Linwei Xin is an Associate Professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) at Cornell University. Prior to Cornell, he was an Associate Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He specializes in inventory and supply chain management, where he designs cutting-edge models and algorithms that enable organizations to effectively balance supply and demand in various contexts with uncertainty. 

Xin’s research using asymptotic analysis to study stochastic inventory theory is renowned and has been recognized with several prestigious INFORMS paper competition awards, including First Place in the George E. Nicholson Student Paper Competition in 2015 and the Applied Probability Society Best Publication Award in 2019.

Xin actively collaborates with industry stakeholders to address emerging real-world challenges, resulting in tangible, real-world impacts. For example, his long-term collaboration with Alibaba Group on developing state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning techniques for Alibaba’s inventory replenishment system has led to two INFORMS Daniel H. Wagner Prize finalist recognitions (2022, 2025) and achieved 100% algorithm adoption within Alibaba’s own supermarket brand Tmall, managing over one million SKU-warehouse pairs. His research on designing dispatching algorithms for robots in JD.com’s intelligent warehouses was recognized as a finalist for the INFORMS 2021 Franz Edelman Award, with estimated annual savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Xin’s recent interests focus on AI for supply chains, particularly on generative AI. He leverages a diverse set of analytical and computational tools, including LLMs, reinforcement learning, optimization, and probability theory, to address emerging challenges in areas such as AI-driven automation, the use of synthetic data for better decision-making, global supply chain disruptions, real-time optimization, AI-enhanced education, and sustainability initiatives such as solar grazing.

Xin currently serves as an associate editor for Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Naval Research Logistics.

Xin earned his Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2015 and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Zhejiang University in 2008.