Welcome! This is Cheng Lu.

I’m a Ph.D. student in Marketing Science at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). I’m advised by Prof. Dennis Zhang. My research interests lie in Social Media Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Causal Inference.

Education

• Ph.D. Student in Marketing Science, Washington University in St. Louis, 2023 - Present
• M.A. in Management, London Business School, 2022 - 2023
• B.S. in Economics, Tsinghua University, 2018 - 2022

Research

• Working Papers
  1. Guangying Chen, Cheng Lu, Tat Y. Chan, Zhengling Qi, Dennis J. Zhang, and Industry Collaborators. “A New Estimator for Encouragement Design in Randomized Controlled Trials When the Exclusion Restriction Is Violated,” Major Revision at Marketing Science.
     Runner-up for the 2024 INFORMS Information Systems Cluster Best Paper Award (Top 5%)
  2. Meng Liu, Cheng Lu, Xiang Hui, and Dennis J. Zhang. “How Effective Are Reactivation Referral Programs? Evidence from a Major Social Media Platform,” Risky Revision at Journal of Marketing Research.
     
• Work in Progress
  1. Meng Liu, Cheng Lu, Shilei Luo, Xiang Hui, and Dennis J. Zhang. “Unexpected Consequences in Recommender-Based Content Moderation”

Conference Presentations

A New Estimator for Encouragement Design in Randomized Controlled Trials When the Exclusion Restriction Is Violated

• INFORMS Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 2025
• Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Business Analytics, New Haven, CT, 2024
• INFORMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 2024

How Effective Are Reactivation Referral Programs? Evidence from a Major Social Media Platform

• ISMS Marketing Science Conference, Washington, DC, 2025

Teaching

Teaching Assistant - Washington University in St. Louis

• Applied Marketing Research (Undergraduate), FL 2024, FL 2025
• Marketing Research (Master), FL 2024, FL 2025
• Understanding & Conducting Business Experiments (Undergraduate), SP 2025
• A/B Testing in Business and Social Science (Master), SP 2025