Zhi Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Analytics and Operations (DAO) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. He obtained his PhD in Decision Sciences from INSEAD and a B.Eng (First Class Honours) in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the National University of Singapore. Zhi’s research addresses operational challenges in innovation-driven value chains.

The first stream of his work focuses on issues in the R&D phase of new products. Specifically, he studies how firms can optimally design supplier bases and informational policies to procure innovation from suppliers. Recently, his interest has expanded to understanding the impact of policies and regulations on the development of new AI-based products, such as autonomous vehicles.

The second stream of his research centres on demand forecasting for new products. Given the lack of historical data, companies rely on insights from diverse experts to inform their forecasts. Zhi studies how to aggregate these forecasts into a consensus (commonly known as the "Wisdom of Crowds") and how to quantify the underlying uncertainty in the obtained forecasts.