Danial Davarnia, assistant professor in the department of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, has been selected for the 2023 Young Investigator Program Award by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
His research focuses on developing new methods to solve industrial problems with a variety of engineering techniques, including convexification, network analysis, function approximation, and machine learning.
Using the concept of “decision diagrams,” Davarnia is able to compactly represent the underlying optimization problem as a network model. This graphical approach has several advantages over the standard algebraic-based solution methods, including increased modeling flexibility and providing more information about the data structure of the problem. He can then apply these models to an array of industrial applications – from energy systems to transportation – which can lead to solving optimization challenges more efficiently.
“Given the high competitiveness of this award, I am very pleased that my research has received such a great recognition and been deemed transformative in the field of mathematical optimization,” says Davarnia.