Aleksandr M. Kazachkov

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Florida, where I also serve as an assistant director of the Center for Applied Optimization. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher under Andrea Lodi at Polytechnique Montréal. Before that, I graduated with my Ph.D. in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2018, under Egon Balas.

You can find more information about me and my recent research on my CV. Please contact me if you have any questions about my work.

CV  /   /   /   /   /  Research  /  Seminars

Updates

• June 2024: Hope to see you at the 2024 Mixed Integer Programming Workshop, for which I am serving on the program committee.
• July 2023: Received a grant on Efficiently Strengthening Disjunctive Cutting Planes; thank you for the support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
• March 2023: I served on the organizing committee for PanOptiC, a workshop in honor of Panos Pardalos.
• August 2022: I helped organize the Workshop on Data Science for Real-Time Decision Making celebrating the achievements of the Canada Excellence Research Chair held by Andrea Lodi.
• February 2022: I have joined the editorial board for the journal Computational Optimization and Applications.
• September 2021: Adding a new role! I am now an assistant director of the Center for Applied Optimization at UF.
• May 2021: I (virtually) presented my talk on Strengthening V-Polyhedral Disjunctive Cuts at the 2021 Mixed Integer Programming Workshop; the talk is available on YouTube.
• January 2021: I started a new job as an assistant professor at the University of Florida, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering! If you are applying to, or already a student at, UF and you are interested in working with me, please see the Students section below.
• June 21, 2020: Please join and contribute to Discrete Optimization Chats, a virtual gathering place for the discrete optimization community.
• April 13, 2020: Elias B. Khalil and I are organizing virtual Discrete Optimization Talks (DOTs). Visit the DOT website for the details.
• April 9, 2020: I am keeping a list of virtual seminars.
• Old news: I founded the INFORMS Student Chapter at CMU, which I encourage the CMU community to join. The chapter has been recognized several times by INFORMS for its activities. I was also the founding chair of the YinzOR Student Conference, an annual student-led conference organized by CMU INFORMS.

Students

• Mohammad Amini (coadvised with Mostafa Reisi)
• Zixuan Feng
• Boyang Han
• Connor Johnston

Update: July 2023: I am not seeking additional students at the moment. If you would like to pursue postgraduate studies at UF, please consider applying with some of my fantastic colleagues.

Some of the courses / skills that would be helpful for a researcher working with me: linear algebra / matrix analysis, real analysis, convex analysis, linear programming, integer programming, graph theory, computer programming (C++ / Python / Julia), software engineering. Familiarity with LaTeX is helpful to communicate results.

Information on the application procedure for graduate programs, for both master's and doctorate students. Please be aware that (in our department) applications are first reviewed by a committee, who make an admission decision. Afterwards, individual faculty members can offer funding for your PhD; typically, students secure funding before accepting a PhD offer. I schedule interviews with prospective PhD candidates to my group through early March, after initial decisions are made by the admissions committee.

I am committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion within the research team. All applications are welcome, including those from women, underrepresented minorities, indigenous people, people with any sexual orientation or gender identity, people with disabilities or health issues, and people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Research can be a challenging and taxing endeavor, especially during the initial transition period, and I make concerted efforts to support my students with that in mind. I also encourage students to take advantage of the Office of Graduate Diversity Initatives.

Research

My research is on the methodology and applications of discrete optimization. In particular, I work on improving integer programming techniques, as well as designing and analyzing fair mechanisms for the allocation of indivisible resources.

I am interested in all aspects of discrete decision analytics, including theoretical, computational, and applied projects, as well as applying novel methods such as machine learning algorithms that can substantially outperform hand-engineered components of optimization solvers. I emphasize prosocial applications, such as in the nonprofit or healthcare sectors, and I also do research in sports analytics.

Cutting plane methods

• Partial Hyperplane Activation for Generalized Intersection Cuts
  With E. Balas, F. Margot, and S. Nadarajah. Mathematical Programming Computation, 2020.
  • Previously appeared as a poster, Computational investigation of generalized intersection cuts, at the Mixed Integer Programming Workshop in 2014, where it won the Best Poster Prize.
• Cutting Plane Generation Through Sparse Principal Component Analysis
  With S. Dey, A. Lodi, and G. Muñoz. SIAM Journal on Optimization, 2022.
• An Abstract Model for Branch and Cut
  With P. Le Bodic and S. Sankaranarayanan.
  Conference version: Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, 2022. Updated journal version: Mathematical Programming, 2023+.
• V-Polyhedral Disjunctive Cuts
  With E. Balas.
  • Winner of the INFORMS Computing Society Student Paper Award at the 2018 INFORMS Annual Meeting. The associated talk is V-polyhedral disjunctive cuts.
  • Appeared as a poster, V-polyhedral cuts, at NemFest in 2017.
• Monoidal Strengthening of Simple V-Polyhedral Disjunctive Cuts
  With E. Balas. Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, 2023.
• Cutting Planes by Tilting
  Working paper.
  • Appeared as a poster, Cutting planes by tilting, at the Mixed Integer Programming Workshop in 2016, where it won an Honorable Mention in the poster competition.

Computational economics

• Fair and Efficient Online Allocations
  With G. Benadè, A.D. Procaccia, A. Psomas, and D. Zeng. Operations Research, 2023+.
• On Tanking and Competitive Balance: Reconciling Conflicting Incentives
  With S. Vardi. Working paper.
  • An earlier version was peer-reviewed and presented at the Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory in October 2019.
• How to Make Envy Vanish Over Time
  With G. Benadè, A.D. Procaccia, and C.-A. Psomas. ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2018.
• Small Representations of Big Kidney Exchange Graphs
  With J.P. Dickerson, A.D. Procaccia, and T. Sandholm. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2017.
  • Previously presented at EXPLORE workshop at AAMAS 2016, where it was awarded Most Visionary Paper.
• Envy-Free Division of Sellable Goods
  With J. Karp and A.D. Procaccia. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2014.
• Guessing Preferences: A New Approach to Multi-Attribute Ranking and Selection
  With P.I. Frazier. Winter Simulation Conference, 2011.