Donald Goldfarb, the Alexander and Hermine Avanessians Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR), has been at Columbia Engineering since 1982, serving as acting dean of the School in 1994 to 95 and chair of the IEOR Department from 1984 to 2002. He also served as executive vice dean immediately prior to his appointment as Interim Dean in July 2012. Dean Goldfarb’s teaching and research interests are focused on developing algorithms for solving optimization problems with applications in finance, image processing, and machine learning, among others.One recent result of his research has been the development of algorithms to optimize MRI and CT scans so that patients are subject to only one-fifth the radiation levels previously needed to produce an appropriate image. Dean Goldfarb earned a B.Ch.E. from Cornell, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton. He was a professor and acting chair in the Department of Computer Science at City College of New York before joining Columbia Engineering. Known as an inspired researcher and teacher, Dean Goldfarb is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and has been honored by the Society of Columbia Graduates with its Great Teacher Award, an accolade based on the enthusiastic recommendations of his undergraduate students.

Research Interests

  • Algorithms for linear, quadratic, semidefinite, second-order cone and general nonlinear programming
  • Network flows
  • Large sparse systems
  • Applications in Robust Optimization, Finance, Image Processing, Compressive Sensing and Machine Learning