Ilker Birbil

Prof. Dr. Ilker Birbil is a Professor of AI & Optimization Techniques for Business & Society at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), affiliated with the Amsterdam Business School's Business Analytics section. He previously held professorships at Erasmus University and Sabancı University, focusing on optimization and data science. His research interests include interpretable machine learning, data privacy, and optimization methods in decision-making.

Education:

• PhD in Operations Research from North Carolina State University
• Postdoc at Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Netherlands

Research Interests: Optimization in data science, interpretable AI, privacy-preserving algorithms, and decision-making systems. Recent work focuses on differentially private optimization and meta-learning techniques like LESS.

Key Achievements:

• Recipient of multiple teaching awards at Sabancı University
• Affiliated researcher at OPTIMAL (Optimization for and with Machine Learning)
• Organized workshops on ML for optimization and mathematics of ML

Grants & Teams: Leads the UvA group on Optimization and Machine Learning at LNMB. Collaborates on projects blending OR and ML, including privacy-aware algorithms and revenue management systems.

Labs/Teams: OPTIMAL, UvA Optimization Group, and interdisciplinary teams in data analytics.