Computer Science Lecture Series. This talk explores averaging dynamics, a fundamental mechanism underlying many distributed algorithms, including distributed optimization, sensing, and learning. I present the infinite flow theory framework for analyzing averaging dynamics and highlight our developments in this area—particularly an extension of the Perron-Frobenius theorem for sequences of row-stochastic matrices. I will also introduce a lifting for the averaging dynamics, referred to as random adaptation dynamics, and examine key properties of the original dynamics through this lens.

Speaker: Behrouz Touri, Associate Professor of the Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Speaker Bio: Behrouz Touri is Associate Professor of the Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining UIUC, he was an Associate Professor of ECE at the University of California, San Diego. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran in 2006, his M.Sc. degree in Communications, Systems, Electronics from Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany in 2008, and his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011. His research interests include applied probability theory, distributed optimization, control and estimation, population dynamics, and game theory. He was the recipient of the American Control Council’s Donald P. Eckman Award in 2018.

There will be refreshments before the talk at 2:15pm outside of LL2.224

Hosted by Professor Stephanie Gil