Past Awards
The Saul Gass Expository Writing Award for 2014 is awarded to Professor Stephen Boyd of Stanford University. Professor Boyd is the author of many research articles and three books:Convex Optimization(with Lieven Vandenberghe, 2004),Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory(with L. El Ghaoui, E. Feron, and V. Balakrishnan, 1994), andLinear Controller Design: Limits of Performance(with Craig Barratt, 1991). His group has produced several open source tools, including CVX (with Michael Grant), a widely used parser-solver for convex optimization.
Through his written works, Professor Boyd has made convex optimization accessible to a very large audience, especially in engineering schools. His bookConvex Optimizationis full of exciting applications, is lucidly written and has been used to teach convex optimization to tens of thousands of students worldwide. The corresponding graduate level class he teaches at Stanford attracts over 200 students, making it one of the most popular classes taught at Stanford. As an indication of impact the book has over 21,000 citations in Google scholar.
His bookMatrix Inequalities in System and Control Theoryis also nicely written and has introduced advanced semidefinite optimizations methods to control community. The book has over 15,000 citations in Google scholar.
His survey papers on Semidefinite optimization (with Lieven Vandenberghe, 1996) and Applications of Second Order Cone Constraints (with Miguel Lobo, Lieven Vandenberghe, Herve Lebret, 1998) are examples of writing clarity that have had a significant impact on popularizing convex optimization. In general, the expository excellence of Professor Boyd’s books and publications has helped to disseminate his ideas across the operations research and management science communities.