Cynthia Zeng is an Assistant Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business in Abu Dhabi, where her research focuses on addressing the challenges of climate adaptation and promoting sustainable development through technological innovation. Her work primarily involves developing artificial intelligence solutions to forecast and manage extreme weather events. Cynthia completed her PhD in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with her dissertation titled “Multimodal Machine Learning for Climate Adaptation.” She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Imperial College London. In addition to her academic pursuits, she gained valuable industry experience as a quantitative analyst at BlackRock in San Francisco and London, and at the SoftBank Vision Fund in Shanghai.

Cynthia has published in several leading academic journals, including AMS Weather and Forecasting, Nature Digital Medicine, and Healthcare Management Science. Her collaborative work with OCP Group, the world’s largest phosphate producer, has been successfully implemented to achieve a 50% reduction in air pollution from industrial activities in Morocco. She has received numerous awards, including the William Pierskalla Paper Award, the MIT Future of Computing Prize, and the INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR Prize.

Cynthia is also deeply committed to public engagement, having presented her research on platforms such as TEDx and MIT Horizon. She is a frequent speaker at prominent academic and professional venues, including the Stanford Energy Seminar and the Stanford Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue.