Ion NecoaraProfessor Habil.
areas of expertise
- Theory and Methods for Mathematical Optimization
- Big Data Optimization Algorithms
- Machine Learning
- Optimal Control
- Model Reduction.
education
- 2021, Habilitation thesis in Mathematics, Romanian Academy – ISMMA, Stochastic Optimization
- 2014, Habilitation thesis in Engineering Sciences, UPB, Coordinate Descent Methods for Sparse Optimization
- 2002 – 2006: PhD in Applied Mathematics (Cum Laude) from T.U. Delft, Netherlands
- 2000 – 2002: Master in Optimization and Statistics, Faculty of Mathematics, University Bucharest
- 1996 – 2000: Bachelor in Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics, University Bucharest
Prof. Ion Necoara research interests span optimization, machine learning and control fields and published papers in top journals from all these areas (e.g., Mathematical Programming, Siam Journal of Optimization, Journal of Machine Learning Research, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control). He is co-author of more than 180 research papers (about 130 papers in WOS out of which 60 papers in Q1/Q2 journals; h-index WOS 20, Scholar 28). During the PhD, dr. Necoara did research on optimization algorithms for control, which has then been directed towards developing optimization algorithms with mathematical guarantees for their convergence and application of them in various areas such as machine learning, big data, signal processing, power systems. He received several awards for his work, including National Order Faithful Service in Knighthood from Romanian President, Grigore Moisil Award in Mathematics from Romanian Academy, Fulbright Fellow at University of North Carolina and several best paper awards. He worked and published papers with top researchers in the field of optimization, learning and control and was visiting professor at several prestigious universities. Dr. Necoara is editor of several important journals, chaired several international conferences, participated in the organizing committee of many others and delivered several plenary talks. He leads the Optimization, Learning and Control group (composed of 4 senior researchers, 5 phd students and several master students); has supervised 8 PhD students and was also coordinator/principal investigator of many research projects funded by the European Union, Norway or Romania.
Name, Surname: Ion NECOARA
Researcher unique identifier(s)
(ORCID, Researcher ID): ORCID: 0000-0003-1102-2654
Web of Science ResearcherID: D-7324-2012
Google scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y46Xi6ksKZcC&hl=en
URL for personal website: https://acse.pub.ro/index.php/en/ion-necoara/
Project management experience
Year Project title – Role – Funder – Budget – link to project webpage
- 2022-2024 Learning to Optimise: from mathematical foundations to modeling and control, Principal Investigator at ISMMA, UEFISCDI, PN-III-P4-PCE-2021-0720, no. 70/2022, Budget 250K Euro. Website: https://acse.pub.ro/index.php/ion-necoara-2/#pce
- 2020-2023 Efficient Learning and Optimization Tools for Hyperspectral Imaging Systems, Principal Investigator and Coordinator of the Consortium (UPB, UB, Coltea Hospital and NTNU), EEA and Norway Grant 2014-2021: RO-NO-2019-0184, nr. 24/2020, Budget 1.2 Million Euro. Website: https://elohyp.wordpress.com
- 2021-2024 Embedded learning and optimization for the next generation of smart industrial control systems, Principal Investigator at UPB, European Commission – H2020, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), Innovative Training Network, Grant Agreement no. 953348, Budget 219K Euro. Website: https://elo-x.eu
- 2020-2024 Training Data Driven Experts in Optimization, Principal Investigator at UPB, European Commission – H2020, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Training Network, Grant Agreement no. 861137, Budget 439K Euro.
Website: https://trade-opt-itn.eu/project.html. - 2017-2019 Scale-Free modeling and optimization techniques for control of complex networks, Principal Investigator at UPB, UEFISCDI, PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016, no. 39/2017, Budget 200K euro.
- 2015-2017 Modeling, Control and Optimization for Big Data Systems, Principal Investigator at UPB, UEFISCDI, PNII-RU-TE 2014, no. 176/01.10.2015, Budget 120K Euro.
- 2010-2013 Mathematical Engineering Tools for Estimation and Control in Networks, Principal Investigator at UPB, UEFISCDI, PNII-RU-TE 2010, no. 19/11.08.2010, Budget 150K Euro.
- 2010-2013 Embedded Optimization for Resource Constrained Platforms, Principal Investigator at UPB, European Commission, FP7-ICT, Grant Agreement no. 248940, Budget 392K Euro.
AWARDS
● The National Order Faithful Service in Knighthood – from the Romanian President “as a sign of great appreciation for the prodigious academic career, representing the Romanian scientific and cultural excellence, and promoting the image of our country in international scientific circles”, 2017
● Romanian Academy: Grigore Moisil Award in Mathematics, 2015 (as single recipient)
● Fulbright Fellow (visiting professor fellowship) at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, August – November 2017.
● Excellence in Research award in Engineering Sciences – top prize awarded every two years by Ad Astra, 2016.
● Best Paper Award 2016, for a paper published in Journal of Global Optimization in 2015 (Q1); 2 best paper awards in conferences (IEEE PowerTech 2021, IEEE ICSTCC 2014).
EDITOR AND CHAIR OF PRESTIGIOUS JOURNALS AND CONFERENCES
● Editor – Computational Optimization and Applications (Springer)
● Editor – EURO Journal on Computational Optimization (Elsevier)
● Editor – IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (IEEE)
● General chair of European Control Conference 2023 (top 3 international control conference – https://ecc23.euca-ecc.org/index.html).
● Romanian representative on General Assembly of EUCA (European Control Association), 2020 – present
● Organizer of 3rd Workshop on AI and Optimization for Hyperspectral Image Processing, 2023, (https://sites.google.com/view/waiohip2023/home)
● Member of IFAC Committee TC 2.4 Optimal Control, 2015 – present.
● Member in the IPC of several international conferences (ECC, NeurIPS, ICSTCC, etc)
Top publications
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AS PRINCIPAL AUTHOR
- Necoara, Yu. Nesterov, F. Glineur: Linear convergenceof first order methods for non-strongly convex optimization, Mathematical Programming (Q1), 175(1), 69–107, 2019. Citations: 360.
- Necoara, D. Clipici: Parallel random coordinate descent methods for composite minimization: convergence analysis and error bounds, SIAM Journal on Optimization (Q1), 26(1), 197-226, 2016. Citations: 100.
- Necoara, Yu. Nesterov, F. Glineur: Random block coordinate descent for linearly-constrained optimization over networks, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (Q1), 173(1), 227-254, 2017. Citations: 60.
- Necoara, J.A.K.Suykens: Application of a smoothing technique to decomposition in convex optimization, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Q1), 53(11), 2674–2679, 2008. Citations: 205.
- Necoara: Random coordinate descent algorithms for multi-agent convex optimization over networks, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Q1), 58(8), 2001-2012, 2013. Citations: 115.
- I. Necoara, V. Nedelcu: Rate analysis of inexact dual first order methods: application to dual decomposition, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Q1), 59(5), 1232-1243, 2014. Citations: 112.
- Necoara, A. Patrascu: A random coordinate descent algorithm for optimization problems with composite objective function and linear coupled constraints, Computational Optimization and Applications (Q1), 57(2), 307-337, 2014. Citations: 107.
- Nedelcu, I. Necoara, Q. Tran-Dinh: Computational complexity of inexact gradient augmented Lagrangian methods: application to constrained MPC, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization (Q1), 52(5), 3109-3134, 2014. Citations: 107.
- Patrascu, I. Necoara: Efficient random coordinate descent algorithms for large-scale structured nonconvex optimization, Journal of Global Optimization (Q1), 61(1), 19-46, 2015 (Best Paper Award). Citations: 100.
- Necoara: Faster randomized block Kaczmarz algorithms, Siam Journal on Matrix Analysisand Applications (Q1), 40(4), 1425-1452, 2019. Citations: 95.
Plenary/keynote speaker at several prestigious conferences and workshops (Workshop on Nonsmooth Optimization and Applications 2024; International Conference on Applied and Pure Mathematics 2023; Conference on Games, Dynamics and Optimization 2020; Congress of Romanian Mathematicians 2019; Workshop on Numerical Algorithms in Nonsmooth Optimization 2019; International Conference on Systems Theory, Control and Computing 2018; Workshop on Optimization and Big Data 2018, etc).
Research visits (1-2 weeks) at many prestigious universities: MIT (2017); University of North Carolina (2017); Stevens Institute (2017); Cornell University (2017); Lehigh University (2017); University of Cambridge (2010); Universite Catholique de Louvain (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017); Linkoping University (2019); University of Vienna (2019); KAUST (2018); University of Magdeburg (2014), NTNU (2014, 2022), IMT Lucca (2013, 2014, 2015), KU Leuven (2012), SUPELEC (2012, 2023), Lund University (2010), ETH Zurich (2010), etc.
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