Team

Daniel Kuhn

Daniel Kuhn is Professor of Operations Research at the College of Management of Technology at EPFL, where he holds the Chair of Risk Analytics and Optimization (RAO). His current research interests are focused on data-driven optimization, the development of efficient computational methods for the solution of stochastic and robust optimization problems and the design of approximation schemes that ensure their computational tractability. This work is primarily application-driven, the main application areas being engineered systems, machine learning, business analytics and finance.

Before joining EPFL, Daniel Kuhn was a faculty member in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London (2007-2013) and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University (2005-2006). He holds a PhD degree in Economics from University of St. Gallen and an MSc degree in Theoretical Physics from ETH Zurich. He is the editor-in-chief of Mathematical Programming and the area editor for continuous optimization for Operations Research.

Administration

Amandine Weissbrodt

Office: ODY 3.18
Phone: +41 (0)21 693 0122
E-mail: [email protected]

Current Postdocs

Yifan Hu

(since 2022)
Yifan Hu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Risk Analytics and Optimization Laboratory at EPFL, jointly advised by Prof. Daniel Kuhn and Prof. Andreas Krause. Prior to that, Yifan obtained his PhD in Industrial Engineering from UIUC, jointly advised by Prof. Xin Chen and Prof. Niao He. His research interests lie in stochastic optimization, reinforcement learning, and operations research.

Current PhD Students

Mengmeng Li

(since 2021)
Mengmeng Li received an M.Sc. in Mathematics from EPFL. Her research interests lie broadly in high-dimensional statistics and causal inference.

Yves Rychener

(since 2021)
Yves Rychener received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from EPFL in 2020. After working as a research consultant in NLP interpretability for AXA, he joined the Risk Analysis and Optimization chair at EPFL in 2021. His research interests revolve around machine learning and its use of optimization.

Philipp Schneider

(since 2023)
Philipp Schneider received his M.Sc. degrees in Engineering & Technology Innovation Management and Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2019. After working as a Senior Data Scientist at EY in New York City, he joined EPFL in 2020. His research focuses on topics in operations research and artificial intelligence for modeling real-world applications.

Roland Schwan

(since 2020)
Roland Schwan is a PhD student in the Automatic Control Laboratory and Risk Analytics and Optimization Chair at EPFL under the supervision of Prof. Colin Jones and Prof. Daniel Kuhn. He received a M.Sc. in Control Systems from Imperial College London in 2020 and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from ETH Zurich in 2019. His research interests revolve around optimization, control and machine learning.

Buse Sen

(since 2023)
Buse Sen received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Industrial Engineering Department of Bilkent University, in 2020 and 2022, respectively. In May 2023, she joined the Risk Analytics and Optimization Chair at EPFL. Her research interests revolve around optimization and machine learning.

Ehsan Sharifian

(since 2024)
Ehsan Sharifian received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University. He joined the Electrical Engineering department at EPFL in 2024 as a PhD student, where he is now focusing on distributionally robust optimization in complex systems, including applications in reinforcement learning. His research interests also span causality, high-dimensional statistics, and optimization for modeling real-world challenges.

Tianshu Yang

(since 2021)
Tianshu Yang is a Ph.D. student in the Risk Analytics and Optimization Laboratory at EPFL and in the Power Systems Laboratory at ETHZ under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Kuhn and Prof. Gabriela Hug. He received an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2021. His research interests revolve around optimization, machine learning, and control with a focus on power systems.

Former PhD Students

Katya Abramova

(2010-2015, jointly supervised with Dr. Aldo Faisal)
Thesis: “Combining Reinforcement Learning and Optimal Control for the Control of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems”
First position: Postdoc at London Business School

Dimitra Bampou

(2008-2012)
Thesis: “Polynomial Approximations for Infinite-Dimensional Optimization Problems”
First position: Financial Engineer at IBM Risk Analytics

Raquel Fonseca

(2007-2011, jointly supervised with Prof. Berc Rustem)
Thesis: “International Portfolio Management under Uncertainty”
First position: Assistant Professor at the Operations Research Center, University of Lisbon

Angelos Georghiou

(2008-2012)
Thesis: “The Decision Rule Approach to Optimisation under Uncertainty: Theory and Applications”
First position: Postdoc at the Process Systems Engineering Laboratory at MIT

Michael Hadjiyiannis

(2009-2014)
Thesis: “Decision Under Uncertainty: Applications in Control Theory, Robust Optimization and Game Theory”
First position: Data Scientist at Hellas Direct

Grani Hanasusanto

(2011-2015)
Thesis: “Decision Making under Uncertainty: Robust and Data-Driven Approaches”
First position: Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin

Wouter Jongeneel

(2020-2024)
Thesis: “Stability: A Search for Structure”
First position: Postdoc at the Applied Mathematics Department at UCLouvain

Çağıl Koçyiğit

(2015-2020)
Thesis: “Distributional Robustness in Mechanism Design”
First position: Assistant Professor at the University of Luxembourg

Dirk Lauinger

(2017-2022)
Thesis: “Vehicle-to-Grid for Reliable Frequency Regulation”
First position: Postdoc at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Viet Anh Nguyen

(2015-2019)
Thesis: “Adversarial Analytics”
First position: Postdoc at the Management Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University

Paula Rocha

(2008-2012)
Thesis: “Medium-Term Planning in Deregulated Energy Markets with Decision Rules”
First position: Postdoc at the Department of Statistical Science at UCL

Vladimir Roitch

(2010-2015)
Thesis: “Optimistic and Pessimistic Ambiguous Chance Constraints with Applications”
First position: Visiting Lecturer at Cass Business School, London City University

Napat Rujeerapaiboon

(2012-2016, jointly supervised with Prof. Wolfram Wiesemann)
Thesis: “Dimensionality Reduction in Dynamic Optimization under Uncertainty”
First position: Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore

Kilian Schindler

(2016-2020)
Thesis: “Scalable Stochastic Optimization: Scenario Reduction with Guarantees”
www.kilian-memory.ch 

Soroosh Shafiee

(2015-2020)
Thesis: “Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Learning”
First position: Postdoc at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University

Simon Spacey

(2008-2010, jointly supervised with Prof. Wayne Luk and Prof. Paul Kelly)
Thesis: “Computational Partitioning for Heterogeneous Systems”
First position: Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Waikato University

Bahar Taşkesen

(2018-2024)
Thesis: “Reliable Data-Driven Decision-Making through Optimal Transport”
First position: Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Phebe Vayanos

(2008-2012, jointly supervised with Prof. Berc Rustem)
Thesis: “Decision Rule Approximations for Dynamic Optimization under Uncertainty”
First position: Postdoc at the Operations Research Center at MIT

Wolfram Wiesemann

(2006-2010, jointly supervised with Prof. Berc Rustem)
Thesis: “Optimization of Temporal Networks under Uncertainty”
First position: Assistant Professor at Imperial College Business School

Steve Zymler

(2006-2010, jointly supervised with Prof. Berc Rustem)
Thesis: “Distributionally Robust Optimization with Applications to Risk Management”
First position: Quantitative Research Analyst at MAN Investments (AHL)

Former Postdocs

Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani

(2014-2016)
Research topic: Data-driven optimization
First position: Assistant Professor in Systems and Control at Delft University of Technology

Kianoush Mousavi

(2022-2024)
Research topic: Robust Drone Network Design
First position: Operations Research Engineer at VARO Energy

Tobias Sutter

(2019-2021)
Research topic: Mathematical aspects of optimization, control, and machine learning
First position: Assistant Professor in machine learning and optimization in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Konstanz

Anna Timonina

(2015-2017)
Research topic: Natural disaster risk-management
First position: Postdoc at the University of Vienna

Jianzhe (Trevor) Zhen

(2018-2019)
Research topic: Distributionally robust nonlinear optimization
First position: Postdoc at ETH Zurich