Ovunc Yilmaz
Assistant professor of Operations at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder
Assistant Professor at Mendoza College of Business

Biography
Ovunc Yilmaz is an assistant professor of Operations at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder. His area of interest is Revenue Management and Pricing, particularly innovative RM applications in the airline, hotel, and event industries. He teaches Principles of Operations Management.
Before joining Leeds in 2020, Yilmaz was an assistant professor at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. He completed his PhD studies at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. He also has an MS degree in Operations Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Koc University, Istanbul-Turkey.
Research Interests
- Revenue Management and Pricing
- Airline, hotel, and event revenue management
- Strategic consumer behavior, probabilistic products, variable pricing, choice-models
Journal Publications
Arslan H.A., Easley R., Wang, R. and Yılmaz, Ö. (2020) "Data-driven sports ticket pricing for multiple sales channels with heterogeneous customers”
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Forthcoming.
Finalist of 4th POMS Applied Research Challenge.
Yılmaz, Ö., Pekgün, P. and Ferguson, M. (2017) “Would you like to upgrade to a premium room? Evaluating the benefits of offering standby upgrades”
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 19(1):1-18.
Peng Y., Ferguson M. and Yılmaz, Ö. (2020) "Airline revenue management around sporting mega-events: An application using data from the Super Bowl XLIX”
Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Forthcoming.
Research Papers
Scoring a touchdown with variable pricing: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in the NFL ticket markets with Alper Arslan and Necati Tereyağoğlu.
Minor revision, Management Science.
Strategic behavior for hotel standby upgrade programs: Empirical evidence and pricing implications with Mark Ferguson, Pelin Pekgün and Guangzhi Shang.
Minor revision, Journal of Operations Management.
Challenges in Estimating Causal Effects in Observational Studies: Selection on Observables with Alper Arslan, Guangzhi Shang and Yoon Son.
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) University of South Carolina - Darla Moore School of Business (2013 — 2017)
- Master's Degree University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2010 — 2012)
- Bachelor of Science (BS) Koç Üniversitesi (2005 — 2010)
Mendoza College of Business
Ovunc Yilmaz is an Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the Mendoza College of Business. His research is focused on Revenue Management and Pricing, particularly innovative revenue management applications with a probabilistic element in the airline, hotel, and event industries. His current work is with hotel standby upgrades and team-specific ticket options. Yilmaz has a PhD in Operations Management from the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, an MS degree in Operations Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Koc University, Istanbul - Turkey.
Areas of Expertise
Education
Ph D, University of South Carolina
MS, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
BS, Koc University (Istanbul - Turkey)
Read about executive education
Other experts
Looking for an expert?
Contact us and we'll find the best option for you.