Welcome

I am a Ph.D. student in Management Information Systems at the Fox School of Business, Temple University. My research explores the economics and governance of online platforms, with a particular focus on user-generated content (UGC) ecosystems, collaborative networks, and multi-sided markets. I leverage causal inference and network analysis to examine how platform market design and governance policies shape user behavior, content sustainability, and economic value creation.

Research Interests

• Platform Governance & Market Design: Content moderation, rule-setting, and incentive structures in multi-sided knowledge and content markets.
• UGC Ecosystems & Innovation Dynamics: Understanding collective production, contributor sustainability, and content development dynamics within online platforms.
• Societal & Economic Externalities of Tech: Evaluating the broader economic tradeoffs, sustainability metrics, and public externalities of emerging platform models.

Working Papers & Publications

1. Can Banning AI-generated Content Save User-Generated Q&A Platforms? [SSRN]
   • Platform Governance & Market Design, UGC Ecosystems & Innovation Dynamics
   • Co-authors: Jinyang Zheng
   • Brief: Using a natural experiment within the Stack Exchange network, this study investigates the effects of banning AI-generated content on knowledge exchange platforms. Through a generalized synthetic control approach, it reveals the dynamic policy effects on platform vibrancy, showing declines in both the volume and quality of user contributions due to indirect behavioral mechanisms.
2. Beyond the Value for AI Adopters: Analyzing the Impacts of Autonomous Vehicle Testing on Traffic Conditions in California [SSRN]
   • Societal & Economic Externalities of Tech
   • Co-authors: Yingjie Zhang, Jinyang Zheng
   • Brief: This paper assesses the broader societal externalities of autonomous vehicles (AVs) by focusing on their empirical impacts on non-AV road users. Leveraging the California Autonomous Vehicle Tester program, the analysis uncovers how AV public road operations affect adjacent traffic conditions through traffic disruption and behavioral moral hazards among conventional drivers.
3. Is Decentralizing Democratizing? Self-Organization and Unintended Centralization in Decentralized Social Media
   • Platform Governance & Market Design, UGC Ecosystems & Innovation Dynamics
   • Co-authors: Xue Bai, Subodha Kumar
   • Brief: This work examines whether decentralized social media platforms fulfill their promise to distribute control away from algorithms by studying the “starter packs” curation feature on Bluesky. Utilizing a relational hyperevent model and generalized synthetic control, the findings show that user-driven curation inadvertently reproduces centralization, trading platform-wide discovery for localized engagement.

Selected Conferences & Presentations

• Symposium on Statistical Challenges in Electronic Commerce Research (SCECR), Tokyo, 2026
• Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE), Nashville, 2025
• Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) Annual Conference, Atlanta, 2025
• Platform Strategy Research Symposium, Boston, 2025
• INFORMS Annual Meeting, Atlanta, 2025

Background

Before joining Temple University, I earned an M.S. in Economics from Purdue University and a B.S. in Statistics from Fudan University.

Beyond Academics

• Community & Connection: Enjoying meaningful conversations, shared experiences, and exploring historic architecture.
• Substack & Independent Writing: Essays and commentary on technology, society, and academia from Sameer Borwankar and Gonzo Labs.
• Media & Current Affairs: Following WIRED for technology, business, and public policy.
• Currently Reading: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari.

Contact

Feel free to reach out if you are interested in my research, or want to discuss potential collaborations.