Donald Goldfarb's teaching and research interests include algorithms for linear, quadratic, semidefinite, convex and general nonlinear programming, network flows, large sparse systems, and applications in robust optimization, imaging, machine learning, and finance.
Goldfarb has been a faculty member at Columbia Engineering since 1982. He served as Interim dean of the School in 2012-2013, executive vice dean in 2011-2012, acting dean in 1994-95, and chair of the IEOR department from 1984 to 2002.
He has published more than 100 technical papers and served on the editorial boards of several journals, including editor in chief of Mathematical Programming, editor of the SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) Journal on Optimization and the SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, and associate editor of Operations Research and Mathematics of Computation. He has been a member of the councils of the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society, numerous technical society program and award committees, and advisory committees to various universities and government research agencies.
Before coming to Columbia, Goldfarb held positions as professor and acting chair in the Department of Computer Science at the City College of New York, visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science and at the School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Cornell University, and assistant research scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University.
Goldfarb earned a BChE from Cornell in 1963 and MA and PhD from Princeton in 1965 and 1966, respectively.
