*ONLINE*
March 19, 2021
Interested members of the U of T community who would like to attend the online seminars can email Kendra Hunter at hunter@mie.utoronto.ca for the Zoom link.
Dr. Robert Bixby (Gurobi Optimization): Optimization: Past, Present, Future
Abstract
For the vast majority of business applications, optimization means linear and mixed-integer programming. Beginning with Dantzig’s simplex method in 1947, optimization experienced a slow, uneven period of development into the mid 1980s. Then, beginning in the late 1980s, developments ensued that completely transformed optimization and its applications, driven by truly remarkable performance improvements in the underlying solvers. What’s coming next may be even more exciting. Driven by an explosion in available business data there is a growing corporate focus on analytics and data science, a development in which optimization promises to play a central role.
Bio
Dr. Robert Bixby has a BS in IEOR from U.C. Berkeley (1968), and a PhD in OR from Cornell (1972).  He has held academic positions at the University of Kentucky, Northwestern University, and Rice University.  He is currently Noah Harding Professor Emeritus at Rice University and visiting Professor of Mathematics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.  He co-founded CPLEX Optimization in 1987, and co-founded Gurobi Optimization in 2008, serving as CEO from 2008-2015.   He currently serves on the board of Gurobi Optimization, LLC.
Dr. Bixby has published over fifty journal articles and is an acknowledged expert on the computational aspects of linear and integer programming. He has won the Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize of the Mathematical Programming Society, and the INFORMS Impact and Frederick W. Lanchester Prizes.  He was Editor-in-Chief Mathematical Programming, Series A, 1989-1994, and Chairman of the Mathematical Programming Society, 2001-2004. In 1997 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and in 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
MIE’s Distinguished Seminar Series features top international researchers and leading experts across major areas of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering. The speakers present about their latest research and offer their perspectives on the current state of their field. The seminars are part of the program requirements for MIE Master of Applied Science and PhD students. The Distinguished Seminar Series is coordinated for 2020-2021 by Associate Professor Tobin Filleter.
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