{"648829":{"#nid":"648829","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Nick Sahinidis Joins ISyE as Inaugural Butler Family Chair","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EProfessor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sahinidis.coe.gatech.edu\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ENick Sahinidis\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;joined\u0026nbsp;Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) as the\u0026nbsp;inaugural\u0026nbsp;Gary C. Butler Family Chair\u0026nbsp;in\u0026nbsp;August 2020, with\u0026nbsp;a joint appointment in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs an undergraduate, Sahinidis\u0026nbsp;studied chemical engineering\u0026nbsp;at Greece\u0026rsquo;s Aristotle University\u0026nbsp;where he first realized\u0026nbsp;that he particularly\u0026nbsp;enjoyed math and writing code. Through these interests, he\u0026nbsp;discovered\u0026nbsp;optimization and its many applications.\u0026nbsp;Then, when he was in graduate school\u0026nbsp;\u0026ndash;\u0026nbsp;earning\u0026nbsp;a doctorate in chemical engineering \u0026ndash;\u0026nbsp;at Carnegie Mellon, Sahinidis\u0026nbsp;encountered\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;academic journals\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EOperations Research\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EManagement Science\u003C\/em\u003E,\u0026nbsp;and he read every\u0026nbsp;past\u0026nbsp;issue he could get his hands on.\u0026nbsp;He\u0026nbsp;also\u0026nbsp;took business classes\u0026nbsp;in mathematical programming, which led him to integer and linear programming.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;I tried out optimization, and I loved it, so I stuck with it.\u0026nbsp;By the end of my graduate studies, I was firmly entrenched in systems engineering, and my first\u0026nbsp;faculty appointment\u0026nbsp;was at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the industrial engineering\u0026nbsp;program,\u0026nbsp;where I taught basic operations research classes,\u0026rdquo; Sahinidis reflected.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe\u0026nbsp;had\u0026nbsp;learned\u0026nbsp;that optimization\u0026nbsp;was helpful for efficiently planning and scheduling chemical processes\u0026nbsp;\u0026ndash; and much more: supply chain management, airline scheduling, and device designs.\u0026nbsp;He explained, \u0026ldquo;The math underneath is the same. Application agnostic algorithms can be applied by many people in different domains, and that was what particularly\u0026nbsp;fascinated\u0026nbsp;me.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESahinidis\u0026nbsp;spent 13\u0026nbsp;years\u0026nbsp;as a professor at his alma mater as the\u0026nbsp;John E. Swearingen Professor of Chemical Engineering.\u0026nbsp;During his tenure at Carnegie Mellon (where he still holds a courtesy appointment),\u0026nbsp;he\u0026nbsp;continued the development of\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sahinidis.coe.gatech.edu\/software?q=baron\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EBARON\u0026nbsp;(Branch-and-Reduce Optimization Navigator)\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;a\u0026nbsp;global optimization software system. BARON solves\u0026nbsp;challenging\u0026nbsp;nonconvex optimization\u0026nbsp;problems, including continuous, integer, and mixed-integer nonlinear problems. Sahinidis also\u0026nbsp;created\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sahinidis.coe.gatech.edu\/software?q=alamo\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EALAMO (Automated Learning of Algebraic Models)\u003C\/a\u003E, which is a black-box\u0026nbsp;modeling tool that generates simple yet accurate algebraic\u0026nbsp;models\u0026nbsp;from data.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGiven his\u0026nbsp;unstinting interest in optimization, it is perhaps unsurprising that Sahinidis would eventually\u0026nbsp;arrive\u0026nbsp;at\u0026nbsp;the No. 1-ranked\u0026nbsp;Stewart School, with its renowned optimization\u0026nbsp;researchers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;ISyE has the world\u0026rsquo;s best\u0026nbsp;optimization group \u0026ndash; and\u0026nbsp;a top\u0026nbsp;machine learning\u0026nbsp;group,\u0026nbsp;too.\u0026nbsp;I\u0026nbsp;am excited that I am working with [Institute Emeritus\u0026nbsp;Professor]\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/george-nemhauser\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGeorge Nemhauser\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;and [A. Russell Chandler III Professor]\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/santanu-dey\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ESantanu Dey\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;on some problems \u0026ndash; linear, mixed, and nonlinear \u0026ndash; that our field has struggled for decades to solve,\u0026rdquo; said Sahinidis.\u0026nbsp;\u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s a famous collection of\u0026nbsp;challenging\u0026nbsp;test problems in this area that originate from applications, including nuclear reactor management, facility location, pipeline design, and other engineering\u0026nbsp;problems.\u0026nbsp;When I first started working on them, we were able to solve about 5-10% of them. Now, we can solve about two-thirds of those problems, and I\u0026rsquo;m hoping that what we\u0026rsquo;re researching with\u0026nbsp;Santanu\u0026nbsp;and George will push the capabilities of\u0026nbsp;optimization\u0026nbsp;solvers\u0026nbsp;for these problems\u0026nbsp;close to 100%.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESpecifically, Sahinidis\u0026rsquo;\u0026nbsp;current research activities\u0026nbsp;are at the intersection between computer science and operations research, with applications in various engineering and scientific areas, including theory, algorithms,\u0026nbsp;and software;\u0026nbsp;informatics\u0026nbsp;problems in chemistry and biology;\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;process and energy systems engineering.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ability to perform significant interdisciplinary work with other Georgia Tech faculty members also drew Sahinidis to ISyE, and his\u0026nbsp;affiliate appointments at the Institute\u0026nbsp;underscore this:\u0026nbsp;He\u0026nbsp;is also involved with\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization Program; the Institute for Data Engineering and Science; the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience;\u0026nbsp;the Manufacturing Institute;\u0026nbsp;and the Strategic Energy Institute.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Optimization is ubiquitous in applications in science and engineering. With the recent advances in machine learning, optimization is fueling developments in areas we never imagined we could address before. It is truly exciting to be at Georgia Tech, where I can\u0026nbsp;collaborate with world-class colleagues and graduate students on optimization and its applications,\u0026rdquo; Sahinidis concluded.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESahinidis joins ISyE as the inaugural Gary C. Butler Family Chair, with a joint appointment in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Professor Nick Sahinidis joins ISyE as the inaugural Gary C. Butler Family Chair, with a joint appointment in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering."}],"uid":"35866","created_gmt":"2021-07-15 23:03:46","changed_gmt":"2021-07-21 14:14:16","author":"afu34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2021-07-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2021-07-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"648828":{"id":"648828","type":"image","title":"Nick Sahinidis","body":null,"created":"1626389620","gmt_created":"2021-07-15 22:53:40","changed":"1626389620","gmt_changed":"2021-07-15 22:53:40","alt":"Nick Sahinidis","file":{"fid":"246300","name":"Nick Sahindi.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Nick%20Sahindi.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Nick%20Sahindi.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1623423,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Nick%20Sahindi.png?itok=NluzfVnK"}}},"media_ids":["648828"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:swundersmith3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EShelley Wunder-Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}