Wotao Yin
Also known as 印卧涛
Wotao Yin works on optimization for compressed sensing, variational image processing, and machine learning. He completed a Columbia University doctorate in operations research in 2006 under Donald Goldfarb, then worked in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University from 2006 to 2013. An NSF CAREER award came in 2008, and a Sloan Research Fellowship came in 2009. With Damek Davis he introduced a three-operator splitting scheme in 2015, and he received a Morningside Gold Medal in 2016. In 2019 he joined Alibaba US, where he directs the Decision Intelligence Lab at DAMO Academy; in March 2026 the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics named him a fellow.
Timeline
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2006
A Columbia operations doctorate
He completes a doctorate in operations research at Columbia University in 2006 under Donald Goldfarb.
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2006–2013
Faculty years at Rice
From 2006 to 2013 he works in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University, and he receives an NSF CAREER award in 2008 and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2009.
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April 2015
A three-operator splitting scheme
In April 2015 he and Damek Davis introduce a splitting scheme for a monotone inclusion of three operators, one of which is cocoercive. The scheme gives an extension of the classic ADMM from 2 to 3 blocks of variables.
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2016
A Morningside Gold Medal
He receives a Morningside Gold Medal in 2016.
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Since 2019
Decision Intelligence at Alibaba
He joins Alibaba US in 2019 after a professorship in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a research scientist and principal engineer, and he directs the Decision Intelligence Lab at DAMO Academy. The lab's work covers optimization solvers, time-series products, and controllable decision model-based solutions.
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2021
The Egon Balas Prize
He receives the INFORMS Egon Balas Prize and a DAMO Award in 2021. His optimization research applies to machine learning and data science.
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December 2022
A convex optimization book
In December 2022 Cambridge University Press publishes Large-Scale Convex Optimization: Algorithms and Analyses via Monotone Operators, which he writes with Ernest K. Ryu.
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March 2026
A SIAM fellowship
In March 2026 the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics names him a fellow for contributions to operator splitting, parallel and distributed computing, compressed sensing, and variational image processing. He is at the Decision Intelligence Lab, DAMO Academy, Alibaba Group US.
Sources and credits
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