Jan 24: New paper “Two-stage Estimation and Variance Modeling for Variational Quantum Algorithms” submitted.

Dec 23: Shashaani selected for the Baden-Württemberg/North Carolina – Faculty Mobility Program.

Nov 23: Ha successfully defends his PhD dissertation and receives an unconditional pass from the committee. He will next be joining the National Laboratory of Renewable Energy as a postdoc working with a computational optimization group. Congratulations Dr. Ha!

Aug 23: Vahdat successfully defended her PhD dissertation and will be a data analyst in Liberty Mutual after graduate school. Congratulations Kimia!

Jul 23: Paper “Risk Score Models for Unplanned Urinary Tract Infection Hospitalization” with Alizadeh, Vahdat, Ozaltin, and Swann submitted.

Jun 23: Paper “Wake Effect Parameter Calibration with Large-Scale Field Operational Data using Stochastic Optimization” published in Applied Energy! Here are some highlights:

  • Engineering wake models have parameters that crucially affect their performance.
  • Wake parameters can be calibrated as constants or functions of other wind variables.
  • Stochastic optimization (SO) provides accurate and reliable wake calibrations.
  • Both point and functional calibration of wake parameters can be done well with SO.
  • A derivative-free trust-region SO method provides robust wake calibration.
  • Efficiently implemented trust-region SO uses adaptive sampling and variance reduction.
  • Stratifying data based on wind characteristics effectively reduces variance during SO.
  • Choosing strata of wind data and dynamically sampling from each expedites calibration.
  • Robust wake calibration helps understanding power deficit patterns in wind farms.
  • Good prediction of power deficit due to wake enables optimal design of new wind farms.

Jun 23: The group presented two talks at the 1st INFORMS Conference on Quality, Statistics, and Reliability:

  1. “Simulation Optimization with Stratified Adaptive Sampling Wind Energy Calibration Case Study” with Jain and Byon.
  2. “Stratified Sampling for Stochastic Computer Models with Multivariate Inputs” with Byon, Park, and Ko.

Jun 23: Pranav Jain unconditionally passes his preliminary doctoral exam. Congratulations Pranav!