Sajad Modaresi
Senior Applied Scientist specializing in reinforcement learning, bandits, experimentation, and optimization for data-driven decision-making.
Senior Applied Scientist specializing in reinforcement learning, bandits, experimentation, and optimization for data-driven decision-making.
I am a Senior Applied Scientist with experience in applied machine learning research, and designing learning-based decision systems for large-scale marketplaces. My main expertise is in reinforcement learning, bandits, experimentation, and optimization for autonomous, data-driven decision-making under uncertainty. In my "past" life, I was an Assistant Professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill.
Amazon, August 2026-Present
Working on operational problems in freight online marketplace.
Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC Chapel Hill, July 2018-July 2026
Led multiple research on bandit and RL algorithms, and taught undergraduate and MBA courses on business analytics and retail operations.
Led multiple projects on real-time personalization systems combining Bayesian learning, bandits, and optimization for dynamic product recommendations (ads) under uncertainty.
Led multiple projects on learning-based ranking systems and modeling online customer search for assortment and price optimization.
Estimated the causal impact of inventory availability and product variety on brand strength using advanced causal inference methods (instrumental variables, high-dimensional fixed effects, and causal forests).