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Statistics & Data Science Seminar
S&DS Seminar: Joel A. Tropp (Caltech)
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Speaker: Joel A. Tropp (Caltech) Steele Family Professor of Applied & Computational Mathematics California Institute of Technology Friday, February 6, 2026 11:00AM - 12:00PM Location: KT 101, 219 Prospect St, New Haven, CT 06511-8499 and via Webcast: https://yale.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=e6b0eea6-52a1-4aeb-beea-b3b700eb520d |
Speaker bio: Joel A. Tropp is the Steele Family Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics in the Computing and Mathematical Sciences Department at the California Institute of Technology. His research lies at the intersection of applied mathematics, numerical linear algebra, sparse approximation, and random matrix theory, with foundational contributions that have shaped modern approaches to data analysis and randomized algorithms.
Tropp earned his undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Plan II Honors from the University of Texas in 1999, followed by an MS (2001) and PhD (2004) in Computational and Applied Mathematics. His doctoral work, Topics in Sparse Approximation, was advised by Inderjit Dhillon and Anna C. Gilbert. After serving on the faculty at the University of Michigan from 2004 to 2007, he joined Caltech in 2007.
He is widely known for developing rigorous performance guarantees for algorithms in sparse approximation and compressed sensing, for influential work on randomized algorithms for computing low-rank matrix decompositions (including randomized SVD), and for establishing powerful matrix concentration inequalities, such as the matrix Chernoff bound. His work combines mathematical depth with practical impact, and is broadly used across signal processing, machine learning, and data science.
Tropp’s honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2008), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2010), the Vasil A. Popov Prize in approximation theory (2010), and the Monroe H. Martin Prize in applied mathematics (2011). He is a SIAM Fellow, has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science, and was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in the class of 2026.
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