Events Calendar

YINS Distinguished Lecturer: Javad Lavaei

Weekly Seminar
Event time: 
Wednesday, October 23, 2019 - 12:00pm
Location: 
Yale Institute for Network Science See map
17 Hillhouse Avenue, 3rd floor
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

“Computational Techniques for Nonlinear Optimization and Learning Problems” 

Speaker: Javad Lavaei
Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley

Abstract: The design of efficient computational techniques for nonlinear optimization has been an active area of research in the field of optimization theory for many years, but has recently been shaping the mathematical foundation of data science. In this talk, we investigate different strategies for finding a high-quality solution of a nonlinear optimization or learning problem. To this end, we develop key notions such as penalized semi-definite programs (SDPs), spurious local trajectory and graphical mutual incoherence and also design algorithms with near-linear time/memory complexity for sparse SDPs with localized constraints to break down the complexity of SDPs and make them as usable as linear programs. Finally, we offer several case studies on real-world systems such as power grids and transportations.      

Speaker Bio: Javad Lavaei is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley. He was an Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in 2012-2015. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Control & Dynamical Systems from California Institute of Technology, and was a postdoctoral scholar at Precourt Institute for Energy and Electrical Engineering of Stanford University in 2011-2012. He is the recipient of the Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize for the best university-wide Ph.D. thesis, entitled “Large-Scale Complex Systems: From Antenna Circuits to Power Grids”. His research spans power systems, optimization theory, control theory, and machine learning. He has won several awards, including DARPA Young Faculty Award, DARPA Director’s Fellowship, ONR Young Investigator Award, ONR Director of Research Early Career Grant, AFOSR Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, Google Faculty Award, and Canadian Governor General’s Gold Medal. Javad Lavaei is an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and IEEE Control Systems Letters, and serves on the conference editorial boards of the IEEE Control Systems Society and the European Control Association. He is a recipient of the 2015 INFORMS Optimization Society Prize for Young Researchers, the 2015 Best Journal Paper Award given by IEEE Power & Energy Society, the 2016 Donald P. Eckman Award given by the American Automatic Control Council, the 2016 INFORMS ENRE Energy Best Publication Award, the 2017 SIAM Control and Systems Theory Prize, and two best conference paper finalist awards from the Control Systems Society in 2014 and 2019.  He has also received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers given by the White House.   

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