Matthias Qian | Saïd Business School

Profile

Matthias is a Research Fellow applying innovations in machine learning and artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems. He believes that artificial intelligence will revolutionise the social sciences and help the discipline contribute more to society. He specialises in machine learning algorithms for natural language processing, clustering, time-series forecasting and outlier detection.

Matthias' research lies at the intersection of theory and practice. He contributed to the asymptotic theory of a new class of algorithms which automatically model structural breaks in time-series data. His empirical work covers entrepreneurial ecosystems, financial markets forecasting, the rise of flexible work arrangements (the gig economy), and economic geography.

He completed his MPhil (distinction) and DPhil in Economics (no corrections) under the supervision of Professor Bent Nielsen. His undergraduate degree is from the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. He is an associate member at Nuffield College and the Oxford-Man Institute. Before academia, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Goldman Sachs. Currently, he is the co-investigator of the ESRC grants on "Big Data Analytics to scope applications of AI in professional services" and "Mapping the LawTech Ecosystem in the UK". He is director of Oxford Artificial Intelligence, an AI startup with a mission to accelerate Big Data and AI adoption in scaleable use cases.

Policy

In response to COVID-19, Matthias launched the Oxford COVID-19 Impact Monitor, which uses mobile phone location data to understand the compliance of the British population with lockdown measures. The work feeds into the Cabinet Office, the Joint Biosecurity Center, Ministry of Defence and local health authorities and has received comprehensive press coverage, including with The Guardian, Sky News and the Telegraph. Before the pandemic, Matthias co-authored the UK Electric Vehicle and Battery Production Potential to 2040 report commissioned by the Faraday Institution, which featured in the Guardian, FT and the Telegraph. The Faraday report contributed to the formation of Britishvolt and their plan to build a new Gigafactory in Tathan, Wales.

Teaching

Matthias has set up a new Big Data and AI elective for the Master of Financial Economics course at Saïd Business School, where he has taught for a total of six years. He also lectured Econometrics for PPE and E&M students at the Department of Economics. Moreover, Matthias tutored undergraduates at Lady Margaret Hall and Merton college, including Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.