Rasoul Etesami

Rasoul Etesami is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and holds affiliate appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UIUC in 2015 and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University (2016-2017).

Education

• Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2015)
• M.Sc. Applied Mathematics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2015)
• M.Sc. Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2012)

Research Interests

Dr. Etesami's work focuses on multiagent decision-making systems using tools from game theory, control theory, and optimization. His research spans networked control systems, dynamic games, distributed optimization, and cyber-physical security. He investigates social network dynamics and smart grid applications, with recent emphasis on federated learning and adversarial robustness in machine learning systems.

Recent Publication Trends

His 2024-2025 publications demonstrate expertise in:

• Dynamic games for social network influence and resource allocation
• Federated learning algorithms and poisoning attacks
• Optimization techniques for over-parameterized models and caching
• Control theory applications to smart grids and opinion dynamics
• Submodular optimization for social welfare maximization
• Bandit learning in constrained Colonel Blotto games

Honors & Editorships

• NSF CAREER Award (2020)
• AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2023)
• James Franklin Sharp Teaching Award (2023)
• Associate Editor, IET Smart Grid (2018-2024)
• Conference chair/co-chair for AAAI, Allerton, and CDC events

Academic Service

Dr. Etesami actively participates in departmental governance as a member of:

• Faculty Hiring Committee
• Qualification Exam Committee
• Graduate Committee
• Research and Scholarly Enhancement Committee
• Seminar Chair Organizer