Yingjie Bi awarded 2021 SIAM Student Paper Prize

IEOR postdoctoral scholar Yingjie Bi has just been awarded the 2021 SIAM Student Paper Prize. The SIAM Student Paper Prize is given annually to the student author(s) of the most outstanding paper(s) accepted by SIAM journals within the three years preceding the nomination deadline. The award is based solely on the merit and content of the student’s contribution to the submitted paper. Up to three awards are made every year.

Yingjie was awarded for his paper “Duality gap estimation via a refined Shapley–Folkman lemma.” The selection committee for the 2021 award consists of Kathleen Kavanagh (Chair), Clarkson University; Folashade Agusto, University of Kansas; John Chrispell, Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Reza Malek-Madani, US Naval Academy; and Jennifer Ryan, Colorado School of Mines.

Abstract: Based on concepts like the $k$th convex hull and finer characterization of nonconvexity of a function, we propose a refinement of the Shapley–Folkman lemma and derive a new estimate for the duality gap of nonconvex optimization problems with separable objective functions. We apply our result to the network utility maximization problem in networking and the dynamic spectrum management problem in communication as examples to demonstrate that the new bound can be qualitatively tighter than the existing ones. The idea is also applicable to cases with general nonconvex constraints.

Read More: https://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/18M1174805

The prize will be awarded at the 2021 SIAM Annual Meeting, scheduled to be held in a virtual format on July 19-23, 2021. As part of the award, Yingjie will be invited to present his paper at the conference.

Yingjie is advised by Professor Javad Lavaei. They have collaborated on several papers which can be found on Professor Lavaei’s website.