{"366361":{"#nid":"366361","#data":{"type":"event","title":"2015 Distinguished Scholarship Lecture","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELECTURE:\u003C\/strong\u003E 3:00pm - 4:00pm\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERECEPTION:\u003C\/strong\u003E 4:00pm - 5:00pm\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETITLE:\u003C\/strong\u003E Multivariate statistics and machine learning under a modern optimization lens\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESPEAKER:\u003C\/strong\u003E Dr. Dimitris Bertsimas\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EABSTRACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKey problems of classification and regression can naturally be written as optimization problems. While continuous optimization approaches has had a significant impact in statistics, discrete optimization has played a very limited role, primarily based on the belief that mixed integer optimization models are computationally intractable.\u0026nbsp;While such beliefs were accurate two decades ago, the field of discrete optimization has made very substantial progress. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Bertsimas will discuss how to apply modern first order optimization methods to find feasible solutions for classical problems in statistics, and mixed integer optimization to improve the solutions and to prove optimality by finding matching lower bounds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESpecifically, he will report results for\u0026nbsp;the classical variable selection problem in regression currently solved by LASSO heuristically, least quantile regression, and factor analysis. \u0026nbsp;He will also present an approach to build regression models based on mixed integer optimization. In all cases he will demonstrate that the solutions found by modern optimization methods outperform the classical approaches. Most importantly, he suggests that the belief widely held in statistics that mixed integer optimization is not practically relevant for statistics applications needs to be revisited.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBIO:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDimitris Bertsimas is currently the Boeing Professor of Operations Research and the co-director of the Operations Research Center\u0026nbsp;at MIT.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;He has been with the MIT faculty since 1988.\u0026nbsp; His research interests include optimization,\u0026nbsp;statistics and applied probability and their applications\u0026nbsp;in health care, finance, operations\u0026nbsp;management and transportation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe has co-authored more than 150 scientific papers\u0026nbsp;and three graduate level textbooks. His fourth book, The Analytics Edge, will be published this spring. \u0026nbsp;He is former department editor in\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EOptimization for Management Science\u003C\/em\u003E and in \u003Cem\u003EFinancial Engineering in Operations Research\u003C\/em\u003E. He has supervised 53 doctoral\u0026nbsp;students and he is currently supervising 19 others.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering since 2005, and has received numerous research awards including the Morse prize (2013), the Pierskalla award (2013), the best paper award in Transportation (2013),\u0026nbsp;the Farkas prize (2008), the Erlang prize (1996),\u0026nbsp;the SIAM prize in optimization (1996),\u0026nbsp;the Bodossaki prize (1998) and\u0026nbsp;the Presidential Young Investigator award (1991-1996). He has co-founded several companies\u0026nbsp;in the areas of financial services, health care, aviation and publishing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;He received his SM and PhD\u0026nbsp;in Applied Mathematics and Operations Research from MIT in 1987 and 1988 respectively.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"2015 Distinguished Scholarship Lecture"}],"uid":"27187","created_gmt":"2015-01-21 10:26:38","changed_gmt":"2017-04-13 21:20:34","author":"Anita Race","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2015-03-05T14:00:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2015-03-05T16:00:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2015-03-05T16:00:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2015-03-05 19:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2015-03-05 21:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2015-03-05 21:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"},{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELisa Tuttle \u0026nbsp;ltuttle@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-2911\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}