Welcome to Heyuan’s Personal Website!
I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences at Northwestern University. I am fortunately advised by Prof. Izzy Grosof. Till May 2024, I was in the Joint Bachelor’s Degree Program between City University of Hong Kong and Columbia University, where I was advised by Prof. Victor H. de la Peña and Prof. Ioannis Karatzas. I received my B.A. in Mathematics-Statistics from Columbia and B.Sc. in Computing Mathematics from CityU.
I am broadly interested in developing theory and methods for probability and statistics. My current interests include
- Queueing theory, scheduling policies, multiserver/multiresource job system.
- Decoupling, concentration inequalities for random processes.
- Self-normalization, U-statistics.
Education
Northwestern University, IL, USA: Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Sep. 2024 - Now
Columbia University in the City of New York, NY, USA: Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics-Statistics, Sep. 2021 - May 2024
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR: Bachelor of Science in Computing Mathematics, Sep. 2019 - May 2024
Publication & Preprints
Unbiased estimation of the Gini coefficient, B. Baydil, V.H. de la Pena, H. Zou, H. Yao (2025)
A Scalable Formula for the Moments of a Family of Self-Normalized Statistics, H. Zou, H. Yao, V.H. de la Pena (2026)
Sharp Decoupling Inequalities for the Variances and Second Moments of Sums of Dependent Random Variables, V.H. de la Pena, H. Yao, D. Alemayehu (2025)
Throughput-Optimal Multiresource-Job Scheduling with Continuous Requirement Distribution , H. Yao, W. Kowalik, I. Grosof (2026)
Teaching & Teaching Assistantship
Northwestern University, IL, USA
- Teaching Assistant, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences
IEMS 304 Statistical Learning for Data Analysis (Undergrad. Lv), Spring 2026
IEMS 315 Stochastic Models (Undergrad. Lv), Fall 2025 [Evaluation]
Columbia University in the City of New York, NY, USA
- Teaching Assistant, Department of Mathematics
MATH UN2015, Linear Algebra and Probability, (Undergrad. Lv), Spring 2024 [Evaluation]
MATH GU4032, Fourier Analysis (Grad. Lv), Fall 2023 [Evaluation]
MATH UN2500, Analysis and Optimization (Undergrad. Lv), Spring 2023 [Evaluation]
MATH UN2500, Analysis and Optimization (Undergrad. Lv), Fall 2022 [Evaluation]
- Teaching Assistant (Grader), Department of Statistics
STAT GU4207, Elementary Stochastic Processes (Grad. Lv), Spring 2024
STAT GU4203, Probability Theory (Grad. Lv), Fall 2023
STAT UN2103, Applied Linear Regression Analysis (Undergrad. Lv), Spring 2023
STAT UN1101, Introduction to Statistics (Undergrad. Lv), Fall 2022
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR Sep. 2020 – May 2021
- PALSI Leader (Peer-Assisted Learning scheme using Supplemental Instruction)
MA1201, Calculus and Basic Linear Algebra II, (Undergraduate level) Spring 2021
MA1200, Calculus and Basic Linear Algebra I, (Undergraduate level) Fall 2020