Yiqi (Verna) Tian

Hello! I am Yiqi (Verna) Tian, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Medical Computing and Analysis (CAMCA), Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, supervised by Dr. Quanzheng Li. I received my Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2026, where I was fortunate to be advised by Dr. Bo Zeng.

My research focuses on developing optimization methods for decision-making under uncertainty, with applications in healthcare operations and trustworthy AI. I am particularly interested in distributionally robust optimization, decision-dependent uncertainty, and the intersection of optimization and machine learning. My work aims to bridge methodological advances with real-world challenges, especially in improving healthcare delivery and developing more reliable and fair AI systems. I enjoy working on problems that connect mathematical methods with practical applications, and I am always excited to learn from and collaborate with researchers from different backgrounds.

I earned my undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering through the joint program between the University of Pittsburgh and Sichuan University Pittsburgh Institute in 2020.

Collaborators

I feel incredibly lucky to work with an amazing group of collaborators, whose support has shaped my research journey:

• Dr. Na Li, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
• Dr. Pratap Kumar, Strathmore University, Kenya
• Dr. Bidanda Bopaya, University of Pittsburgh, Industrial Engineering
• Dr. Jayant Rajgopal, University of Pittsburgh, Industrial Engineering