Computational Stochastic Optimization and Learning

As of Sept 1, 2020, I have retired from Princeton University.  I am now the Chief Analytics Officer of Optimal Dynamics which licensed my library for truckload trucking and dynamic resource allocation.  

I am pleased to announce that I recently won the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Transportation Science and Logistics within Informs.  Click here for the video I prepared for the award that summarized my life path that led to my universal framework for sequential decision problems.

Warren Powell
Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

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CASTLE Labs works to advance the development of modern analytics for solving a wide range of applications that involve decisions under uncertainty. 

New book!  Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization: A unified framework for sequential decisions.  

New resource page for sequential decision analytics: https://tinyurl.com/sdalinks/

  • We have initiated a new field we are calling Sequential Decision Analytics which offers a universal framework for sequential decision problems under uncertainty, which unifies 15 different communities that all deal with decisions under uncertainty.
  • Teaching – We now teach this framework to both undergraduates and graduate students across a range of departments.
  • We have created a new class of policy based on the idea of parameterizing a deterministic optimization model for solving complex stochastic problems.  We call this “parametric cost function approximations.”
  • What is AI? – My attempt at describing “artificial intelligence.”
  • What is reinforcement learning? – My attempt at describing “reinforcement learning.”

Surrounding the core activities in methodology are laboratories focusing on major areas of application:

  • Optimal learning – This research addresses the challenges of collecting information, when information (observations, simulations, laboratory and field experiments) are expensive. 
  • Health sciences – Projects in health have included drug discovery, drug delivery, blood management, dosage decisions, personal health, and health policy.

I hope you find the material interesting, and perhaps useful. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Warren Powell
email: wbpowell328@gmail.com