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Professor Arkadi Nemirovski, who holds the John Hunter Chair in Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). In announcing his election, the NAS commended Nemirovski for “outstanding contributions to foundational mathematics.”

“It is wonderful to see the work of ISyE Professor Arkadi Nemirovski recognized by his peers,” said Steve McLaughlin, College of Engineering dean and Southern Company Chair. “Arkadi joins some of the most distinguished scientists in the country as a member of the NAS, and I join the rest of the Georgia Tech community in congratulating him on this well-deserved honor.”

NAS membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors a scientist can receive. In addition to Nemirovski, two other faculty members from Georgia Tech have been elected to the NAS this year: Marilyn Brown, Regents Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy, and Randall Engle, professor in the School of Psychology. Mostafa A. El-Sayed, Regents Professor and Julius Brown Chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was elected to the NAS in 1980.

“Congratulations to Arkadi on his recent induction into the National Academy of Sciences. This is an amazing and well-deserved honor,” said ISyE School Chair Edwin Romeijn. “He is a thought leader and pioneer in his field, and this most recent recognition is just another example of his impact on and fundamental contributions to continuous optimization and machine learning during his unparalleled career. We’re very proud to have Arkadi as a longstanding member of the ISyE family.”

The late Anderson-Interface Chair and Professor Shabbir Ahmed once described Nemirovski’s work as ahead of its time, anticipating the solution to a problem that was yet to exist. Nemirovski’s research interests focus on optimization theory and algorithms, with emphasis on investigating complexity and developing efficient algorithms for nonlinear convex programs, optimization under uncertainty, applications of convex optimization in engineering, and nonparametric statistics.

For his work in “developing efficient algorithms for large-scale convex optimization problems,” Nemirovski was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the first year he was eligible for induction. He and Brown are the only two faculty members at Georgia Tech to hold both honors.

“While the field of industrial engineering and operations research is represented by many members in the NAE, I believe that Arkadi Nemirovski is the first  member of the NAS, as well as being the first mathematician in the NAS who specializes in optimization,” said George Nemhauser, A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Institute Professor.

“There is a reason why Arkadi is in both the NAS and the NAE: He has repeatedly demonstrated that fundamental mathematics have deep and sustained implications for engineering,” said A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck.

“Arkadi has revolutionized our understanding of tractability through his seminal work on interior-point methods for convex optimization. He has transformed optimization under uncertainty through his pioneering work on robust optimization. These methodologies are now pervasive in many engineering disciplines, including energy, robotics, autonomous control systems, networking, finance, and signal processing.”

Election to the NAS is the latest in a long line of high honors for Nemirovski, which include the Fulkerson Prize from the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society in 1982 (joint with Leonid Khachiyan and David Yudin); the Dantzig Prize from the Mathematical Programming Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1991 (joint with Martin Grötschel); and the John von Neumann Theory Prize by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences in 2003 (along with Michael Todd).

“I am extremely grateful to the National Academy of Sciences for the great honor the Academy has seen fit to confer upon me,” said Nemirovski. “I am equally grateful to my colleagues at Georgia Tech and to Georgia Tech as an institution for the honor and privilege to enjoy excellent working conditions,  friendly personal relations, and an inspiring atmosphere.”

Nemirovski earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics (1974) from Moscow State University; his Doctor of Sciences in Mathematics (1990) from the Supreme Attestation Board at the USSR Council of Ministers; and his Doctor of Mathematics (Honoris Causa) from the University of Waterloo, Canada (2009). He joined ISyE in 2005.