Ali Jadbabaie

Ali Jadbabaie is an MIT professor whose work connects network science, multi-agent coordination, and machine learning. Born in Iran and raised mostly in Tehran, he earned degrees at Sharif University of Technology, the University of New Mexico, and Caltech before joining Penn in 2002. His research includes a 2002 paper on mobile-agent coordination and an Army Research Office project on decision-making under computational and cognitive constraints. As of October 2026, he heads MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where his group studies optimization theory for machine learning.

Now at: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Works: 534
Citations: 27,575
h-index: 65

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

1995

From Tehran to Sharif

Born in Iran, he grows up mostly in Tehran. In 1995, he earns a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with a focus in control systems from Sharif University of Technology.
1997–2000

Graduate study in engineering

He earns a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico in 1997 and a PhD in control and dynamical systems from Caltech in 2000.
By 2002

A Yale postdoctoral year

After a postdoctoral year at Yale, he joins the University of Pennsylvania faculty in July 2002.
2002–2005

A mobile-agent coordination paper

He, Jie Lin, and A. Stephen Morse publish a 2002 paper on nearest-neighbor coordination of mobile autonomous agents. The IEEE Control Systems Society gives it the 2005 George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award.
2013

A network science professorship

In 2013, he becomes the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Network Science in Penn's Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering.
2016

Leading IDSS at MIT

He moves to MIT full-time in 2016, becoming associate director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and director of its Sociotechnical Systems Research Center.
2019–2024

Decision-making under constraints

From 2019 to 2024, he leads an Army Research Office MURI project on individual and group decision-making under computational and cognitive constraints.
As of October 2026

Head of MIT CEE

As of October 2026, he heads MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is its JR East Professor of Engineering. His group studies optimization theory for machine learning.