This Focus Program aims to bring together researchers in data science and optimization, both theoretical and applied, in an effort to bridge the fields and stimulate cross-disciplinary interaction and collaborative work. 

Data science and optimization are increasingly intertwined as both focus on developing computational and methodological approaches to tackling big, and otherwise complex, datasets. Optimization is mostly concerned with accuracy, computational efficiency, and robustness while data science focuses on achieving effective results on real datasets. Although some data science approaches involve implicit optimization of some objective function, there remains a dearth of work that brings advanced optimization techniques to bear on data science problems. 

Participants will be able to discuss and collaborate on a wide variety of mathematical problems to develop both novel formulations and efficient computational approaches. The strengths and limitations of currently used advanced software will be investigated to search for new ideas and extensions.