TWCCC Fall 2026 Meeting - In Person
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Travel Information [link]
Location for Talks: Pyle Center - Alumni Lounge [link]
Location for Poster Session and Dinner: Tripp Commons (Memorial Union) [link]
Recommended Parking Lots: State Street Campus Garage (5 min walk to event) [link] and State Street Capitol Parking Garage (15 min walk to event): [link]
Access to Files [link]
WiFi Access: UWNet (open to all, just register) or Eduroam (open to academics and students)
Final Program (All Times Central)
Monday September 14th
Breakfast on your own
8:45 Welcome and Introduction
9:00 - Steve Wright (UW-Madison): Recent Trends in AI/ML
9:45 - Break
10:00 - Jim Rawlings (UC Santa Barbara): The impact of LLMs on our research programs
10:45 - Ilias Mitrai (UT Austin): Data-driven discovery of iterative algorithms
11:30 - Lunch (on your own)
13:00 - Michael Baldea (UT Austin): Achievable performance for ML models
13:45 - Jay Lee (University of Southern California): Learning-Guided Decomposition Methods for Multi-Stage Stochastic Capacity Planning
14:30 - Break
14:45 - Styliana Avraamidou (UW-Madison): Uncovering the burden shifting of data center cooling: System-level water-energy-carbon optimization
15:20 - Joel Paulson (UW-Madison): How to globally optimize trained Gaussian process surrogates and when it matters
15:55 - Victor Zavala (UW-Madison): Advances in GrOptimization
16:30 - Reception + Poster Presentations by Students/Postdocs
18:00 - Group Dinner (Provided)
Tuesday September 15th
Breakfast on your own
8:00 - 9:00 - PIs + Industry Meeting (coffee+pastries provided) - Discussion on emerging trends and challenges.
9:00 - Curtis Barr (Amcor) - Perspect on Challenges and Opportunities of Automation in Manufacturing
9:45 - Break and Group Picture
10:00 - Student/Postdoc Talks
Zakariya Al Kharusi (Rawlings Group): "Economic MPC for Integrated Pricing and Inventory Management Under Volatile Demand"
Natalia Cislo (Baldea Group): "Operational Strategies of an Electrically Heated Dividing-Wall Distillation Column – Theory and Experiments"
Parth Brahmbhatt (Avraamidou Group): "Autonomous Market Participation for Distributed Energy Resources: Maximizing Profit through Generalized Nash Equilibrium Peer Coalitions"
Ugo Ikegwu (Zavala Group): "Navigating Large Chemical Spaces using Graph Theory and Integer Programming"
Nathaniel Massa (Paulson Group): “Unlocking Surrogate Linearization: Tractable Global Optimization of Nonlinear Systems via Sparse ReLU Neural Network Surrogates"
12:05 - Concluding Remarks + Adjourn
Poster Titles
Zakariya Al Kharusi (Rawlings Group): "Economic MPC for Integrated Pricing and Inventory Management Under Volatile Demand"
Natalia Cislo (Baldea Group): "Operational Strategies of an Electrically Heated Dividing-Wall Distillation Column – Theory and Experiments"
Madhav Muthyala (Paulson Group): "From Learned Neural ODE Dynamics to Compact Analytical Equations via Symbolic Regression”
Tianhong Tan (Paulson Group): “Human-in-the-Loop Microscopy Image Analysis using Vision Foundation Models"
Wei-Ting Tang (Paulson Group): “Advancing Bayesian Optimization: Global Acquisition Optimization, High-Dimensional Scaling, and Diversity-Driven Discovery”
Max Depperschmidt (Paulson Group): “An active machine learning framework for designing nanoprobes targeting chronic pain signaling"
Kiernan Jennings (Avraamidou/Zavala Group): "Multi-Scale Optimization for Capacity Planning and Operations of Electrolysis Systems"
Kang Qiu (Zavala Group - NTNU Visitor): "Dual Model Predictive Control: Fusing Stochastic MPC, Bayesian Optimization, and Closed-Loop Learning"
Angan Mukherjee (Zavala Group): "Topological Data Analysis for Multivariate Process Monitoring"
Joe Flory (Zavala Group): "Bayesian Optimization for Dynamic Catalysis"
Jukbin Kim (Zavala Group): "Accelerating Lagrangian Decomposition using Bayesian Optimization"
Manuel Gomez (Zavala Group): "Large Language Models for Optimization: A Case Study in Supply Chains"
Zakariya Al Kharusi (Rawlings Group): "Economic MPC for Integrated Pricing and Inventory Management Under Volatile Demand"
Natalia Cislo (Baldea Group): "Operational Strategies of an Electrically Heated Dividing-Wall Distillation Column – Theory and Experiments"
Parth Brahmbhatt (Avraamidou Group): "Autonomous Market Participation for Distributed Energy Resources: Maximizing Profit through Generalized Nash Equilibrium Peer Coalitions"
Raj Wagh (Avraamidou Group): "A Digital Twin Architecture for Prognosis and Degradation-Aware MPC in Fuel Cell Vehicles"
Kenneth Martinez (Avraamidou Group): "Multiperiod Infrastructure and Fleet Planning for Decarbonizing Heavy-Duty Transportation Sector Based on Freight Service"
Javiera Vergara Zambrano (Avraamidou Group): "Closing the Loop In Energy Systems Planning: A Multi-Scale Capacity Expansion Model Integrating Decommissioning and End-of-Life Management"
Meng-Lin Tsai (Avraamidou Group): "Event-triggered Expansion of Multi-parametric solution space to solve Benders decomposition"