Academic History
• Assistant Professor in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research: July 2015 -
present
University of California, Berkeley
• Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering: July 2012 - June 2015
Columbia University
• Postdoctoral Scholar in Electrical Engineering & Precourt Institute for Energy:
2011- 2012
Stanford University
Mentors: Abbas El Gamal and Stephen Boyd
• Ph.D. in Computing and Mathematical Sciences: 2007 - 2011
California Institute of Technology
Thesis: Large-Scale Complex Systems: From Antenna Circuits to Power Grids
Advisors: John Doyle and Richard Murray
• M.A.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering: 2005 - 2007
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Thesis: High-Performance Robust Decentralized Control of Interconnected Systems
• B.S. in Electronics Engineering: 1999 - 2003
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Selected Awards and Honors
1. Donald P. Eckman Award given by American Automatic Control Council, 2016.
2. INFORMS Optimization Society Prize for Young Researchers, 2015.
3. DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2015.
4. Prize paper award of the IEEE PES Power System Analysis Computing and Economics
Committee for the paper “zero duality gap in optimal power flow”, 2015.
5. One of the 2 nominees of Columbia University for Packard Fellowships for Science and
Engineering, 2015.
6. Finalist (as an advisor) for the best student paper award at the 53rd IEEE Conference on
Decision and Control, 2014.
7. Invited to participate in National Academy of Engineering's 2014 US Frontiers of
Engineering Symposium, 2014.
8. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, 2014.
9. NSF CAREER Award, 2014.2
10. Resonate Award, 2014 (selected by Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute and
Fortune Magazine as one of the five innovators worldwide with breakthrough
achievements in the field of sustainability).
11. Google Faculty Research Award, 2013.
12. Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize (best university-wide Ph.D. thesis at Caltech),
2011.
13. New Face of Engineering, named by the National Engineers Week Foundation in the
United States, 2011.
14. Senior Member of IEEE, since July 2010.
15. Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Master's Thesis Award (best master's
thesis in the category of Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering written in
2007-2009 in more than 120 participating universities including Cornell, Harvard, Yale,
McGill, and University of Toronto), 2010.
16. Governor General of Canada’s Gold Medal (best campus-wide master's/Ph.D. thesis at
Concordia University), 2008.
17. F. A. Gerard Prize (best master's thesis in the school of engineering at Concordia
University), 2008.
18. Postgraduate Scholarship of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada, 2008-2010.
19. Several scholarships including Power Corporation Fellowship and Engineering Graduate
Scholarship.
20. Best paper in session in CDC 2006, ACC 2007, ACC 2008, ACC 2010 (twice).
21. Silver Medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad, Romania, 1999.
22. Gold Medal in the National Mathematical Olympiad, Iran, 1998.
Professional Activities
Editorial Boards and Committee Members:
1. Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, December 2014-present
2. Guest Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid; Special issue: “Distributed
Control and Efficient Optimization Methods for Smart Grid”, 2016
3. Guest Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid; Special issue: 'Theory of
Complex Systems with Applications to Smart Grid Operations', 2015
4. Conference Editorial Board (CEB) Associate Editor for IEEE Control Systems Society,
July 2013-present
5. Conference Editorial Board (CEB) Associate Editor for European Control Association,
June 2013-present
6. Member of the Best Student Paper Award Committee for American Control Conference
2016
7. Associate Editor for 55th Conference on Decision and Control 2016
8. Member of the program committee for INFORMS Optimization Society Conference
2016.
9. Associate Editor for American Control Conference 2016
10. Associate Editor for European Control Conference 2016
11. Member of the Technical Program Committee for ACM e-Energy Conference 20163
12. Member of the program committee for Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control 2015
13. Associate Editor for European Control Conference 2015
14. Associate Editor for American Control Conference 2015
15. Associate Editor for 54th Conference on Decision and Control 2015
16. Member of the Technical Program Committee for IEEE SmartGridComm 2015,
Symposium: Data Management, Grid Analytics, and Dynamic Pricing.
17. Member of the program committee for Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems
2014
18. Member of the program committee for Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control 2014.
19. Associate Editor for European Control Conference 2014
20. Associate Editor for 53rd Conference on Decision and Control 2014
21. Associate Editor for American Control Conference 2014
22. Member of the Technical Program Committee for IEEE SmartGridComm 2013,
Symposium: Smart Grid Services and Management Models
23. Member of the Technical Program Committee for IEEE SmartGridComm 2013,
Symposium: Support for Storage, Renewable Resources and Micro-grids
24. Member of the Technical Program Committee for IEEE SmartGridComm 2013,
Symposium: The Whole Picture - Sense, Communicate, Compute, Control
25. Member of the International Program Committee of the European Control Conference
2013
26. Member of the International Program Committee of IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems
and Control 2013
27. Associate Editor for Systems Science & Control Engineering, November 2012-present
28. Member of the Technical Program Committee of IEEE SmartGridComm 2012
29. Member of the Technical Program Committee of IEEE SmartGridComm 2011
30. Member of the International Program Committee of IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems
and Control 2011
Conference Organizing:
1. Organizer of the session 'Large-scale Semidefinite Programs' in INFORMS International
Meeting 2016
2. Organizer of the session 'Efficient Optimization Methods for Power Systems' in
INFORMS International Meeting 2016
3. Program Co-chair for International Conference on Smart Grids for Smart Cities 2015
4. Organizer of the session 'Nonlinear Optimization for Power Systems' in International
Symposium on Mathematical Programming 2015
5. Co-chair of the symposium “Demand Response and Dynamic Pricing” for IEEE
SmartGridComm 2014
6. Co-organizer of the panel “The Future of Optimal Power Flow” in IEEE Power & Energy
Society General Meeting 2014
7. Organizer of the invited session “Control and Optimization for Smart Grid” in IEEE
Conference on Decision and Control 2013
8. Co-organizer of the panel 'Distributed control – bringing together the power and control
communities' in IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting 20124
9. Co-chair of Tutorials and Workshops in 25th IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical
and Computer Engineering 2012
10. Co-chair of the Control & Robotics Symposium in 24th IEEE Canadian Conference on
Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2011
11. Co-chair of the Control & Robotics Symposium in 23rd IEEE Canadian Conference on
Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2010
Session Chair:
1. Chair of the session 'Large-scale Semidefinite Programs' in INFORMS International
Conference 2016
2. Chair of the session 'Stochastic Planning in Energy' in INFORMS International
Conference 2016
3. Chair of the session 'Efficient Optimization Methods for Power Systems' in INFORMS
International Conference 2016
4. Chair of the session “Tutorial Session: Nonlinear Programming Challenges in the
Optimal Power Flow Problem” in INFORMS Optimization Society Conference 2016
5. Chair of the session 'Nonlinear Optimization for Power Systems' in International
Symposium on Mathematical Programming 2015
6. Co-chair of the session 'Computational Methods II' in 54th Conference on Decision and
Control 2015
7. Co-chair of the session “LMIs” in 53rd Conference on Decision and Control 2014
8. Co-chair of the session “Decentralized and Distributed Control” in 52nd Annual Allerton
Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing 2014
9. Chair of the session “The Future of Optimal Power Flow” in IEEE Power & Energy
Society General Meeting 2014
10. Chair of the session “Optimization II” in 52nd Conference on Decision and Control 2013
11. Chair of the session “Control and Optimization for Smart Grid” in 52nd Conference on
Decision and Control 2013
12. Chair of the session “Support for Storage, Renewable Resources and Micro-grids I” in
IEEESmartGridComm 2013
13. Chair of the session 'Distributed control – bringing together the power and control
communities' in IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting 2012
14. Co-chair of the session 'Energy Markets' in American Control Conference 2012
15. Chair of the session 'Biologically-Inspired Methods and Applications' in American
Control Conference 2011
16. Co-chair of the session 'Power Systems II' in American Control Conference 2011
17. Co-chair of the session 'Stability of Linear Systems' in American Control Conference
2009
18. Chair of the session 'Stochastic Systems III' in 48th Conference on Decision and Control
2009
Reviewer for Journals:
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid, SIAM Journal on Optimization, SIAM Journal on Control and 5
Optimization, Operations Research, Mathematical Programming, Mathematical
Programming Computation, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Global
Optimization, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, Systems & Control
Letters, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Networks, Automatica,
International Journal of Control, International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control,
IET Generation Transmission& Distribution, International Journal of Adaptive Control and
Signal Processing, Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Systems Man &
Cybernetics, Journal of Optimal Control Applications and Methods, Mathematical
Reviews, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Transactions on
Modeling and Computer Simulation, Nonlinear Dynamics, IEEE Power Engineering
Letters, and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.
Grant Reviewer:
1. National Science Foundation: Cyber-Innovation for Sustainability Science and
Engineering, March 2013
2. MIT-Skoltech, March 2013
3. National Science Foundation: Cyber-Physical Systems, July 2014
4. National Science Foundation: Energy, Power, Control and Networks, February 2015
5. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada: Discover Program,
January 2015
6. France-Berkeley Fund, UC Berkeley, March 2016
7. Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, UC Berkeley, April 2016
Publications
Submitted Papers: (PDF copies are available at http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~lavaei/)
1. Ramtin Madani, Javad Lavaei and Ross Baldick, “Power System State Estimation with a
Limited Number of Measurements,” under review for Operations Research, 2016.
2. Somayeh Sojoudi, Salar Fattahi and Javad Lavaei, “Convexification of Generalized
Network Flow Problem,” under review for Mathematical Programming, 2016.
3. Yu Zhang, Ramtin Madani and Javad Lavaei, “Power System State Estimation with Line
Measurements,” under review for IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2016.
4. Ramtin Madani, Javad Lavaei and Ross Baldick, “Constraint Screening for Security
Analysis of Power Networks,” under review for IEEE Transactions on Power Systems,
2016.
5. Ramtin Madani, Ghazal Fazelnia, Somayeh Sojoudi and Javad Lavaei, “Finding Lowrank Solutions of Sparse Linear Matrix Inequalities using Convex Optimization,” under
review for SIAM Journal on Optimization, 2015.
Journal Papers:6
1. Somayeh Sojoudi and Javad Lavaei, “Semidefinite Relaxations for Nonlinear
Optimization Problems,” INFORMS Optimization Society Newsletter, pp. 20-29, 2016.
2. Ghazal Fazelnia, Ramtin Madani, Abdulrahman Kalbat and Javad Lavaei, “Convex
Relaxation for Optimal Distributed Control Problems,” to paper in IEEE Transactions on
Automatic Control, pp.1-16, 2016.
3. Ramtin Madani, Morteza Ashraphijuo and Javad Lavaei, “Promises of Conic Relaxation
for Contingency-Constrained Optimal Power Flow Problem,” vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 1297-
1307, Mar. 2016.
4. Ramtin Madani, Somayeh Sojoudi and Javad Lavaei, 'Convex Relaxation for Optimal
Power Flow Problem: Mesh Networks,' IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 30,
no.1, pp. 199-211, Jan. 2015.
5. Somayeh Sojoudi and Javad Lavaei, 'Exactness of Semidefinite Relaxations for
Nonlinear Optimization Problems with Underlying Graph Structure,' SIAM Journal on
Optimization, vol.24, no. 4, pp. 1746–1778, Oct. 2014.
6. Javad Lavaei, David Tse and Baosen Zhang, 'Geometry of Power Flows and
Optimization in Distribution Networks,' IEEE Transactions on Power System, vol. 29,
no. 2, pp. 572-583, Mar. 2014.
7. Matt Kraning, Eric Chu, Javad Lavaei and Stephen Boyd, 'Message Passing for Dynamic
Network Energy Management,' Foundations and Trends in Optimization, vol. 1, no. 2,
pp. 73-126, Jan. 2014.
8. Javad Lavaei, 'Decentralized Implementation of Centralized Controllers for
Interconnected Systems,' IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 57, no. 7, pp.
1860-1865, Jul. 2012.
9. Javad Lavaei and Steven Low, 'Zero Duality Gap in Optimal Power Flow Problem,'
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 92-107, Feb. 2012.
10. Javad Lavaei and Richard M. Murray, 'Quantized Consensus by Means of Gossip
Algorithm,' IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 19-32, Jan.
2012.
11. Javad Lavaei, Aydin Babakhani, Ali Hajimiri and John C. Doyle, 'Solving Large-Scale
Hybrid Circuit-Antenna Problems,' IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, vol.
58, no. 2, pp. 374-387, Feb. 2011.
12. Javad Lavaei and Somayeh Sojoudi, “Time Complexity of Decentralized Fixed Mode
Verification,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 971-976,
Apr. 2010.
13. Javad Lavaei, Somayeh Sojoudi and Amir G. Aghdam, “Pole Assignment with Improved
Control Performance by Means of Periodic Feedback,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic
Control, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 248-252, Jan. 2010.
14. Javad Lavaei and Amir G. Aghdam, “Performance Improvement of Robust Controllers
for Polynomially Uncertain Systems,” Automatica, vol. 46, vol. 1, pp. 110-115, Jan.
2010.
15. Somayeh Sojoudi, Javad Lavaei and Amir G. Aghdam, “Robust Controllability and
Observability Degrees of Polynomially Uncertain Systems,” Automatica, vol. 45, no. 11,
pp. 2640-2645, Nov. 2009.
16. Javad Lavaei and Amir G. Aghdam, “Overlapping control design for multi-channel
