Anil Aswani

Timeline

1. 2005–2010

   Michigan and Berkeley degrees

   He earns a BS in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2005. In 2010, he completes a PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley with Claire Tomlin, with a designated emphasis in computational and genomic biology. His thesis, Systems Theory for Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery, develops tools for modeling biological systems and selecting drug targets.

2. 2012

   Learning control for buildings

   In 2012, he coauthors Energy-Efficient Building HVAC Control Using Hybrid System LBMPC with Neal Master, Jay Taneja, Andrew Krioukov, David Culler, and Claire Tomlin. The controller learns from model updates that account for occupancy, solar heating, outside temperature, and equipment. Experiments reduce energy use while maintaining occupant comfort.

3. April 2018

   Fair support vector machines

   With Mahbod Olfat, he publishes Spectral Algorithms for Computing Fair Support Vector Machines at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics in April 2018. The paper develops algorithms for linear and kernel classifiers that constrain bias against protected groups, including groups defined by age, gender, or race.

4. December 2018

   Reidentifying activity-tracker data

   In December 2018, he leads a study published in JAMA Network Open showing that AI can identify individuals by matching daily step patterns with demographic data. The work shows how measurements from activity trackers can threaten the privacy of health data.

5. February 2019

   An NSF CAREER award

   In February 2019, he receives an NSF CAREER award of $500,000 as an assistant professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Berkeley. The award supports algorithms and models that combine data from patient groups and individual patients for personalized management of chronic diseases.

6. June 2021

   Meal preparation and SNAP

   In June 2021, he coauthors a JAMA Network Open study with Barbara Laraia and Matt Olfat on meal quality among recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Their analytical model links more available cooking time with higher-quality meals and reduced sodium consumption.

7. 2025

   Personalized warfarin dosing

   In 2025, he coauthors Learning Interactions Between Continuous Treatments and Covariates with a Semiparametric Model with Muyan Jiang and Yunkai Zhang at the Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning. The method separates baseline health risk from treatment interactions and uses clinical and genetic data to derive personalized warfarin dosing recommendations.

8. April 2026

   Collusion-resistant auction design

   In April 2026, he and Berkeley industrial engineering and operations research doctoral students Sukanya Kudva and Ed Oak Dowling propose Collusion-proof Auction Design using Side Information. Their hybrid auction uses indicators of collusion to assign bidders to an auction or a posted price, preserving incentives for truthful bidding and improving welfare and revenue in simulations.

9. As of October 2026

   Professor at Berkeley

   As of October 2026, he is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on using data to improve decisions in health systems and physical infrastructure.