at Cranfield University, specializing in digitalization, sustainability, and innovation, with over 9 years of expertise in digital transformation. Currently conducting research on AI for business at HAI Lab, she has successfully implemented digital solutions across diverse sectors including sanitation, healthcare, retail, aviation, and management. Her client portfolio includes the Gates Foundation, Lenovo, Boeing, London Airport, McKinsey, and the United Nations. Her expertise centers on leveraging emerging technologies, particularly AI and operational research, to develop smart and sustainable business solutions. Beyond her professional work, she actively engages in public engagement, promoting digital literacy and environmental awareness.


​Team Member
Xiang Li
​Xiang Li is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Management and Economics, Tianjin University. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Platform Economy, Government Governance. 

Working papers:
1) How Women Promote Greater Social Responsibility on Social Media, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Major Revision.
2) The Psychology of Virtual Queue: When Waiting Becomes Less Like Waiting, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Major Revision.

​Team Member
Fan Zhang
​Fan Zhang is a Research Fellow at AI Lab, Oxford Saïd Business School and Shanghai AI National Lab Research Institute with the Dual Master's Degree Programme jointly offered by The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Northwestern University. He holds a B.A. in Economics (Mathematics branch) from Beijing Jiaotong University, where he developed a strong foundation in mathematical analysis and programming. His research interests lie at the intersection of Operations Management and Human-AI Interaction, with a particular focus on how organizations can effectively integrate AI systems while optimizing human oversight and decision-making processes. His current research projects focus on optimizing human-AI collaboration in organizational decision-making and investigating how firms can effectively structure their digital transformation strategies. His work has been recognized through various academic achievements, including top scholarships at CUHK and national awards in research competitions.