Samuel A. Burer

Director of Graduate Studies and Tippie-Rollins Professor in Business Analytics

Introduction

Sam Burer is the Tippie Rollins Professor in the Department of Business Analytics at the University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech, and his research focuses on optimization. He is the recipient of the 2020 INFORMS Computing Paper Prize and the 2023 SIAM Optimization Test of Time Award. His work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, including the CAREER award, and he currently serves as an area editor of Operations Research and as an associate editor for SIAM Journal on Optimization and Mathematical Programming. He also serves as Treasurer of the Mathematical Optimization Society and is a past Vice Chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Optimization. He teaches at all levels of business education, served as the founding faculty director of two Master's programs, and is the 2022 recipient of the University of Iowa's President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence.

Current Positions

Director of Graduate Studies, Business Analytics
Tippie-Rollins Professor in Business Analytics, Business Analytics
Professor, Business Analytics

Education

PhD in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization, Georgia Institute of Technology
BS in Mathematics, University of Georgia

Research Interests

analytics
operations research
management sciences
discrete optimization
continuous optimization
decision making and optimization under uncertainty

Selected Awards & Honors

Optimization Test of Time Award - Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2023
President & Provost Award for Teaching Excellence - University of Iowa, 2022
Collegiate Teaching Award - Tippie College of Business, 2020
Computing Society Prize - INFORMS, 2020
Innovations in Teaching Award - Tippie College of Business, 2017
MBA Business Analytics Professor of the Year - Tippie College of Business, 2013
Executive MBA GREAT Instructor of the Year - Tippie College of Business, 2011
Best Paper Award - Computational Optimization and Applications, 2009
Optimization Prize for Young Researchers - INFORMS, 2002

Selected Publications

Eltved, A. & Burer, S. (2023). Strengthened SDP Relaxation for an Extended Trust Region Subproblem with an Application to Optimal Power Flow. Mathematical Programming Series A. 197 pp. 281-306. DOI: 10.1007/s10107-021-01737-9.
Burer, S. A. & Fethke, G. C. (2016). Nearly Efficient Tuitions and Subsidies in American Public Higher Education. Economics of Education Review. 55 pp. 182-197.
Burer, S. A. & Letchford, A. (2012). Non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming: A survey. Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science. 17 pp. 97-106.
Burer, S. A. (2012). Robust rankings for college football. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. 8 (2).
Anstreicher, K. & Burer, S. A. (2010). Computable Representations for Convex Hulls of Low-Dimensional Quadratic Forms. Mathematical Programming Series B. 124 pp. 33-43.
Burer, S. A. (2009). On the Copositive Representation of Binary and Continuous Nonconvex Quadratic Programs. Mathematical Programming Series A. 120 (2) pp. 479-495.
Burer, S. A., Jones, P. C., & Lowe, T. J. (2008). Coordinating the Supply Chain in the Agricultural Seed Industry. European Journal of Operational Research. 185 pp. 354-377.
Burer, S. A., Zhang, Y., & Street, N. (2006). Ensemble Pruning via Semi-definite Programming. Journal of Machine Learning Research. 7 pp. 1315-1338.
Burer, S. A. & Monteiro, R. D. (2005). Local Minima and Convergence in Low-Rank Semidefinite Programming. Mathematical Programming Series A. 103 pp. 427-444.
Burer, S. A. & Monteiro, R. D. (2003). A Nonlinear Programming Algorithm for Solving Semidefinite Programs via Low-Rank Factorization. Mathematical Programming Series B. 95 pp. 329-357.

Selected Presentations

"Two Decades of Low-Rank Optimization," Keynote/Plenary Address at SIAM Activity Group on Optimization, Washington, June 2023.
"Vignettes on Copositive Optimization," Guest/Invited Speaker at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, November 2022.
"A Copositive Approach for Two-Stage Adjustable Robust Optimization with Uncertain Right-Hand Sides," Guest/Invited Speaker at New York University, January 2022.
"Python or R or Both: Tools for Your Data Analytics Workflow," Accepted Speaker at Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing, Chicago, Illinois, January 2019.
"A Copositive Approach for Two-Stage Adjustable Robust Optimization with Uncertain Right-Hand Sides," Guest/Invited Speaker at Georgia Institute of Technology, October 2016.
"Uncertainty and Robustness: Two Optimization Models," Guest/Invited Speaker at Duke University, Raleigh, North Carolina, March 2012.
"Nonconvex Quadratic Programming with Box Constraints," Guest/Invited Speaker at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 2010.

Selected Grants & Contracts

Burer, S. (Principal Investigator). CAREER: Computation, Theory, and Applications for Nonconvex Quadratic and Conic Optimization. National Science Foundation (NSF). Funded. January 2006 - December 2012.
Burer, S. (Principal Investigator). Collaborative Research: Theory and Applications for Nonconvex Quadratic and Conic Optimization. National Science Foundation (NSF). Funded. January 2002 - December 2005.

Editorial & Review Activities

Associate Editor, Mathematical Programming Series A, January 2022.
Area Editor, Operations Research, January 2020 - December 2026.
Associate Editor, Management Science, January 2014 - January 2020.
Associate Editor, SIAM Journal on Optimization, January 2011.
Associate Editor, Mathematics of Operations Research, January 2011 - January 2018.
Associate Editor, Operations Research, January 2011 - January 2020.
Associate Editor, Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science, January 2009 - January 2013.
Associate Editor, Mathematical Programming Computation, January 2008 - January 2013.