Stephen Boyd

Stephen P. Boyd serves as the Samsung Professor of Engineering at Stanford University, where he has revolutionized the field of convex optimization since joining the faculty in 1985. After earning his AB in Mathematics summa cum laude from Harvard in 1980 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 1985, he has built an extraordinary career combining research excellence with exceptional teaching. His contributions include four influential books and widely-used open-source tools like CVX and CVXPY, with his "Convex Optimization" text garnering over 21,000 citations. His graduate optimization course attracts 300 students from 25 departments, reflecting his ability to make complex concepts accessible across disciplines. His work extends to practical applications, with his group's CVXGEN software being used in SpaceX's Falcon rockets for precision landing. His excellence in teaching has earned him numerous honors, including the Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford's highest teaching recognition, and the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal. As a member of the National Academy of Engineering and holder of honorary doctorates from multiple institutions, he continues to advance the field through his research in optimization applications for control, signal processing, machine learning, and finance while maintaining his commitment to innovative education.