Dr. Dimitri Bartzekas ’71, Jerry McAfee (’40), professor emeritus of engineering within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science (EECS), principal investigator within the Institute for Data and Determination Techniques (LIDS), and Fulton Professor of Computational Determination Making at Arizona State College, died on June 3 at his dwelling in Belmont, Massachusetts. He was 83 years previous.
All through his profession, Bertsekas’ analysis has had a decisive affect on a number of areas, together with optimization, management, large-scale computing, reinforcement studying, and synthetic intelligence. He served as a guide for varied personal corporations. Editor of a number of scientific journals. Founding father of a publishing firm athena scientific;Chief Scientific Advisor at Bayforest Applied sciences, a quantitative funding agency based mostly in London; However his most lasting affect might have come via his prolific authorship and co-authorship of greater than 20 extremely influential books, volumes, and textbooks, and his huge community of scholars, mentors, mates, and collaborators.
Bertsekas acquired his bachelor’s diploma from the Nationwide Technical College of Athens, Greece, his grasp’s diploma in electrical engineering from George Washington College in 1969, and his doctorate in methods science from MIT in 1971. He started his school profession at Stanford College, spending three years there, 5 extra years on the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and returning to MIT in 1979. I labored within the EECS division at MIT till 2019, at which level I joined the full-time school at Arizona State College, Tempe. Alongside the best way, Belzekas taught, suggested, and mentored college students who would ultimately turn into his colleagues in any respect 4 establishments.
“Dimitri performed a decisive function in my profession,” says As Ozdagler, head of the EECS division at Massachusetts Institute of Expertise. “After taking his nonlinear optimization class, I made a decision to alter my analysis focus. The conceptual readability and mathematical rigor he introduced to each subject, mixed together with his potential to attach principle to necessary issues, established a basis that continued to tell my educational work for years to come back,” mentioned Jinan Abounadi, one other former MIT pupil who’s now govt director of the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund program. I nonetheless bear in mind Mr. Bartzekas’ teaching as a spotlight of my time as a pupil. “I really feel very lucky to have Dimitri as my professor and advisor. I had the chance to find out about optimization, dynamic programming, and neurodynamic programming from a real grasp.”
Steven E. Shreve, a former pupil on the College of Illinois, remembers being impressed by Bertsekas’ nonlinear optimization course and asking if he would think about turning into his doctoral advisor. “Reasonably than straight answering my questions, Dimitri gave me a preliminary draft of what would ultimately turn into his e book, Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Management, and requested me to proofread it,” recollects Shreve, now Orion Hoch Professor Emeritus within the Division of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon College. “From this manuscript, I discovered the idea of dynamic programming and mastered many necessary particular circumstances. I acquired one-on-one instruction, speaking with Dimitri as I learn the e book. When the e book was lastly printed, Dimitri generously allowed my participation, as if I had performed him a favor, not that I had performed him a favor.” This technique was typical of Bartzekas’ modest strategy as a mentor. After a profitable preliminary collaboration, Bartzekas organized a analysis fellowship for Shreve, difficult him to unravel basic issues in dynamic programming. “I needed to be taught a variety of set principle simply to consider the questions he requested,” Shreve recollects. Shreve mixed his analysis on this downside with Bartzekas’ notes to co-author Stochastic Optimum Management: The Discrete-Time Case.
“Working with Dimitri, [that book] “I discovered from Dimitri that if you wish to be acknowledged on your analysis, it’s important to publish it in a means that different folks wish to learn, and I discovered how to try this,” says Shreve.
The readability and class of Belzekas’ explanatory model would turn into his pedagogical hallmark. “Everybody acknowledged Dimitri’s nice expertise as a author, however he went above and past to prepare the entire topic into an comprehensible, well-organized entire,” says Robert Gallagher, professor emeritus {of electrical} engineering on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, who co-authored a 1987 e book with Bartzekas titled Information Networks. “At the moment, the sphere was altering quickly, with computational prices reducing by an element of two each two years. Dimitri and I every understood solely a part of the sphere, however the remaining was a fast-paced studying expertise. Dimitri was a perfect associate on this area, in a position to rapidly translate troublesome ideas into easy and correct explanations, and mixing my information together with his to create an comprehensible entire.”
LIDS Munter Dahle, a detailed colleague of Belzekas’s on the Institute, mentioned: “What all the time struck me was how, via his writing, you could possibly virtually hear Dimitri talking on to the reader. His instinct, readability of thought, and distinctive perspective come via superbly in his books. It additionally displays his ardour for studying and his want to assist others perceive the topic at a deeper degree. …Particularly, his co-authored work with John Tsitsiklis is a superb work that helped pre-empt and outline lots of the concepts that later turned central to reinforcement studying and approximate dynamic programming.”
Tsitsiklis himself fondly remembers the collaborative course of with Belzekas, saying, “For Dimitri, analysis was a artistic kind that mixed craftsmanship and creativity that we normally name artwork.” The definition of artwork and its follow is a topic of nice fascination for Belzekas, which he explored intimately in a 2025 essay.Academics, art, and lifeThat is an try and meaningfully categorize artistic work into three broad descriptive roles: technician, craftsman, and artist, and to discover the overlap between the three varieties of practices. Along with his clear and lucid writing, Bartzekas was identified for his robust graphic eye, a expertise he used not solely to develop the illustrations for all his textbooks, but additionally to take memorable and artistically impressed pictures from his travels world wide.
David Castañon, a longtime collaborator and pal who’s now a professor {of electrical} and laptop engineering at Boston College, recollects Bartzekas as a real renaissance man who drew inspiration from numerous sources: “Dimitri had an insatiable curiosity for algorithmic concepts, each theoretical and sensible. A lot of it was impressed by new applied sciences (parallel computer systems, reinforcement studying, chess algorithms)…Every time we met, Dimitri would introduce new ideas of curiosity and we might work.” Dimitri’s inventive expertise then took over, designing graphics as an example ideas and typesetting textual content and figures for the ultimate paper. These skills led to his publishing firm, Athena Scientific, the place Dimitri and his co-authors have created elegant instructional books with vast enchantment. ” Tsitsiklis agreed, saying: [research] It was about discovering that means, revealing the “proper” means of taking a look at a topic, enriching it and speaking it in a really clear means via his prolific writings. ”
Bertsekas has written or co-authored greater than 20 books, lots of which have been accepted into MIT textbooks on subjects resembling knowledge networks, nonlinear programming, dynamic programming, community optimization, parallel and distributed computing, neural dynamic programming, convex evaluation and optimization, chance, and reinforcement studying. Stephen Boyd, Samsung Professor of Engineering at Stanford College, attested to the profound affect of Bartzekas’ work, saying, “Generations of researchers in optimization, management, and lots of associated fields have relied on Dimitri’s crystal clear and delightful work.” I discovered about these subjects from well-written textbooks.The truth is, I used to be launched to those fields in no small half due to Dimitri’s books, and his affect has remained with me ever since.
His affect will be measured by the huge variety of awards and honors Bertsekas has accrued all through his profession. These embody the INFORMS 1997 Award for Excellence in Analysis on the Interface between Operations Analysis and Laptop Science for Neurodynamic Programming, the 2001 ACC John R. Ragazzini Schooling Award, the 2009 INFORMS Expository Writing Award, and the 2014 ACC Richard E. Bellman Management Heritage Award. He acquired the 2014 Hachiyan Award for Lifetime Achievement in Optimization, the 2015 SIAM/MOS George B. Danzig Award, and the 2022 IEEE Management Techniques Award for “Contributions to the Fundamentals of Deterministic and Stochastic Optimization-Primarily based Strategies in Techniques and Management.” He, together with co-author John Tsitsiklis, acquired the 2018 INFORMS John von Neumann Prize in Concept for his or her contributions to the monographs “Parallel Distributed Computing” and “Neurodynamic Programming.” In 2001, Bartzekas was elected to the U.S. Nationwide Academy of Engineering for his “pioneering contributions to basic analysis, follow, and training in optimization/management principle.”
However a extra private measure of Belzekas’ affect will be measured by the heat and affection with which his mates, colleagues, and former college students alike bear in mind him. Co-author John Tsitsiklis wrote, “I used to be one in every of his college students and was most lucky to have felt his heat and friendship.” Angelia Nedic, a former pupil at MIT, later turned Bartzekas’ colleague at Arizona State College. “Dimitri was a rare thoughts and a gifted soul who shined a light-weight on us aspirants, however he was additionally deeply humble, having fun with life’s easy moments, a sip of excellent espresso, a sip of flavorful meals, or a spicy margarita on a highway journey to the Southwest. That is how I bear in mind him.”
Benjamin Van Loy, a former pupil and now a professor at Stanford College, wrote about Bartzekas’ transformation from authority determine to pal (and topic of pleasant teasing). “After I started my PhD journey at LIDS, I recall intimidating feedback from senior PhD college students. Some referred to Dimitri as ‘immortal’. One other remark that I bear in mind fondly and infrequently reminded Dimitri of is, “Professor Belzekas is a really good-looking man!” Their bond continued lengthy after Van Loy graduated. “Dimitri was a treasure to humanity. One of many nice students of our time, a Renaissance man, and an unbelievable function mannequin. I used to be honored to be one of many many he mentored, however I rely him as a long-time pal. Yuchao Li, a postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State College who studied below Professor Bartzekas, recollects his mentor as an virtually inexhaustible supply of inspiration and assist. “Professor Bartzekas was like a loving father to me, filled with infinite knowledge. … He appeared to know every little thing, but he remained extraordinarily humble and open-minded. He was all the time keen to assist me every time there was the slightest trace of problem in my life. He instilled in me a permanent perception in one of the best qualities of man, and I’ll attempt to hold that perception ahead.”
Mr. Belzekas was preceded in loss of life by his son, Mr. Kostas. He’s survived by his spouse, Joanna Belzekas (née Parashas); son Teris Belzekas and spouse Wendy Belzekas; and three grandchildren, Melina, Alexander and Leonidas.
