Laurent El Ghaoui is a Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty in 1999 after serving as Acting Associate Professor. Prior to Berkeley, he held academic positions at the École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (Paris) and part-time roles at École Polytechnique and Université de Paris-I. His research focuses on robust optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, statistical estimation, and applications in air traffic management, bioinformatics, and finance. He is affiliated with the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR), Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), and CLIMB. El Ghaoui holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University (1990) and a B.S. in Mathematics from École Polytechnique (1985). He has been recognized with prestigious awards, including the SIAM Optimization Prize (2008) and the CNRS Bronze Medal (1998). His work integrates optimization theory with real-world challenges, such as robust filtering, dynamic routing, and financial risk modeling. His research spans machine learning, control systems, and stochastic processes. Notable contributions include algorithms for sparse graphical models, distributionally robust optimization, and air traffic flow scheduling. He has collaborated on projects involving microarray data analysis and MEMS design. His academic career combines teaching and industry experience, including a leave at SAC Capital Management (2003–2006).
