Hema Yoganarasimhan
Research Expertise
- Substantive areas: digital marketing, online advertising, two-sided markets, auctions, online search.
- Methods: big data marketing analytics, econometrics, machine learning, structural models.
Academic Positions
- Professor, Foster Faculty Fellow
Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington - Adjunct Professor
Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington - Adjunct Professor
Department of Economics, University of Washington - Faculty Affiliate
Center for Statistics in the Social Sciences, University of Washington
Bio
Dr. Hema Yoganarasimhan is a Professor of Marketing at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington. She also holds affiliate appointments in Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Economics, and Center for Statistics in the Social Sciences. Hema serves as a co-editor at Quantitative Marketing and Economics and as an Associate Editor at Marketing Science and Management Science.
She is recognized as one of the leading experts in quantitative marketing. Hema’s research brings together large-scale marketing data, economic theory, and econometric and machine learning tools to help firms optimize and automate their marketing decisions.
Her recent work focuses on combining machine learning tools and statistical econometric methods to address important problems in the domain of digital marketing and online platforms. One stream of research focuses on targeting in mobile and online advertising – how to target ads at scale using personalized user history and how can we quantify the optimal level of targeting from a platform’s perspective? In another ongoing project, she develops methods to personalize search rankings in online platforms in real time. She has also done work on estimating the role of reputation on sellers’ and buyers’ behavior in online auctions. Together, her recent body of work presents creative yet technically viable solutions to the challenges that businesses face in today’s world.
Hema’s research has won many prestigious awards, including the MSI Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Award, Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, and John D.C. Little Best Paper Award. She has also been recognized as a “MSI Young Scholar” in 2015, a "MSI Scholar" in 2020, and an Erin Anderson Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor in 2021.
Hema received her Ph.D., M.A., and M.Phil. in Marketing and Business from Yale School of Management. Prior to that, she received her bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. She has been at University of Washington since 2014, where she teaches MBA and undergraduate classes on analytics for the 4Ps of marketing and an advanced PhD class on dynamic structural models.
Papers
Jain, L., Li, Z., Loghmani, E., Mason, B., and Yoganarasimhan, H. "Effective Adaptive Exploration of Prices and Promotions in Choice-Based Demand Models." (Slides)
Forthcoming at Marketing Science.
Yoganarasimhan, H., and Yakovetskaya, I., "From Feeds to Inboxes: A Comparative Study of Polarization in Facebook and Email News Sharing"
Forthcoming at Management Science.
Goli, A., Lambrecht, A., and Yoganarasimhan, H. (2023), "A Bias Correction Approach for Interference in Ranking Experiments."
Forthcoming at Marketing Science.
Yoganarasimhan, H., Barzegary, E., and Pani, A. (2023), “Design and Evaluation of Optimal Free Trials." (Web Appendix)
Management Science, Vol. 69(6), pp 3220-3240.
Rafieian, Omid and Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2022), "Variety Effects in Advertising." (Web Appendix)
Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 59(4), pp 718-738.
- Finalist, AMA-MRSIG Don Lehmann Award, 2023
Bojd, Behnaz and Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2022), “Star-Cursed Lovers: Role of Popularity Information in Online Dating." (Data and code, Web Appendix).
Marketing Science, Vol. 41(1), pp 73-92.
Iyer, Ganesh and Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2021), "Strategic Polarization in Group Interactions." (Web Appendix)
Journal of Marketing Research, Vol 58(4), pp 782-800.
Rafieian, Omid and Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2021), "Targeting and Privacy in Mobile Advertising." (Web Appendix)
Marketing Science, Vol 40(2), pp 193-218. (Lead article.)
- Winner, Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2021
- Finalist, John D.C. Litte Best Paper Award, 2021
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2020), "Search Personalization using Machine Learning." (Web Appendix)
Management Science, Vol 66(3), pp 1045-1070.
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2017), "Identifying the Presence and Cause of Fashion Cycles in Data." (Web Appendix)
Journal of Marketing Research, Vol 54(1), pp 5-26. (Lead article.)
- Finalist, Paul Green Best Paper Award, 2017.
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2016), "Estimation of Beauty Contest Auctions." (Code) (Web Appendix)
Marketing Science, Vol. 35(1), pp 27-54.
- Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2016
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2013), "The Value of Reputation in Online Freelance Marketplaces." (Web Appendix)
Marketing Science, Vol. 32(6), pp 860-891.
- Finalist, Don Morrison Long Term Impact Award, 2023
- Winner, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2013
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2012), "Cloak or Flaunt? – The Fashion Dilemma."
Marketing Science, Vol. 31(1), pp 74–95.
- Winner, Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2012
- Finalist, John D.C. Litte Best Paper Award, 2012
Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2012), "Impact of Social Network Structure on Content Propagation – A Study using YouTube Data," (Code).
Quantitative Marketing and Economics, Vol. 10(1), pp 111–150.
Mayzlin, Dina, and Yoganarasimhan, Hema (2012), "Link to Success – How Blogs Build an Audience by Promoting Rivals," (Technical Appendix).
Management Science, Vol. 58(9), pp 1651–1668.
Book Chapters and Survey Papers
Rafieian, O., and Yoganarasimhan, H., "AI and Personalization."
To appear in the Special Issue on Artifical Intelligence and Marketing in Review of Marketing Research, editors Sudhir, K., and Toubia, O.
Proserpio, D., Hauser, J. R., Liu, X., Amano, T., Burnap, A., Guo, T., Lee, D., Lewis, R. A., Misra, K., Schwartz, E. M., Timoshenko, A., Xu, L., and Yoganarasimhan, H., "Soul and Machine (Learning)."
Marketing Letters, Vol. 31, pp 393-404.
Dzyabura, D., and Yoganarasimhan, H., "Machine Learning and Marketing."
Handbook of Marketing Analytics: Methods and Applications in Marketing, Public Policy, and Litigation
Support, editors Hanssens, D., and Mizik, N., 2018.
Working Papers
Barzegary, E. and Yoganarasimhan, H. "A Recursive Partitioning Approach for Dynamic Discrete Choice Models in High-Dimensional Settings."
Mummalaneni, S., Yoganarasimhan, H., and Pathak, V., "How Do Content Producers Respond to Engagement on Social Media Platforms?"
Singh, A., Liu, Y., and Yoganarasimhan, H., "Choice Models and Permutation Invariance: Demand Estimation in Differentiated Products Markets"
Biswas, S., Yoganarasimhan, H., and Zhang, H., "Channel Choice and Customer Value"
Cheng, M., Ofek, E., and Yoganarasimhan, H., "The Value of Silence: The Effect of UMG’s Licensing Dispute with TikTok on Music Demand"
Ye, Z., Yoganarasimhan, H., and Zheng, Y., "LOLA: LLM-Assisted Online Learning Algorithm for Content Experiments"
Teaching
Awards
- Finalist, Don Morrison Long Term Impact Award, 2023.
- Winner, Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2021, 2012.
- Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2021, 2016, 2012.
- Faculty Fellow, ISMS Doctoral Consortium, 2022, 2021, 2018.
- Erin Anderson Award for Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor, 2021.
- MSI Scholar, 2020.
- Finalist, Paul Green Best Paper Award, 2017.
- Adobe Digital Marketing Research Award, 2017.
- Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2016
- Foster PhD Mentor Award, 2016-17
- MSI Young Scholar, 2015
- Foster Faculty Fellowship, 2014-present
- Winner, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2013
- Management Science Meritorious Service Award, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
- Winner, Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2012
- Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Paper Award, 2012
- Management Science Meritorious Service Award, 2012
- Adobe Research Grant, 2012
- UC Davis Small Grant in Aid of Research, 2010, 2011.
- Fellowship, Yale University, 2004-2009
- Winner, Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition, Marketing Science Institute, 2008.
- Fellow, AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium (for Yale University), Columbia, Missouri, 2008.
