April 19, 2018 ChBE Seminar Speaker – Dr. Nick Sahinidis from Carnegie Mellon University

The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering welcomes Dr. Nick Sahinidis, John e. Swearingen Professor from Carnegie Mellon University, as a part of the ChBE Spring Seminar series. His seminar, titled “ALAMO: Machine Learning from Data and First Principles,” will take place on Thursday, April 19th 2018 from 2:00-3:00pm in Earle 100.

We have developed the ALAMO methodology with the aim of producing a tool capable ofusing data to learn algebraic models that are accurate and as simple as possible. ALAMO relies on (a) integer nonlinear optimization to build low-complexity models from input-output data, (b) derivative-free optimization to collect additional data points that can be used to improve tentative models, and (c) global optimization to enforce physical constraints on the mathematical structure of the model. We present computational results and comparisons between ALAMO and a variety of learning techniques, including Latin hypercube sampling, simple least-squares regression, and the lasso. We also describe results from applications in CO 2 capture that motivated the development of ALAMO.

Nick Sahinidis is the John E. Swearingen Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Process Decision-making at Carnegie Mellon University. He joined Carnegie Mellon in 2007 after a sixteen-year long career at the University of Illinois at Urbana, where he taught in Industrial Engineering and Chemical Engineering. His research has included the development of theory, algorithms, and the BARON software for global optimization of mixed-integer nonlinear programs. Professor Sahinidis’ research activities have been recognized by the INFORMS Computing Society Prize in 2004, the Beale-Orchard- Hays Prize from the Mathematical Programming Society in 2006, the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award in 2010, the Constantin Carathéodory Prize in 2015, and the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operational Research Society in 2016. Professor Sahinidis is a fellow of INFORMS and AIChE. He is the current Editor-in- Chief of Optimization and Engineering.