About this forum
We are an operations management research team exploring operational solutions to childcare related challenges: how waitlists work (and fail), how capacity is allocated, and which operational levers could make the system better for families and providers alike, among many others.
Childcare shapes careers, families, and life, yet the day-to-day experience of finding and keeping care is rarely documented in a way that research or policy can build on. Our goal with this forum is to change that: to gather first-hand accounts from working professionals, understand the challenges they face, and translate those insights into better childcare systems and policies. We began with a short five-question survey within the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society in summer 2026, and this forum opens that conversation to the wider community. Anyone can add their own experience using the same five questions, or comment on existing sharings.
The research team
Jun Li
Professor of Technology and Operations, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
Jun Li is a Professor of Technology and Operations at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. She conducts research in revenue management and pricing, healthcare management, supply chain risks, corporate social responsibility, and public sector operations, and her current work centers on improving the wellbeing of children and young adults through better education and care. Her honors include the MSOM Young Scholar Prize, INFORMS revenue management and pricing awards, and Poets&Quants 40-Under-40 MBA Professors. She holds a PhD in Managerial Economics and Management Science from the Wharton School.
Senthil Veeraraghavan
Panasonic Professor of Manufacturing and Logistics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Senthil Veeraraghavan is the Panasonic Professor of Manufacturing and Logistics and Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research spans revenue management, marketplace design, queueing games, and global supply chains, and his work on quality-speed tradeoffs in services won the first-ever Best Paper in Operations award from Management Science. A recipient of multiple Wharton teaching excellence awards, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and received his PhD in Operations from Carnegie Mellon University.
Yueyang Zhong
Assistant Professor of Management Science and Operations, London Business School
Yueyang Zhong is an Assistant Professor of Management Science and Operations at London Business School. She is an expert in stochastic modelling and optimisation of human-centred service systems, with research on customer and server behaviour in congested service systems and data-driven decision-making under limited or evolving information. Her work spans behavioural queueing, online learning, and information and mechanism design in high-stakes settings such as education, maternal health, and mental health. She earned her PhD at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Interested in collaborating?
We welcome collaborations with researchers, childcare providers, employers, and policymakers. Start a thread on the Discussion Board to float a research idea and brainstorm with the community, or email any team member directly.
Privacy
Sharings and comments are public. We do not require accounts, and display names are optional. The seeded survey responses were anonymized before publication: all identifying metadata (IP addresses, locations, timestamps, response identifiers) was removed, and respondents are labeled “Anonymous.” If a sharing is yours and you would like it edited or removed, contact the research team.
How the topic summary works
Each sharing’s free-text answers are matched against a curated dictionary of childcare topics (for example, “afford,” “tuition,” and “subsidy” map to Affordability & cost, and waitlists, waiting time, availability, and access are grouped as Waitlist & access). The word cloud and representative quotes are recomputed from the live database on every visit, so the summary always reflects the current state of the conversation.