The Center for Applied Optimization at the University of Florida is an interdisciplinary center that encourages joint research and applied projects among faculty from engineering, mathematics, health, and business. It also encourages increased awareness of the rapidly growing field of optimization through publications, conferences, joint research, and student exchange. It was founded in September 1992 by Dr. Donald Hearn of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Dr. William Hager from the Mathematics Department. The current co-directors are Dr. Yongpei Guan and Dr. William Hager, while Dr. Panos Pardalos continues as immediate-past co-director. Center affiliates include several faculty from ISE, Civil Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer and Information Science, Mechanics & Engineering Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Decision and Information Sciences.
The center aims to promote
- theoretical research and algorithm developments for optimization, including continuous optimization, discrete and combinatorial optimization, stochastic optimization and infinite dimensional optimization including optimal control.
- the integration of optimization with variant domains including artificial intelligence, data science, energy, health, medicine, social networks, and transportation.
The Center is interested in promoting collaboration with researchers at other universities and organizations through visitors and student exchange. It administers a program for visiting students from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm.