Short Vita: Felipe Alvarez
Profesor Asociado
Departamento de Ingeniería Matemática (DIM)
Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas (FCFM)
Universidad de Chile
Av. Blanco Encalada 2120, Piso 5, Of. 533
Santiago, Chile
(+56 2) 978 4659
falvarez@dim.uchile.cl
Felipe Alvarez was born in 1972. He has published more than 20 papers in international research journals in the field of Optimization and Dynamical Systems, with more than 140 citations according to ISI. He has been particularly interested in the theoretical connections between continuous-time dissipative dynamics and convergent iterative algorithms for solving convex programming problems. He has promoted international research collaborations with France and co-organized several international meetings. He has given invited talks at important international conferences of his field. He has been the thesis advisor of 3 PhD students in Mathematical Modeling, who currently hold faculty or postdoctoral positions at different Chilean universities. Besides his work in basic research he has also been attracted by applied problems from the Mining Industry. Thus, since 2007, he is the Deputy Director of the Laboratory on Mathematical Modeling for Geomechanics (MMGeo Lab) of the Center of Mathematical Modelling (CMM) of Universidad de Chile. This Laboratory is mainly supported by contracts with CODELCO (Chile's state-owned copper company), with researchers coming from several Departments of the FCFM: Math. Eng., Physics, Geology, Civil Eng., Mining Eng. and Mechanical Eng. With the collaboration of a team of engineers and research assistants, they have investigated new mathematical models and developped computational tools to assist the decision-making process for underground mining operations. He has already been seriously engaged in high level administrative duties. Indeed he was Chair of the Mathematical Engineering Department of the FCFM (2006- 2008) as well as Scientific Director of the Millennium Science Institute on Complex Engineering Systems (2007-2010). The latter is an interdisciplinary center for excellence hosted by the FCFM and funded by MIDEPLAN, which gathers about 30 tenured researchers in the areas of Operations Research, Transportation, Power Systems, Industrial Organization and Mathematics. He is also member of the Faculty Positions Advisory Committee of FCFM (2009- present), and of the Mathematics and Statistical Sciences Advisory Committee for the Graduate Scholarship Program of CONICYT (2008-present).
Education:
1998: Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, Sandwich Thesis, Université de Montpellier, France, and Universidad de Chile.
1996: Mathematical Engineering Degree, Universidad de Chile, 1996.
1994: B.S. in Engineering Sciences, Universidad de Chile.
Professional Experience:
1999-present: Instructor (1999), Assistant (2000-2004) and Associate Professor (since 2005), DIM, FCFM, Universidad de Chile.
Visiting Professor: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (June 2010), INRIA, Rocquencourt, France (September-November 2004), Université du Sud Toulon-Var, France (May-June 2003 and November-December 2009).
Other Duties/Appointments – Last 5 years:
Member of the Faculty Positions Advisory Committee of FCFM (2009-present).
Member of the Mathematics and Statistical Sciences Advisory Committee for the Graduate Scholarship Program of CONICYT-Chile (2008-present).
Deputy Director of the Mathematical Modeling for Geomechanics Laboratory, CMM, U. de Chile (2008-2010).
Deputy Chair of the Mathematical Engineering Department, U. de Chile (2009-2010).
Chair of the Mathematical Engineering Department, U. de Chile (2006-2008).
Member of the Mathematical Engineering Department Council (2004-2005 and 2009-2010).
Member of the organizing committee of:
III ICCOPT: The 3rd International Conference on Continuous Optimization of the Mathematical Programming Society, July 2010, Santiago, Chile.
Workskop on Variational Analysis and Optimization, September 2009, Montpellier, France.
Workshop on Variational Analysis, November 2008, Santiago, Chile.
Chair of the Organizing Committee of the French-Chilean meeting in Optimization held in Toulon, France, 2008.
Chair of the Organizing Committee, FLACAM 2005: VII French-Latin American Congress on Applied Mathematics Santiago, Chile, January 11 - 18, 2005.
Referee for: Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, SIAM Journal on Optimization, Journal of Convex Analysis, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications.
Honors:
Nominated to be one of the 60 younger-than-40 scientists who will participate in the upcoming "IAP/ WEF Young Scientists Conference" to be held in September 2010 in Tianjin, China. This event is part of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is organized by the IAP (InterAcademy Panel), selecting participants from around the world once the national academies have proposed their candidates.
Awarded the Best Ph.D. Thesis in Science in the period 1998-1999, Chilean Academy of Sciences.
Foreign Scholarship grant from the French Ministry of Education, 1996-1998.
National Scholarship grant from CONICYT-Chile, 1996-1998.
Projects:
Key Associate Researcher and Scientific Director of the Millennium Science Institute on Complex Engineering Systems, research grant from MIDEPLAN-Chile, 2007-2011. The Institute gathers about 30 tenured researchers from several Chilean universities, conducting basic research as well as applied projects in Operations Research, Transportation, Industrial Organization and Power Systems Engineering.
Co-Principal Investigator of the Mathematical Modeling for Geomechanics Laboratory of the Center of Mathematical Modeling (CMM), U. de Chile, partially supported by FONDAP-Basal grants from CONICYT-Chile and industrial contracts with CODELCO, since 2006. Work on computational nonlinear geomechanics with special application to underground excavations in hard rock.
Principal Investigator, Fondecyt 1050706: Proximal iterative algorithms associated with penalty methods in optimization, 2005 – 2009.
Principal Investigator, Fondecyt 1020610: Discrete and continuous approximation of solutions via penalty methods in constrained optimization, 2002 – 2004.
Member of the Millennium Science Nucleus on Complex Engineering Systems, research grant from MIDEPLAN-Chile, 2002-2006.
Co-Principal Investigator, French-Chilean ECOS-CONICYT grant C00E05, Approximation and asymptotic behavior in optimization and equilibrium problems, 2000-2003.
Associate researcher, Center for Mathematical Modeling, FCFM, U. de Chile, project FONDAP in Applied Mathematics (CONICYT-Chile) since 1999.
Principal Investigator, Fondecyt 1990884: Dissipative dynamical systems and approximation methods in optimization and variational problems, 1999 – 2002.
Selected Publications (6 out of 23 papers):
On the minimizing property of a second order dissipative system in Hilbert space. SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, Vol. 38 (2000), No. 4, 1102-1119. Times cited (ISI): 36.
An inertial proximal method for maximal monotone operators via discretization of a nonlinear oscillator with damping (with H. Attouch). Set-Valued Analysis, Vol. 9 (2001), 3-11. Times cited (ISI): 35.
Weak convergence of a relaxed and inertial hybrid projection-proximal point algorithm for maximal monotone operators in Hilbert space. SIAM Journal on Optimization, Vol. 14 (2004), 773-782. Times cited (ISI): 14.
A second-order gradient-like dissipative dynamical system with Hessian driven damping. Application to optimization and mechanics (with H. Attouch, J. Bolte & P. Redont). Journal des Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, Vol. 81 (2002), No. 8, 747-779. Times cited (ISI): 13.
A dynamical system associated with Newton's method for parametric approximations of convex minimization problems (with J.M. Pérez). Applied Mathematics and Optimization, Vol. 38 (1998), 193-217. Times cited (ISI): 11.
A unifying local convergence result for Newton’s method in Riemannian manifolds (with J. Bolte & J. Munier). Foundations of Computational Mathematics. Vol. 8 (2008), No. 2, 197-226. Times cited (ISI): 6.
Students:
Ph.D. in Mathematical Modeling (Universidad de Chile):
Julio Lopez (2009): Contributions to Second Order Cone Programming and Matrix Optimization using Variable Metric Methods, 2009.
Juan Peypouquet (2007): Asymptotic Analysis of Dissipative Evolution Systems in Optimization. Sandwich Thesis with Université Paris 6, France. Co-advisor: Prof. Sylvain Sorin.
Miguel Carrasco (2007): Penalty Proximal Algorithms with Applications to Structural Optimization. Sandwich Thesis with Université de Montpellier, France. Co-advisor: Prof. Lionel Thibault.
Mathematical Engineering Degree (U. de Chile): Cristopher Hermosilla (ongoing), Luis Saavedra (2007), Salvador Flores (2005), José Aliste (2005), Miguel Carrasco (2003).
Mathematical Engineering Degree (U. Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile): Sebastián Flores (2008).
Selected Scientific Meetings and Conferences – Last 5 years:
Invited 30’ talk at the 20th International Symposium of Mathematical Programming (ISMP) in Chicago, Illinois, USA, August 23 – 28, 2009.
Invited speaker at the Evolution Equations and Dynamical Systems Conference, Hammamet, Tunisia, March 23-27, 2009.
Invited speaker at the Scientific Seminar MAT-AMSUD, Lima, Perú, November, 2008.
Invited 30’ talk at the Second International Conference on Continuous Optimization ICCOPT II, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, August 13-16, 2007.
Invited 30’ talk at the 19th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August, 2006.
Plenary speaker at the VII French-Latin American Congress on Applied Mathematics, Santiago, Chile, January 11 - 18, 2005