Science Lead for Amazon Seller Fee to Speak at UW College of Business Sept. 15

Min Gong, the science lead for Amazon, will give a free public talk at 3:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, at the University of Wyoming College of Business.

Gong, a 2007 UW doctoral graduate, will speak in Room 123 of the Business Building in a fireside chat format with Scott Beaulier, the UW College of Business dean. A question-and-answer session follows the presentation.

Gong leads a group of economists, applied scientists and data scientists who provide scientific support to Amazon for all fee-related decisions via economic modeling, causal inference, machine learning and decision science. Before her position with Amazon, Gong led data science and behavioral science teams at Walmart Global Tech and worked as an economist at the RAND Corp.

Her talk marks the beginning of the UW College of Business’ 50th anniversary celebration of the Ph.D. program in economics.

“We are excited to welcome Dr. Gong. She is an outstanding alumna from our Ph.D. program. We are proud of her professional success and the recognition she earned for her hard work,” says Sasha Skiba, chair of the UW Department of Economics. “I look forward to hearing the wealth of knowledge she will share about her career as a UW economics Ph.D.”

Beaulier adds that the college is “delighted to be hosting Dr. Gong” as part of the celebration of the economics doctoral program’s 50th anniversary.

“She is an excellent example of the high-quality alums our program has produced, and I am looking forward to talking with her about corporate life as an economist,” Beaulier says.

Gong’s visit also kick-starts this year’s College of Business Speaker Series, which is supported by a generous gift from the Dimitrios Smyrnios family.

“After a successful first year of our speaker series, we have built a great lineup for year two with Dr. Gong helping to launch the series for the 2023-24 academic year,” Beaulier says. “We are grateful to the Smyrnios family for their support and have found the energy and engagement from this program to be tremendous for our college and the university.”

For more information about the event, email Martha McCaughey at mmccaugh@uwyo.edu.