Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) is proud to announce that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy named Juan Pablo Vielma (Ph.D. IE 2009) as one of the recipients of the 2017 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE award represents the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.

“It is truly an honor to receive this award that recognizes federally funded research, which had its inception during my Ph.D. at Georgia Tech. I am indebted to ISyE and my advisors for the training and mentoring I received, as well as NSF for their support," said Vielma.

In 2009, Vielma earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was advised by Dean's Professor and Stewart Faculty Fellow Shabbir Ahmed and A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Institute Professor George Nemhauser.

He obtained a B.S and M.S. in mathematical engineering from the University of Chile. Vielma spent a year at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center as the 2009 Herman Goldstine Postdoctoral Fellow. He went on to serve as an assistant professor of industrial engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh prior to joining the MIT Sloan School of Management in July 2012. Vielma has been affiliated with the MIT Operations Research Center since 2012.

His research interests include theory and technology for linear, nonlinear, and stochastic mixed integer programming, as well as optimization models in natural resource management, marketing, and statistics.