2021 Dantzig Prize Citation

The George B. Dantzig prize is awarded for original research, which by its originality, breadth, and scope, is having a major impact on the field of mathematical programming. The 2021 winners are

• Michel Goemans from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
• Hédy Attouch from the Université Montpellier 2.

The Dantzig Prize is awarded to Michel Goemans for his outstanding contributions to the field of combinatorial optimization; most notably, the initiation of new research directions, introduction of novel and deep techniques, and ingenious use of sampling, rounding, and geometric ideas to significantly advance several fields, including the pioneering use of semi-definite programming for the design of approximation algorithms.

The Dantzig Prize is awarded to Hédy Attouch for his fundamental contributions to modern variational analysis and nonsmooth optimization, including new notions of variational convergence, the introduction of novel topologies for the study of quantitative stability of variational systems, and their application in algorithm design and analysis, dynamical systems and partial differential equations.