Mahdi SoltanolkotabiView profile
Professor
Mahdi Soltanolkotabi is a Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Industrial and Systems Engineering. He serves as the inaugural director of the USC Center on AI Foundations for Science (AIF4S). Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, advised by Ben Recht and Martin Wainwright, after completing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford under Emmanuel Candès. His research bridges theoretical foundations of data science with applied AI, focusing on generative AI, machine learning, signal processing, and computational imaging. Education: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2014, Stanford), Postdoc (2014-2015, UC Berkeley). Research interests include developing mathematical frameworks for generative AI, non-convex optimization, high-dimensional probability, and reliable AI systems for healthcare and scientific discovery. His applied work emphasizes trustworthy AI, medical imaging, and interdisciplinary collaborations with domain scientists. Publications highlight contributions to phase retrieval, subspace clustering, federated learning, and neural network optimization. Recent work emphasizes AI reliability (e.g., MediConfusion, Serpent) and scalable image restoration techniques. Awards: Packard Fellowship, NIH Innovator Award, Sloan Fellowship, NSF Career Award, AFOSR-YIP. Grants/Outreach: NIH-funded projects, collaborations with K-12 STEM education programs (Nava College Preparatory Academy, USC Viterbi Adopt-a-School). Labs/Teams: Leads USC’s AIF4S, focusing on foundational AI for science.







