Institute Hosts 5/14 DSI Colloquium Featuring Nisheeth Vishnoi

Monday, May 14, 2018
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, refreshments at 10:45 am
Hariri Institute for Computing
111 Cummington Mall, Room 180

Optimization, Sampling, and Physics
Nisheeth Vishnoi
Professor, School of Computer and Communication Sciences
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland)

Abstract: Optimization and sampling methods are in great demand in a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines. While the practice in these areas is brimming with innovative methods that are known to work well on real-world data, the theory to explain their success is still in its infancy. One observation is that, sometimes, such methods can be viewed through the lens of physics. This viewpoint can provide insights into when and why the method works and also help come up with even better methods. In this talk, he will illustrate this principle through an analysis of the iteratively reweighted least squares method for sparse recovery, and end with a broader set of examples.

Bio:  Nisheeth Vishnoi is a professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His research focuses both on foundational problems in algorithms, complexity and optimization, and on how computation can be used to gain insight into processes in nature and society. He is the recipient of the Best Paper Award at FOCS 2005, the IBM Research Pat Goldberg Memorial Award for 2006, the Indian National Science Academy Young Scientist Award for 2011 and the IIT Bombay Young Alumni Achievers Award for 2016. He is an associate of the International Center for Theoretical Sciences, Bangalore. Prior to joining EPFL, he held positions at Microsoft Research, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, CNRS, UC Berkeley and IBM Research.