Awarded for Research on Convexification of Mixed-Integer Polynomial Optimization

We are extremely pleased to announce that Lehigh ISE Assistant Professor Aida Khajavirad was awarded the 2023 INFORMS Computing Society Prize. The prize was given to Prof. Khajavirad and Prof. Alberto Del Pia (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for their work on “convexifications for mixed-integer polynomial optimization” based on a series of 7 papers. This is Aida’s second INFORMS award, after the 2017 Optimization Society Young Researchers Prize.

Khajavirad's research has covered the advancement of the state-of-the-art in Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization (MINLP) at theoretical, algorithmic, and software levels. Her research has built upon and combined ideas from convex analysis and optimization, integer programming and combinatorial optimization, and constraint programming. Recently, Aida has become interested in designing and implementing efficient optimization algorithms with performance guarantees for applications arising from data science.

In the words of Dr. Aida Khajavirad “We are thrilled and honored to learn that our decade-long collaboration on mixed-integer polynomial optimization has been recognized by the ICS prize. We would like to thank our nominators and the prize committee for considering our work.”