September 2025 Message: The start of a new academic year always brings fresh energy, new people, new initiatives, and new ideas. It was great to see so many of you at the AI4OPT open house and social, including several new Ph.D. students joining the Institute. Looking ahead, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to connect and collaborate, including a dedicated AI career fair at Georgia Tech in November that we encourage both students and partners to take part in.

While our summers focus heavily on education, fall is all about research. AI4OPT continues to push the frontiers of AI for engineering, from specialized conferences such as CPAIOR, where speakers from Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, and USC will share their latest contributions at the intersection of AI and optimization, to the INFORMS Annual Meeting, one of the largest optimization conferences in the world. I am honored to have been invited as a plenary speaker at INFORMS and look forward to highlighting AI4OPT’s work to the broader community. At INFORMS, several members of AI4OPT will attend a breakfast organized by the Seth Bonder Foundation celebrating achievements across the spectrum of education.

Our research also extends well beyond academic audiences. Recently, we hosted a bipartisan group of U.S. congressional staffers on campus, and we released a new podcast episode exploring the rise of autonomous vehicles. You can read more about both in this newsletter.

This issue also shines a light on one of the quiet forces behind AI4OPT’s success. Our financial manager, Lisa Salter, was the first staff member to join the Institute, and her dedication and positivity have shaped so much of what we have built. As she prepares for retirement, I want to express my deep gratitude for Lisa’s talent, dedication, smile, and ability to deliver under tight deadlines. These attributes were so important to the success of AI4OPT. I know she will enjoy the next adventure filled chapter of her life. Thank you, Lisa, from all of us.

- Pascal Van Hentenryck

June 2025 Message: Summers at AI4OPT are always jam-packed with activity. As director, I spend much of the season presenting our research around the world. The kinds of invitations we’re receiving speak directly to AI4OPT’s growing international reputation. Just this summer, the International Federation of Automatic Control invited us to Norway to talk about AI for supply chains and manufacturing, and the CIOs of all nine Independent System Operators in North America requested a briefing on AI for energy systems.

Our work on optimization proxies, one of AI4OPT’s key technologies, won a Best Paper Award at the IISE conference, and our research on e-commerce fulfillment was a finalist in the MSOM Practice-Based Research Competition.

Summer is also when many of our educational programs are in full swing. Several Seth Bonder high school camps have already taken place in California and Georgia, and a brand-new Level-4 camp on generative and agentic AI is happening right now. AI4OPT PhD students are participating in exchanges between sites, and interns have joined the team for summer research. One of these interns, Betcy Eliseo, is spotlighted in this newsletter. As if that weren’t enough, the Institute also launched a new program to help high school teachers bring AI into their classrooms. The program is led by the amazing Ms. White from Drew Charter High School, who is featured below as well.

Another important part of the summer is the collaborative effort to produce our annual report. Teams across AI4OPT come together to reflect on the year’s accomplishments and provide input that captures the full scope of our research, education, and outreach activities. We share the report with a panel of external reviewers, who offer valuable feedback on the Institute’s strategic direction. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this process. As we wrote in the opening line of the report, we believe this has been AI4OPT’s most successful year to date. and we look forward to the reviewers’ insights on how we can continue to build on that momentum.

- Pascal Van Hentenryck

May 2025 Message: AI4OPT is always exploring new ways to innovate and bring cutting-edge technology to society. I’m thrilled to share that we recently hosted our first “Parent’s Guide to AI” event at the local library, an effort to directly engage with the community. It’s just one example of how AI4OPT is stepping beyond the lab and into everyday life. More educational events are planned this summer as we continue our mission to make AI both accessible and impactful.

Beyond community outreach, AI4OPT research is also making exciting strides in industry. In partnership with Kinaxis, we’ve developed an AI-powered tool for supply chain planning that’s already being tested on real-world data. This technology is not only pushing the boundaries of what’s possible but is finding its way into commercial products.

These advancements are made possible by the collective efforts of nearly 100 researchers and our now award-winning team of staff. Building on this momentum, we are also turning our attention to what comes next. Over the past two months, we’ve been deeply engaged in shaping the future of AI4OPT through retreats, internal seminars, and student exchanges between Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, and USC. These activities are sparking new ideas and collaborations. Our recent External Advisory Board meeting was a key part of this process, where researchers like Juba Ziani—spotlighted in this issue—shared inspiring visions for AI in engineering.

Lastly, you can watch or listen to What About AI?, our new podcast co-hosted by Breon Martin and me, on all major streaming platforms. Each episode offers insights into how AI is evolving and impacting real-world challenges. We hope you’ll join the conversation—see you in the comments!

- Pascal Van Hentenryck

March 2025 Message: One of the goals of the U.S. National Science Foundation AI Research Institute for Advances in Optimization (NSF AI4OPT) is to be a nexus point for AI and optimization, both in research and education. To achieve this goal, NSF AI4OPT members are traveling all over the world to make new connections and participate in events that connect communities. NSF AI4OPT played a major role in the bridge program on AI and optimization at the AAAI conference in Philadelphia; a student, Weimin Huang, will share some of her experience in the spotlight below. As a personal highlight, I really enjoyed my visit to Georgia Tech Panama to meet the group there and to talk about AI for engineering.

Looking ahead, I am very excited about the upcoming Tech AI Fest on March 26-28 in Atlanta. This event will showcase the role of AI in industry, government, and research, and will prominently feature AI4OPT and the other AI Institutes at Georgia Tech. I’m grateful to the organizers and the many volunteers who are making this possible and I look forward to a great event.

I have more news to share! As we are getting ready for another summer full of educational activities, I am excited to announce a new “Level 4” Seth Bonder summer camp that will introduce high school students to Generative AI and Agentic AI. More information on this program and many other upcoming events is all contained in this newsletter. I hope to see many of you there!

- Pascal Van Hentenryck

January 2025 Message: As we step into 2025, my wish for NSF AI4OPT is to continue empowering people and organizations to harness the transformative power of AI. Our institute has a long track record of building responsible AI systems that create significant value across various sectors, including power systems and supply chains.

We are thrilled to announce a groundbreaking new project with the Power Systems Engineering Research Center starting this month. Additionally, we are excited to welcome Eli Kuperman as our new Corporate Relations Program manager. He will help drive impactful AI solutions.

Education remains a cornerstone of NSF AI4OPT's efforts to empower people. After graduating, our former Ph.D. students continue to bring value with AI and optimization in a wide variety of roles. This newsletter spotlights Chung Jae Lee, one of these students. Furthermore, AI4OPT programs like the Seth Bonder Camp for high school students continue to inspire the next generation of AI and optimization enthusiasts.

NSF AI4OPT is also helping legislators learn more about AI to support them in their public roles, enabling them to make informed decisions. For example, I had the privilege of serving on the bipartisan Georgia Senate Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence, where we discussed the opportunities and challenges of AI. Our latest initiative is an AI workshop for the incoming class of Georgia legislators so they can start their terms with a solid understanding of AI.

As we look ahead, I am confident that NSF AI4OPT will continue to make a lasting impact by integrating AI and optimization to solve complex challenges. Together, we are poised to tackle new opportunities, drive innovation, and empower individuals and organizations to achieve their full potential. Let's make 2025 a year of remarkable progress.

- Pascal Van Hentenryck

October 2024 Message: In October, NSF AI4OPT celebrated its third anniversary, marking the conclusion of a year filled with scientific breakthroughs and real-world impacts at the intersection of AI and optimization. The fourth year is already off to a strong start.

NSF AI4OPT held its annual TechFest this month, Dorit Hochbaum received the Khachiyan Prize at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, and Bistra Dilkina organized a Dagstuhl workshop that brought together more than 40 researchers in AI and optimization. In collaboration with the nonprofit HerWILL, NSF AI4OPT also hosted the AI for Equality Workshops and Datathon, which drew more than 300 participants from around the world. The start of the fourth year also brings an opportunity to update NSF AI4OPT's structure to reflect its evolving research. These updates will impact how the Institute brands itself, fosters collaboration, and communicates externally.

A prime example is the new NSF AI4OPT website, which features a fresh look and organizes the Institute’s methodological thrusts into five themes that better represent its research. Despite these changes, NSF AI4OPT’s mission remains the same: to fuse AI and optimization to deliver outcomes neither field could achieve independently.

- Pascal Van Hentenryck