ISE Seminar Series

Mixed-Integer Programming: 65 Years of History and the Artificial Intelligence Challenge

Andrea Lodi.

Andrea Lodi

Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Professor, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornet Tech and the Technion

April 4, 2025 | 12-12:50 p.m. | 20 Knox Hall

Abstract

Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) technology is used daily to solve (discrete) optimization problems in contexts as diverse as energy, transportation, logistics, telecommunications, biology, just to mention a few. The MIP roots date back to 1958 with the seminal work by Ralph Gomory on cutting plane generation. In this talk, we will discuss —taking the (biased) viewpoint of the speaker — how MIP evolved in its main algorithmic ingredients, namely preprocessing, branching, cutting planes and primal heuristics, to become a mature research field whose advances rapidly translate into professional, widely available software tools. We will then discuss the next phase of this process, where Artificial Intelligence and, specifically, Machine Learning are already playing a significant role, a role that is likely to increase.

Bio

Dr. Andrea Lodi is an Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion. He is a member of both the Operations Research and Information Engineering and the Computer Science fields at Cornell University. Before joining Cornell, he was a Herman Goldstine Fellow at the IBM Mathematical Sciences Department, NY in 2005–2006, full professor of Operations Research at DEI, University of Bologna 2007-2015 and Canada Excellence Research Chair in “Data Science for Real-time Decision Making” at Polytechnique Montréal 2015-2022.

His main research interests are in Mixed-Integer Linear and Nonlinear Programming and Data Science and his work has received several recognitions including the IBM and Google faculty awards. Andrea is the recipient of the INFORMS Optimization Society 2021 Farkas Prize and has been elected an INFORMS Fellow in 2023. Andrea has been the principal investigator of scientific projects (often involving industrial partners) for Italy, European Union, Canada and USA. In the period 2006-2021, he was a consultant of the IBM CPLEX research and development team, developing CPLEX, one of the leading software for Mixed-Integer Optimization.

Event Date: April 4, 2025