Abhishek Ray

Dr. Abhishek Ray is an assistant professor at the Information Systems and Operations Management Area at the Costello College of Business, George Mason University. Dr. Ray holds a Ph.D. (MIS) from Purdue University and a B. Tech. (Electrical Engineering) from NIT Allahabad and an MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. Dr. Ray worked in IT consulting for five years before entering academia. His research interests include digital and decentralized social networks, game-theoretic policy concerns in online platforms, and big data computational challenges. He uses economics, linear/nonlinear optimization, operations research, and machine learning for his research. He has presented at ICIS 2017, IEEE Blockchain 2018, and EVOCOP 2018. Recently, Information Systems Research published his work on graph-theoretic methods for combinatorial auctions. 

Research Interests

• Economics of Information Systems
• Applied Operations Research in Public Health
• Mechanism and Information Design for Social Good

Affiliate Faculty

• Institute for Digital Innovation, George Mason University
• Business for a Better World Center, George Mason University
• Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University

Education

• Ph.D. (Major: Information Systems, Minor: Economics), Purdue University
• MS (Industrial Engineering), Purdue University
• MS (Economics), Purdue University
• MBA (Major: Marketing, Minor: Operations Management), IMT Ghaziabad
• B Tech. (Electrical Engineering), NIT Allahabad

Publications

• Abhishek Ray, Mario Ventresca, Karthik Kannan (2021) A Graph-Based Ant Algorithm for the Winner Determination Problem in Combinatorial Auctions. Information Systems Research 32(4):1099-1114. 
• Abhishek Ray, Mario Ventresca. (2018). An Ant Colony Approach for the Winner Determination Problem. In: Liefooghe, A., López-Ibáñez, M. (eds) Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization. EvoCOP 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (), vol 10782. Springer, Cham. 
• Abhishek Ray, Mario Ventresca and Hong Wan, A Mechanism Design Approach to Blockchain Protocols (2018), IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData), 2018, pp. 1603-1608 
• Abhishek Ray, Hossein Ghasemkhani, Karthik Kannan, Ad-Blockers, Advertisers, and Internet: The Economic Implications of Ad-Blocker Platforms (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 

Media Clippings

• September 9, 2024 - The Conversation
  Neutral news sources could exploit today’s polarized mediascape to boost revenue − here’s why they may choose not to
• March 12, 2024 - Fast Company
  How AI could help fight human trafficking

Awards

• GMU School of Business Summer Seed Funding Grant: “Strategic Behavior on Complex Illicit Networks: Modeling Analysis & Control.” ($10,000). 
• “Ad-Blockers, Advertisers & the Internet: The Economic Implications of Ad-Blocking” - Nominated for Most Innovative Short Paper Award at ICIS 2017. 

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