Adam Elmachtoub

MEET THE PROFESSIONAL
June 2017

Dr. Adam Elmachtoub

Dr. Adam Elmachtoub is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and in the Data Science Institute.

In 2014-2015, he spent one year at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center working in the area of Smarter Commerce. His research currently focuses on designing new approaches for supply chain and revenue management, especially where the two areas collide. More broadly, he is interested in leveraging data to make informed decisions in industries such as retail, logistics, and travel.

Dr. Elmachtoub is a supporter of professional networking and our mentoring program within our community. We are very excited to feature him as our professional in this month’s “Meet the Professional” series.

Below are a few questions to help facilitate this interactive connection. At the end of the page you will have an opportunity to post your own questions for Dr. Elmachtoub.

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Describe your current Occupation & Degree/s and Universities.

  • Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT
  • B.S in Operations Research from Cornell University

A list of any awards/recognitions:

  • Forbes 30 under 30 in science
  • Recipient of an IBM Faculty Award

A list of Publications:

Discuss a moment or turning point in your life that led you to your career path:

I fell in love with research when I was an undergraduate and took a homework problem way too seriously! My professor realized I had discovered something interesting, and we published a paper about it. The thrill of knowing that my result will be around forever was so exciting I decided to dedicate my career towards research.

The homework problem was to write a program where you draw random points and connect them in a random order. Then you take the midpoint of each line, and reconnect in the same order. If you keep doing this, the shape turns into an ellipse! You can see it here: https://www.jasondavies.com/random-polygon-ellipse/. In my homework, I actually tried to prove why this happened, and Professor Charles van Loan and I wrote a paper called “From Random Polygon to Ellipse: An Eigenanalysis” that was published in SIAM Review.

Discuss a role model or mentor who influenced your career choice:

I admired one of my high school teachers who was truly brilliant and loved teaching. He really cared about our understanding, and often forced us to learn things on our own so we would never forget. He taught me how to think. While I was in college I was able to honor Mr. Erik Levin with an award for outstanding high school teachers

Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?

I hope to still be a professor, and I hope my research will be used in business and society.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?

If you want to do a Ph.D., you need to have the right motivation. The goal of a Ph.D. is to push the boundary of human knowledge, which should also be your goal. Prestige, money, or lack of a better option are not good reasons! If you decide to go for it, make sure to perform well in your courses, and get great letters of recommendation from professors. It helps if you volunteer to work in their lab or courses.

Tell us a little bit about your hobbies outside of your field:

I love stand-up comedy and love seeing comics live. I also am a huge fan of sports analytics, and know more about basketball and football than I care to admit.

A Q&A form will be uploaded shortly. In the meantime feel free to send any questions you would like to ask Dr. Elmachtoub to admin@network1017.com

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