Andreas Wächter Serving as Ulam Distinguished Scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has selected Professor Andreas Wächter as its Stanislaw M. Ulam Distinguished Scholar for 2019.  The Ulam Scholarship “enables a noted scientist to spend a year carrying out research at the Center for Nonlinear Studies”, and has supported a number of prominent researchers since 1985.  Among other research topics, CNLS studies electric power systems, natural gas networks, and the interplay between the two.  With Carl Laird, Professor Wächter created IPOPT, optimization software that won the prestigious Wilkenson Prize for Numerical Software. IPOPT is used widely in power-flow problems in electric power systems, among other applications. This makes for a natural pairing between CNLS and Wächter, particularly as reliance on intermittent renewable energy sources continues to grow. 

The start of the 2019-2020 academic year also marks Professor Wächter’s promotion to Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.  Since joining the department in the fall of 2011, he has won several teaching awards, served as the Chair of an INFORMS Computing Society Prize Committee, as Vice Chair for the SIAM Activity Group on Optimization, as Associate Editor for SIAM Journal on Optimization, and he will be a plenary speaker at the 2020 INFORMS Optimization Society Conference, among numerous other accomplishments in research and professional service.