During the pandemic, I founded and co-organized the “Control meets Learning” virtual seminar series. Check out the videos here!
Bio
Navid Azizan is the Alfred H. (1929) and Jean M. Hayes Career Development Chair and Associate 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 Core Faculty Member of the Statistics and Data Science Center and the Center for Computational Science and Engineering.
His research interests broadly lie in machine learning, systems and control, and mathematical optimization. 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 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 the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, research awards from Amazon, Google, and MathWorks, among others, and Best Paper awards at several venues, including the Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC), INFORMS JFIG, and ACM Greenmetrics. He was named in the list of Outstanding Academic Leaders in Data by the CDO Magazine for two consecutive years in 2024 and 2023 and received the inaugural Information Theory and Applications (ITA) “Sun” (Gold) Graduation Award in 2020.
His teaching and mentorship have been recognized with the Joseph A. Martore (1975) Excellence in Teaching Award in 2026, the Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising (MIT Institute Award) in 2025, and the UROP Outstanding Mentor Award in 2023.
Employment
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Associate Professor, Jul 2026 – Present
Alfred H. (1929) and Jean M. Hayes Career Development Chair, Jul 2025 – Jun 2026
Esther and Harold E. Edgerton (1927) Career Development Chair, Jul 2022 – Jun 2025
