Dr. Alp Yurtsever

Biography

Alp Yurtsever works as an Assistant Professor at Umeå University in the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. His research primarily focuses on the development of theoretical algorithms for challenging optimization problems within the fields of data science and machine learning. Yurtsever's approach differs from traditional black-box system design by considering the modeling and solving of optimization problems as interconnected subjects. This end-to-end perspective on problem models and computational methods presents new opportunities and trade-offs in the design of novel algorithms that can have both theoretical and practical impacts. He completed his PhD at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Computer Communication Sciences under the supervision of Professor Volkan Cevher. Subsequently, he participated in a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) within the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), hosted by Professor Suvrit Sra. Yurtsever's PhD dissertation, entitled 'Scalable Convex Optimization Methods for Semidefinite Programming,' was honored with Thesis Distinction from the EDIC program committee. He also holds double-major Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Electronics Engineering and Physics from Middle East Technical University in Turkey.

Research Interests

Experience