Samuel Levy

Bio

I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a fellow of the LaCross Institute for Ethical AI Research.

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My research helps firms turn fragmented data into better decisions and do so responsibly. I develop methods for fusing disparate data sources, such as customer surveys and CRM databases, to recover insights that no single source can provide on its own.

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More broadly, I study how firms can deploy AI-driven responsible personalization — from recommendation engines to targeted campaigns — in ways that are not only effective but transparent, auditable, and compliant with evolving privacy regulation.

Smarter data strategy and stronger privacy protections reinforce each other: differential privacy can preserve nearly all the lift of a churn-prevention campaign, and machine unlearning can honor a customer's right to be forgotten without gutting the recommendation quality that other customers depend on.

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Methodologically, I build and apply AI methods, probabilistic machine learning, advanced Bayesian econometric models — tools that let me model consumer choice flexibly while quantifying uncertainty in ways that matter for both inference and policy.

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Before joining Darden, I earned my Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. I also hold degrees from Tilburg University and École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay. At Darden, I teach the core marketing curriculum and an MBA elective on Artificial Intelligence for Customer Growth.

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Interested in my research or in collaborating? Feel free to email me at levys@darden.virginia.edu. You can also find me on LinkedIn. For more about my background, check out my CV.