Our Team
Ziena's founders include a world-renowned team of scientists specializing in nonlinear and large-scale optimization. Their areas of expertise encompass modeling and solution of optimization problems arising in business and engineering. The methods and software created by Ziena's scientists are in use at hundreds of sites worldwide to address a variety of problems in energy, communications, finance, and engineering.
Richard Waltz, President
As president and chief software engineer, Richard is the primary creator and developer of Ziena's software. He is involved in all stages of the optimization technology, from the initial algorithm design and analysis and its software implementation, to its final product form.Richard holds a B.S.degree in Physics from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northwestern University. Richard co-founded Ziena in 2001.
Jorge Nocedal, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for software development, Jorge plays an active role in the design, development and testing of all of Ziena's products. He originated the research project that gave rise to the KNITRO optimizer and was instrumental in the formation of Ziena to develop and market KNITRO. He oversees Ziena's consulting activities and takes a leading role in formulating future software directions.Jorge holds a B.S. degree from the University of Mexico (UNAM) and a Ph.D. from Rice University. He holds joint appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University.
Robert Fourer, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for optimization modeling, Bob oversees Ziena's strategy for integrating its software with both general-purpose and application-specific modeling languages and systems. He has over 25 years of experience studying the design of optimization software and observing the optimization systems business. He co-designed the popular AMPL modeling language and system.Bob holds a B.S. degree from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. He has been a member of Northwestern University's Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department since 1979, and has spent two sabbatical years as a visitor to the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Laboratories.
Richard Byrd, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for numerical computing, Richard is directly involved in the design and analysis of Ziena's optimization algorithms and software. Currently he is working on Ziena's new active set algorithm, and is responsible for the numerical accuracy and efficiency of all of Ziena's software. Richard has over 25 years of experience in optimization and scientific computing, and is a leading expert in local and global optimization.Richard holds B.S. and Ph.D degrees from Rice University. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
