RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme

Biography

Chair Professor of Department of Applied Mathematics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Research interests include Matrix Optimization (MatOpt): Theory, Algorithms, Software and Applications, High-Dimensional Statistical Optimization, Second Order Variational Analysis, and Risk Management and Computational Finance
SRFS project — to investigate the strong regularity for the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker points of the nonlinear conic programming (NLCOP), and then move on to study the error bound conditions, which are needed for analyzing the convergence rates of optimization algorithms
Awards and Honours:
- RGC Senior Research Fellow (2022)
- Distinguished Collaborator Award (2021)
- Fellows of the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2020)

Project Title

Nonlinear Conic Programming: Theory, Algorithms and Software

Award Citation

Prof. Defeng Sun is currently Chair Professor of Applied Optimization and Operations Research and Head of Department of Applied Mathematics in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Prof. Sun mainly contributes to the area of optimization and has published more than 110 papers in journals such as Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Optimization, and Mathematics of Operations Research. He has made fundamental contributions to matrix optimization, statistical optimization, nonsmooth analysis, and risk management. In 2006, he made a breakthrough by settling the long-standing open question of characterizing the strong regularity of nonlinear semidefinite programming (SDP) problems. Prof. Sun has been a long-time advocate of incorporating nonsmooth analysis into solving large-scale conic optimization problems, which has resulted in a series of rich outcomes. One highlight is the triennial 2018 Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize for excellence in computational mathematical programming awarded to Prof. Sun jointly with his collaborators Prof. Kim-Chuan Toh and Dr. Liuqin Yang for developing the software SDPNAL+ for solving large-scale SDP problems.

Prof. Sun is a highly recognized scholar. He was elected a SIAM Fellow in 2020 by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and an inaugural CSIAM Fellow in 2020 by the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. More recently, he received the “Distinguished Collaborator Award” from both the Huawei Hong Kong Research Center and Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab in recognition of his contributions on solving the production planning problem.

Prof. Sun also actively serves the academic communities. He is the President of the Hong Kong Mathematical Society and serves as an associate editor to many journals such as Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Optimization, and Science China Mathematics. He has also been a Co-chair of SIAM Conference on Optimization 2021.