{"677194":{"#nid":"677194","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Research Duo Awarded the Fulkerson Prize","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EComputing the volume of a convex body is an ancient problem that mathematicians have been working on for centuries. School of Computer Science (SCS) Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~vempala\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESantosh Vempala\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E and Ph.D. alumnus \u003Cstrong\u003EBen Cousins\u003C\/strong\u003E were recently awarded for their solution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers received the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ams.org\/news?news_id=7345\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFulkerson Prize\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, which awards outstanding papers in discrete mathematics. The Mathematical Optimization Society and the American Mathematical Society jointly award the prize every three years. This year\u2019s prize was presented at the International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP 2024) in July in Montreal.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany solutions have been proposed to estimate the volume of a convex body, but these have all been time-consuming and highly impractical. In 2018, Vempala and Cousins found a method that is faster in theory and practical in thousands of dimensions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/epubs.siam.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1137\/15M1054250\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Enew method\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E makes it faster to estimate the volume by working with a sequence of Gaussian distributions- or high-dimensional bell curves- inside the convex body of interest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo achieve these improvements, the method involves a faster and more efficient way of picking random points inside the shape. It also chains together these samples to obtain an accurate estimate of the volume. Sampling and volume computation have diverse applications in fields such as Bayesian inference, differential privacy, systems biology, and others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The algorithmic perspective in high dimension has been very rewarding; I am grateful to have been introduced to it early in my research life and eager to see what lies ahead,\u201d said Vempala.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERenowned computer science researcher Ravi Kannan offered his congratulations to Vempala. In 1991, Kannan received the Fulkerson Prize for his work with Martin Dyer and Alan Frieze on the first theoretically efficient approximation of the volume of a convex body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022He has been a leader in high dimensional geometric algorithms derived with the help of his deep insights into the mathematical structure and richly deserves the prize,\u0022 Kannan said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong with his role in SCS, Vempala serves as the Frederick Storey II Chair of Computing and as an adjunct professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/math.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Mathematics\u003C\/a\u003E and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He is also the director of Georgia Tech\u2019s Ph.D. program in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization, which includes faculty from multiple Georgia Tech schools.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003ESchool of Mathematics Adjunct Professor Santosh Vempala and Georgia Tech alumnus Ben Cousins (Ph.D. ACO 2017) were honored for their method of estimating the volume of a convex body.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"School of Mathematics Adjunct Professor Santosh Vempala and Georgia Tech alumnus Ben Cousins (Ph.D. ACO 2017) were honored for their method of estimating the volume of a convex body."}],"uid":"36583","created_gmt":"2024-09-30 15:34:19","changed_gmt":"2024-12-04 20:54:36","author":"lvidal7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"675156":{"id":"675156","type":"image","title":"Santosh Vempala","body":null,"created":"1727710500","gmt_created":"2024-09-30 15:35:00","changed":"1727710991","gmt_changed":"2024-09-30 15:43:11","alt":"Photo of Santosh Vempala ","file":{"fid":"258758","name":"Santosh S. Vempala.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/09\/30\/Santosh%20S.%20Vempala.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/09\/30\/Santosh%20S.%20Vempala.png","mime":"image\/png","size":133465,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/09\/30\/Santosh%20S.%20Vempala.png?itok=4L-hUxQ7"}}},"media_ids":["675156"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"66220","name":"Neuro"},{"id":"1279","name":"School of Mathematics"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"168854","name":"School of Mathematics"},{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"106","name":"Fulkerson Prize"},{"id":"173647","name":"_for_math_site_"},{"id":"172970","name":"go-neuro"},{"id":"193733","name":"_for_math_site_manual_feed_"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMorgan Usry\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Computer Science\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}