Williamson

David P. Williamson, professor of operations research and information engineering, has received a Humboldt Research Award, which recognizes "fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights" that have had "significant impact" on a certain discipline.

Another Cornell researcher, professor of computer science Johannes Gehrke, also received a Humboldt Research Award.

Williamson, who joined the Cornell faculty in 2004, studies the design and analysis of polynomial time algorithms for the approximate solution of hard problems in discrete optimization, especially problems arising in network design, scheduling, facility, location and routing. He focuses on the use of techniques from the area of mathematical programming for designing such algorithms, including such techniques as the primal-dual method and semidefinite programming.

Award winners are invited to spend up to a year cooperating on a long-term research project with specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany. Williamson was nominated for the award by professor Martin Skutella of the Berlin Institute of Technology.