Navid Azizan

Navid Azizan Pronunciation🔊 Alfred H. (1929) and Jean M. Hayes Career Development Assistant Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Email: [last name]@mit.edu

Bio

Navid Azizan is the Alfred H. (1929) and Jean M. Hayes Career Development Assistant Professor at MIT, where he holds dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (in Control, Instrumentation & Robotics) and the Schwarzman College of Computing's Institute for Data, Systems & Society (IDSS) and is a Principal Investigator in the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS). He is also a faculty member of the MIT Statistics and Data Science Center, the Center for Computational Science and Engineering, and the Operations Research Center. His research interests broadly lie in machine learning, systems and control, mathematical optimization, and network science. His research lab focuses on various aspects of reliable intelligent systems, with an emphasis on principled learning and optimization algorithms, with applications to autonomy and sociotechnical systems. He obtained his PhD in Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2020, his MSc in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 2015, and his BSc in electrical engineering with a minor in physics from Sharif University of Technology in 2013. Prior to joining MIT, he completed a postdoc in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) at Stanford University in 2021. Additionally, he was a research scientist intern at Google DeepMind in 2019. His work has been recognized by several awards, including Research Awards from Google, Amazon, and MathWorks, the 2020 Information Theory and Applications (ITA) “Sun” (Gold) Graduation Award, and the 2016 ACM Greenmetrics Best Student Paper Award. He was named to the list of Outstanding Academic Leaders in Data by CDO Magazine in 2024 and 2023, named an Amazon Fellow in Artificial Intelligence in 2017, and a PIMCO Fellow in Data Science in 2018. He was also the first-place winner and a gold medalist at the 2008 National Physics Olympiad in Iran.

Employment

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alfred H. (1929) and Jean M. Hayes Career Development Chair, Jul 2025 – Present Esther and Harold E. Edgerton (1927) Career Development Chair, Jul 2022 – Jun 2025 Assistant Professor, Jul 2021 – Present Department of Mechanical Engineering; Control, Instrumentation & Robotics (CIR) Schwarzman College of Computing's Institute for Data, Systems & Society (IDSS) & Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS)

Stanford University Postdoctoral Fellow, Dec 2020 – Aug 2021 Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL)

California Institute of Technology Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant, Jun 2015 – Aug 2020 Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS)

Google DeepMind Research Scientist Intern, Jun 2019 – Oct 2019

Education

• Ph.D. in Computing and Mathematical Sciences
  California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
  Dissertation Title: Large-Scale Intelligent Systems: From Network Dynamics to Optimization Algorithms
  Advisors: Babak Hassibi and Adam Wierman
  Jun 2015 – Aug 2020

• M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering
  University of Southern California
  Aug 2013 – May 2015

• B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with Minor in Physics
  Sharif University of Technology
  Sep 2009 – Jul 2013