Dr. Stephen P. Boyd stands as a preeminent figure in engineering and optimization theory with a distinguished career spanning nearly four decades at Stanford University. He currently holds the prestigious Samsung Professorship in Engineering while serving as Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Information Systems Laboratory and as a member of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. Boyd received his AB degree in Mathematics summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1980 and completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985 under the supervision of Charles A. Desoer, S. Shankar Sastry and Leon Ong Chua. Since joining Stanford's Electrical Engineering Department in 1985, he has established himself as a transformative educator and researcher while holding numerous visiting professorships at institutions worldwide including Katholieke University in Leuven, MIT, NYU, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Professor Boyd's pioneering work in convex optimization has fundamentally reshaped multiple engineering disciplines through his development of both theoretical frameworks and practical computational tools. His seminal textbook Convex Optimization co-authored with Lieven Vandenberghe has become the definitive reference in the field, educating generations of researchers and practitioners across engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics. The practical impact of his research is evident in technologies such as the CVXGEN software developed by his research group, which guides autonomous precision landing for SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. His open-source optimization tools including CVX, CVXPY, and Convex.jl have been adopted by researchers and industry professionals worldwide, democratizing access to advanced optimization techniques and enabling breakthroughs across diverse application domains from circuit design to financial engineering.
Beyond his technical contributions, Professor Boyd has profoundly influenced engineering education through his innovative teaching methods and widely adopted textbooks that have transformed how optimization and linear algebra are taught at universities globally. His exceptional teaching has been recognized with Stanford's highest honor, the Walter J. Gores Award in 2016, and the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal in 2017 for his transformative impact on optimization education. As a mentor, he has guided numerous doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to become leaders in academia and industry, while his vision for applying convex optimization to emerging challenges continues to drive research in machine learning, finance, and control systems. Professor Boyd remains at the forefront of his field, actively developing new optimization methodologies while inspiring the next generation of engineers through his accessible teaching style and commitment to clear, practical mathematical education.
