Cornell University

This is a past event. Its details are archived for historical purposes.

The contact information may no longer be valid.

Please visit our current events listings to look for similar events by title, location, or venue.

Ezra's Round Table/Systems Seminar: Sheldon Jacobson (Illinois) - Creating a Transparent Environment for Political Redistricting

Friday, January 31, 2020 at 12:15pm

Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall, 253

Political redistricting is a multi-criteria problem with conflicting objectives (based on metrics like compactness, population balance, and efficiency gaps, among others). Many of these metrics have received significant attention, though they remain controversial as to which such metrics are best suited to define fair district maps. This research uses a multi-objective optimization approach to reveal obstacles in defining fair district maps. The results obtained challenge a number of common perceptions of redistricting, suggesting that defining fair maps may not only be extremely difficult, but also, simply unrealistic.

Joint research with Rahul Swamy, Ian Ludden, and Douglas King.


Bio:
Sheldon H. Jacobson is a Founder Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois.  He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. (both in Mathematics) from McGill University, and a M.S. and Ph.D. (both in Operations Research) from Cornell University.  From 2012-2014, he was on leave from the University of Illinois, serving as a program director at the National Science Foundation.  His research interests span theory and practice, covering decision-making under uncertainty and optimization-based artificial intelligence, with applications in aviation security, public policy, public health, and sports.  He has been recognized by numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, and the INFORMS Impact Prize.  He is a fellow of AAAS, IISE and INFORMS.  He serves as the Founding Director for the Institute for Computational Redistricting (ICOR).

Subscribe
Google Calendar iCal Outlook
Event Type

Seminar

Departments

Systems Engineering, Cornell Engineering

Tags

engineering, systems engineering, College of Engineering

Website

http://www.systemseng.cornell.edu

Speaker

Sheldon Jacobson Ph.D. '88 (ORIE)

Speaker Affiliation

Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Recent Activity