Two ORIE grads named to Forbes' 30-under-30.
Earlier this year, Forbes magazine published its fifth annual 30 Under 30 are America’s most important young entrepreneurs, creative leaders and brightest stars. It was no small feat as the Forbes researchers and writers pared down more than 15,000 nominees to a list of 600 of the best and brightest women and men.
Two of those “best of the best” are ORIE graduate Adam Elmachtoub ’09 and CAM Ph.D. graduate Scott Clark ’12, who studied under ORIE associate professor Peter Frazier while at Cornell.
Adam Elmachtoub ’09 ORIE
Assistant Professor, Columbia University
How do customers choose products? How should online sellers manage their supply chains? These are among the questions Dr. Elmachtoub is trying to solve. An assistant professor in Columbia University’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Elmachtoub’s research is focused on using data science and optimization algorithms to make businesses more efficient.
In 2014-2015, Elmachtoub spent one year at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center working in the area of Smarter Commerce. His research currently focuses on designing new approaches for supply chain and revenue management, especially where the two areas collide. More broadly, he is interested in leveraging data to make informed decisions in industries such as retail, logistics, and travel.
A Merrill Scholar at Cornell, Elmachtoub graduated summa cum laude in only three years with his B.S. in operations research, and enrolled as a Ph.D. student in Operations Research at MIT with a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense. He received his Ph.D. in 2014.
Scott Clark Ph.D. ’12 CAM
Cofounder and CEO, SigOpt
In 2014, Scott Clark founded SigOpt to commercialize software he developed that uses machine learning and complex algorithms to optimize user experiments for websites and applications. SigOpt has raised $2.12 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Data Collective and others.
Prior to founding SigOpt, Clark brought his work with ORIE Associate Professor Peter Frazier to Yelp and the open source world. As one of the first Ph.D.’s hired by Yelp, Clark built a “black box” optimization system, Metrics Optimization Engine (MOE), developed in collaboration with Frazier. Clark also promoted a “multi-armed bandit” approach to Yelp’s decision-making that is based on his “optimal learning” thesis work with Frazier.
The Class of 2016 by the Numbers*:
15,000+: Nominations
600: Winners
64%: Want to ‘Change the world’
50%: Define success as ‘Liking myself and what I do’
5 top cities of residence (in order): New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago
3 most popular undergrad schools (in order): Stanford, U. Penn, Cornell
69%: Earned college degrees
50%: Have zero college debt
63%: Identify as growing up middle class
36%: Immigrants or first-generation Americans
84%: Single
No. 1 and 2 dream mentors: Elon Musk and Sheryl Sandberg
No. 1 can’t-live-without gadget: iPhone
*Percentages taken from total number of respondents
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