​(I receive an unhealthy number of emails per day which makes me feel very overwhelmed. Please consider not sending your email unless it is really necessary. I apologize if I miss your email - I give response priority to my students (undergrad and grad), Princeton staff & faculty, and my collaborators.)

Questions about the ORF 363 waitlist? Please read this before emailing me.

​I am a Professor at the Dept. of Operations Research and Financial Engineering of Princeton University. I am also an affiliated faculty member of PACM, Computer Science, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, and a proud Academic-Athletic Fellow of Princeton's Men's Tennis Team and Princeton's Women's Tennis Team. I serve as the Director of the Optimization and Quantitative Decision Science Certificate Program.  In 2021-2022, I took a temporary leave from Princeton to join Citadel GQS as a Visiting Senior Optimization Fellow.

In Spring 2021, I served as the Volunteer Assistant Coach of the Princeton Men's Tennis Team, learning a lot from BP, Damian, and our incredible athletes. From Winter 2020 to Fall 2021, I was a Visiting Research Scientist at Google Brain. From Fall 2014 to Summer 2019, I was an Assistant Professor at Princeton. In 2012-2014, I was a Goldstine Fellow at the Dept. of Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences at IBM Watson Research Center. 

I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in August 2011. Throughout my graduate studies, I was affiliated with the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. My advisor was Prof. Pablo Parrilo.

In 2011-2012, I was a postdoctoral associate at MIT working jointly at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems with Prof. Pablo Parrilo and at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Robot Locomotion Group with Prof. Russ Tedrake.

Recent News

• Recipient of the 2024 Egon Balas Prize in Optimization (nice video on Egon Balas).
• Recording of a recent talk at the University of Washington's Distinguished Seminar in Optimization and Data.
• Behind the Research article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly magazine. 
• Recipient of the 2024 Excellence in Teaching Award of the Princeton Engineering Council for ORF 363/COS 323. Here is the final exam of the course for fun.
• I was fortunate enough to receive the 2023 Distinguished Teaching Award of the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
• Recording of a recent LIDS Colloquium at MIT.
• Recording of a plenary address at the SIAM Conference on Optimization ("Local Minima, Stable Sets, and Sums of Squares").
• CWI Lecture in honor of Monique Laurent (presents the proof of the main theorem of this paper). 
• Congratulations to Dr. Cemil Dibek on defending his PhD thesis!
• Quanta article about work on complexity of finding local minima with Jeffrey Zhang.
• Congratulations to Georgina Hall on becoming one of the three finalists of the Tucker Prize, for best PhD thesis in optimization in the years 2018-2021. Here is Georgina's thesis and her Tucker Prize citation. 
• Recording of recent talk on learning dynamical systems at the Online Seminar on Mathematical Foundations of Data Science. 
• Congratulations to Bachir El Khadir on becoming a Goldstine Fellow!
• Check out a new paper by Georgina and Mihaela on shape-constrained polynomial regression and some of its statistical properties.
• Congratulations to (Prof.-but-not-yet-Dr.) Jeffrey Zhang for accepting a visiting faculty position at the CMU MathDepartment.
• New talk on "learning dynamical systems with side information" (joint work with Bachir) at the NSF Robot Learning Workshop: link to video.
• Check out Georgina's new expository paper on Engineering and Business Applications of SOS. Also see this news article where she is featured as an "MBA Professor to look out for in 2020"!
• New talk at DIMACS on "Time-Varying SDPs + RDO".
• I got the PECASE apparently.
• Check out Bachir's Generalized Cauchy-Schwarz Inequalities and his proof that all convex quaternary quartics are sums of squares: link to talk at Banff.
• I received the Teaching Award of the Princeton Engineering Council in February 2020. Thank you to ORF 363 class of 2019-2020 for nominating me!
• I received tenure in February 2019 and was promoted to the rank of Full Professor in March 2019. The appointment takes effect this summer.
• I received the Teaching Award of the Princeton Engineering Council in February 2019. Thank you to ORF 363 class of 2018-2019 for nominating me!
• Slides on "Learning dynamical systems with side information" from the kick-off meeting of our MURI project on Control-Oriented Learning on the Fly.
• Recent and upcoming talks. My CV, biographical sketch.
• Recent ICERM talk on Existence of Solutions in Polynomial Optimization Problems + Coercivity + A New Positivstellensatz.
• I started the Princeton Day of Optimization on September 28, 2018 (videos and photos now up!). You can find an article that the Princeton University homepage team wrote on the event here.
  • And congratulations to the winners of the PDO Best Poster Award! You can watch the awards ceremony via this link.
• Our recent paper, which is to appear in Math of OR, has received the Young Researchers' Prize of the INFORMS Optimization Society. 
• An article by Quanta Magazine of the Simons Foundation on DSOS/SDSOS and SOS.
• Starting 1/1/19, I will be an Associate Editor of Mathematics of Operations Research. 
• Congratulations to (now-Professor ;)) Georgina Hall for defending her thesis!
• Arie, Charlie, Clancy, Mario, Rachel, Ufuk, and I received a 5-year Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award for our proposal on "Verifiable, Control-Oriented Learning on the Fly". 
• My students Bachir, Georgina, Jeff, and I are giving four talks at ISMP'18. The abstracts can be found here. 
• I received the 2017 Phi Beta Kappa Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Princeton University.
• I received the Princeton SEAS Innovation Award.
• Slides from a tutorial session at CDC'17 on "Improving Efficiency of SOS Optimization: Recent Advances and Limitations"
  • Amirali [pdf], Antonis [pdf], Georgina [pdf], James [pdf]
  • A related workshop on large-scale SDPs 
  • All tutorials
• A couple of recent talks on youtube:
  • At the Institute for Advanced Studies
  • At the Simons Institute at Berkeley
• I received the 2017 DARPA Young Faculty Award.
• ORF 363 is the winner of the 2017 Excellence in Teaching of Operations Research Award of the Institute for Industrial and Systems Engineers.
• Sloan Fellowship in Computer Science (2017).
• Georgina and I are organizing a full-day workshop on solving large-scale SDPs in control, machine learning, and robotics at CDC 2016 (in case you need an excuse to go to Vegas! ;) ).
• Our paper on path-complete Graph Lyapunov functions is a recipient of the 2013-2015 Best Paper in SIAM J. on Control and Optimization.
• NSF CAREER (2016-2021).
• Google Faculty Research Award (2016).
• I received Princeton University 's Howard B. Wentz, Jr. Junior Faculty Award (2016) for excellence in research and teaching.
• CV.
• Currently teaching: ORF 363, Computing and Optimization.
• I initiated and currently organize the Princeton Optimization Seminar at ORFE. See future and past talks.
• ORFE is organizing the 2016 INFORMS Optimization Society Conference.
• ORFE is organizing an optimization cluster at the INFORMS International Conference on behalf of the Optimization Society.
• Some new slides:
  • Nonnegative Polynomials in Optimization and Control -- Plenary talk at the 2015 Belgian Meeting on Dynamical Systems, Control, and Optimization.
  • Computation of JSR by optimization techniques -- at Oberwolfach
  • DSOS/SDSOS Optimization -- at the Meeting of the American Mathematical Society
  • Robust-to-dynamics optimization (RDO) -- at INFORMS
• ISMP 2015:
  • Venkat and I are organizing four sessions (1,2,3,4) with fantastic speakers. Drop by if you are attending the conference!
  • Georgina is giving her first talk on difference of convex programming with algebraic techniques!
  • I am presenting joint work with Oktay on optimization problems with dynamical systems constraints.
  • Ani is presenting joint work on DSOS/SDSOS optimization.
• This spring, I am teaching a graduate course on convex and conic optimization, ORF 523.
• I received the 2014 Teaching Award by the Princeton Engineering council for the undergraduate class I developed on Computing and Optimization (ORF 363).
• I received the US Junior Oberwolfach Fellowship for a second time.
• I am giving a plenary talk in Liege as part of the Belgian program on Dynamical Systems, Control, and Optimization.
• Our paper on robust minimum volume ellipsoids and polynomial level sets with Dmitry Malioutov and Ronny Lussis one of three papers selected for oral presentation at the 7th NIPS workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning.
• I received the AFOSR YIP for my proposal in optimization and control, titled
• "Scalable Algorithms with Formal Guarantees for Lyapunov Analysis of Control Systems via Algebraic Optimization."
• I am serving on the technical committee of 
  • 2016 Conference on Computational Aspects of Control Systems Design (CACSD)
  • 5th IFAC Workshop on Distributed Estimation and Control in Networked Systems (2015)
  • DIMACS Workshop on Distance Geometry (2016)
• I received the US Junior Oberwolfach Fellowship.
• Recent and upcoming sessions I am organizing:
  • Optimization in dynamics and control, INFORMS'14
    Speakers: Arcak, Pavone
  • Applications of sigmoidal and geometric programming, INFORMS'14
    Speakers: Hoburg, Preciado, Udell
  • Optimization in dynamical systems, MOPTA'14
    Speakers: Roozbehani, Vanderbei
  • New directions in large-scale and sparse conic programming, minisymposium at SIOPT'14
    Speakers: Chandrasekaran, El Ghaoui, Sun, Recht
  • Recent advances in conic optimization, INFORMS '13
    Speakers: Alizadeh, Anjos, Tawarmalani, Zuluaga
  • Approximation algorithms, MOPTA'13
    Speakers: Asadpour, Sinop
  • Algebraic algorithms and applications, ICCOPT'13
    Speakers: Monniaux, Uhler, Varvitsiotis
• Tutorial lecture on "SOS-Convexity and its Applications" at CDC'13, workshop on "Recent
• advances in semialgebraic geometry: applications in system identification, estimation and filtering", organized by Diego Regruto.
• Slides for talk at ACC'13: complexity of 10 decision problems in continuous time dynamical systems
• Our paper on controller design along trajectories and its experimental validation won the Best Conference Paper Award  at the 2013 International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
• Guest post on the blog of Sébastien Bubeck on "Sum of Squares Techniques: An Introduction" -> Part I, Part II
• Three of our papers (1, 2, 3) were awarded the 2012 INFORMS Computing Society Prize for best work at the interface of Operations Research and Computer Science.
  • Related article by MIT News
• My Ph.D. thesis,  [abstract only]
• Article by LIDS Magazine: Set to Optimize
• I am serving on the technical committee of the IEEE GlobalSIP-2013 Symposium on Signal and Information Processing in Finance and Economics.

Recent and Upcoming Talks (some slides available here)

• SIAM Conference on Optimization (Plenary Speaker), Hong Kong (5/20)
• Kolchin Seminar in Differential Algebra (1/20)
• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Nice, France (12/19)
• Special semester on Optimization, Radon Institute, Austria (12/19)
• INFORMS, Seattle (10/19)
• Tripods workshop on Robot Learning (10/19)
• Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming at Centre de Recherches Mathematiques (10/19)
• AFOSR Review Days on Dynamics and Control, Arlington (8/19)
• DARPA YFA meeting, Arlington (8/19)
• MURI meeting on control-oriented learning, Austin (8/19)
• Dynamics and Control Review Days, Arlington (8/19)
• International Conference on Continuous Optimization (8/19)
• SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry (7/19)
• Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (6/19)
• Oberwolfach meeting on Mixed Integer Nonlinear Optimization (6/19)
• DIMACS Workshop on Optimization in Distance Geometry (6/19)
• Geometry of Real Polynomials, Convexity and Optimization, Banff (5/19)
• SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, Utah (5/19) 
• University of Washington, Trends in Optimization Seminar (4/19)
• Columbia IEOR-DRO Colloquium (3/19)
• University of Michigan IOE-MICDE Colloquium (2/19) and (3/19)
• Bell labs, Mathematics & Algorithms Research Group (3/19)
• AFOSR meeting on control-oriented learning on the fly (2/19)
• Symposium on Machine Learning and Dynamical Systems, Imperial College (2/19)
• Algebraic and Geometric Methods in Discrete Optimization, MAA-AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting (1/19)
• International Conference on Polynomial and Tensor Optimization (ICPTO) (12/18)
• MIT, LIDS (11/18)
• INFORMS (11/18)
• CMS Colloquium at Caltech (10/18)
• Core Computational Methods at ICERM (9/18)
• National Academy of Engineering's US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (9/18)
• AFOSR Dynamics and Control Review Day (9/18)
• TRIPODS/DIMACS workshop on Optimization in Machine Learning (8/18)
• DARPA YFA meeting (7/18)
• European Workshop on Advances in Continuous Optimization (7/18)
• SIAM Annual Meeting (7/18)
• International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP) (7/18)
• American Control Conference (6/18)
• Workshop on Design and Analysis of Robust Systems (4/18)
• Temple University, Dept. of Mathematics, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing seminar (4/18)
• NYU, Courant (3/18)
• US/Mexico Workshop on Optimization and its Applications (1/18)
• Tutorial talk at the CDC (12/17)
• Yale, EECS (11/17)
• Stanford, MS&E (11/17)
• Simons Institute, Berkeley - Bridging Continuous and Discrete Optimization (11/17)
• INFORMS 2017 (10/17)
• UPenn, Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering (10/17)
• The Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University (9/17)
• AFOSR, Dynamics and Control Annual Review Meeting (9/17)
• DARPA YFA Annual Meeting (8/17)
• SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry (8/17)
• MOPTA (8/17)
• Foundations of Computational Mathematics, workshop on Continuous Optimization, (7/17)
• SIAM Annual Meeting (7/17)
• Workshop on Hybrid Systems, UT Austin (6/17)
• Conference on Nonconvex Statistical Learning, USC, (5/17)
• SIAM Conference on Optimization, (5/17)
• Oxford University, Department of Mathematics, Numerical Analysis Group (5/17)
• Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton (2/17)
• 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (12/16)
• INFORMS Annual Meeting (11/16)
• AFOSR meeting on Dynamics and Control (8/16)
• MOPTA (8/16)
• ICCOPT (8/16)
• DIMACS Workshop on Distance Geometry (7/16)
• Ecole Polytechnique (6/16)
• Meeting on Methods and Algorithms in Control, Banyuls (6/16)
• Laboratoire d'analyse et d'architecture des systems, Toulouse (6/16)
• INFORMS International Conference (6/16)
• Workshop on Mixed Integer Programming (5/16)
• Tutorial talk at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (5/16)
• Tutorial talk at the INFORMS Optimization Society Conference (3/16)
• Oberwolfach Meeting on Applied Koopmanism (2/16)
• University of Chicago, Booth School of Business (12/15)
• Google Research, (11/15)
• Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University (10/15)
• INFORMS (11/15)
• Oberwolfach Meeting on Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (10/15)
• SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry (8/15)
• MOPTA'15 (7/15)
• ISMP'15 (7/15)
• Belgian program on Dynamical Systems, Control, and Optimization, Liege (5/15)
• Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (5/15)
• Scientific and Statistical Computing Seminar, Department of Statistics, Univ. of Chicago (5/15)
• Department of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, University of Texas at Austin (5/15)
• Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's University (3/15)
• MAA/AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting, Session on Algebraic and Geometric Methods in Applied Discrete Mathematics (1/15)
• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Los Angeles (12/14)
• INFORMS, San Francisco (11/14) 
• ISyE Colloquium, Georgia Tech (10/14)
• Department of Econometrics and Operations Research, Tilburg University, (8/14) 
• Workshop on Uncertain Dynamical Systems (8/14)
• MOPTA at Lehigh (8/14)
• SIAM Conference on Optimization (5/14)
• Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control, University of Stuttgart (4/14)
• Real Algebraic Geometry with a View Towards Systems Control and Free Positivity, 
  Oberwolfach (4/14)
• Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Princeton (3/14)
• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (12/13)
• Geometry and Algebra of Linear Matrix Inequalities, Centre International de Rencontres Mathematiques (11/13)
• Dept. of Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences at IBM Watson (11/13)
• INFORMS (10/13)
• Institut Henri Poincare, COST Workshop on MINLP (9/13)
• MOPTA at Lehigh (8/13)
• International Conference on Continuous Optimization (8/13) 
• Thematic programme on Polynomial Optimisation, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (7/13)
• American Control Conference (6/13)
• Rutgers, Center for Operations Research (4/13)
• NYU, Computer Science (3/13)
• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (12/12)
• ICTEAM Institute at Universite catholique de Louvain (11/12)
• Dept. of Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences at IBM Watson (10/12)
• INFORMS (10/12)
• International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (08/12)
• Dept. of Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences at IBM Watson (08/12)
• MathFest (08/12)
• American Control Conference (06/12)