Official Professional Biography

Adam Wierman is the Carl F Braun Professor in the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) at the California Institute of Technology. He served as Executive Officer (a.k.a. Department Chair) of CMS from 2015-2020 and as Director of the Information Sciences and Technology initiative from 2016-2025. Additionally, he serves on Advisory Board of the Linde Institute of Economic and Management Sciences and served previously served on Advisory Board of the “Sunlight to Everything” initiative of the Resnick Institute for Sustainability. He received his Ph.D., M.Sc., and B.Sc. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007, 2004, and 2001, respectively, and has been on the faculty of Caltech since 2007. Outside of Caltech, Adam serves on advisory boards for Verrus, FreeFlow Ventures, Virtualitics, CCC at the CRA, E-COMP at PNNL, PEN, and Math Academy, among others.

Adam’s research strives to make the networked systems that govern our world sustainable and resilient. He develops new mathematical tools in machine learning, optimization, control, and economics and applies these tools to design new algorithms and markets that can be deployed in data centers, the electricity grid, transportation systems, and beyond. He is best known for his work spearheading the design of algorithms for sustainable data centers, which has led to significant industry adoption (e.g. through the startup Verrus). He is a co-author of a book on “The Fundamentals of Heavy Tails.” Currently, his work focuses on the interface of machine learning and control, with applications to energy systems.

He is an IEEE Fellow, a Distinguished Member of the ACM, and a Fellow of the AAIA. He has received the ACM Sigmetrics Rising Star Award, the IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize, the ACM Sigmetrics Test of Time Award, the IEEE INFOCOM Test of Time Award, an NSF Career Award, the Caltech IDEA Advocate Award, the Caltech GSC Excellence in Mentoring award, and multiple teaching awards at Caltech and CMU. He is a co-author of papers that have received “best paper” awards at a variety of conferences across computer science, power engineering, and operations research, including ACM Sigmetrics, ACM e-Energy, IEEE INFOCOM, IFIP Performance, and the IEEE Power and Energy Society.

Shortened Professional Biography

Adam Wierman is the Carl F Braun Professor in the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech. He received his Ph.D., M.Sc., and B.Sc. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Adam’s research strives to make the networked systems that govern our world sustainable and resilient. He is best known for his work spearheading the design of algorithms for sustainable data centers, which has seen significant industry adoption (e.g. through the startup Verrus), and his work on heavy tails, including co-authoring a book on “The Fundamentals of Heavy Tails.” He is an IEEE Fellow, a Distinguished Member of the ACM, and an AAIA Fellow. He has received the ACM Sigmetrics Rising Star award, the ACM Sigmetrics Test of Time award, the IEEE INFOCOM Test of Time award, the IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize, the Caltech IDEA Advocate award, the Caltech GSC Excellence in Mentoring award, multiple teaching awards, and is a co-author of papers that have received “best paper” awards at conferences across computer science, power engineering, and operations research.

Curriculum vitae

Outreach

I view educational outreach around as a central part of my job as a professor, and pursue a variety of initiatives in this area.

I serve on the advisory boards for Caltech’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach (CTLO) and for the CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC)

I have served on the advisory board of the Math Academy, a program aimed at radically accelerating the learning curve of mathematically gifted students. In 6th grade, Math Academy students begin learning algebra, geometry, and trigonometry and complete everything up through AP calculus by the end of 8th grade.

I serve on the board of the Pasadena Education Network (PEN), an organization that promotes family participation in public education and provides parent education programs to help parents explore, evaluate, and engage with their public schools.

I have collaborated with the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) on the design of their open enrollment program, working to ensure that it is equitable and efficient, and on initiatives related to improving the college placement of students.

I have taught math and computer science outreach classes for elementary and middle school students at multiple schools within Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) and I co-teach a course at Caltech on K-14 educational outreach that enables undergraduate and graduate students to design classes for local K-12 students.

Industrial Interations

I serve as a scientific consultant and/or advisory board member for labs, startups and venture funds in the areas of machine learning / AI, sustainability, and education. Recent examples include Verrus, FreeFlow, Virtualitics, PNNL, Math Academy, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), Beyond Limits, Amazon Prime Video, and the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD).

I look to develop partnerships with companies to enable tech transfer from our research group to industry. A partial list of partners over the years includes Amazon AWS, Amazon Prime Video, Beyond Limits, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, PIMCO, PNNL, Pasadena Water and Power, Southern California Edison, VMWare, Yahoo, and Facebook. Some large-scale current partnerships include collaborations with VMWare on the CarbonFirst project, Amazon AWS, Virtualitics, & PIMCO on the AI4Science initiative, and Beyond Limits and Pasadena Water & Power on smart grid challenges.

Academic Service

Leadership Positions (past and current)

• ACM e-Energy Program Committee co-Chair
• ACM Greenmetrics Conference co-Chair
• ACM Greenmetrics Program Committee co-Chair
• ACM Greenmetrics Steering Committee
• ACM Learning-Augmented Algorithms: Theory and Applications (LATA) Steering Committee
• ACM SigEnergy Steering Committee Member
• ACM SigEnergy Steering Committee Chair
• ACM Sigmetrics Vice Chair
• ACM Sigmetrics Board of Directors
• ACM Sigmetrics Conference Steering Committee Member
• ACM Sigmetrics Program Committee co-Chair
• CRA Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council
• ICCCN Program Committee co-Chair
• IFIP Performance Program Committee co-Chair
• IFIP Performance Working Group
• L4DC Program co-Chair
• PNNL E-COMP Advisory Committee
• SoCal Network Economics & Game Theory Conference Steering Committee
• Simons Institute Program co-Chair for “Algorithms & Uncertainty”
• NetEcon Program Committee co-Chair
• YEQT Conference co-Chair

Editorships (past and current)

• ACM Transactions on Measurement and Performance Evaluation of Computer Systems (TOMPECS) Editorial Board
• ACM Transactions on Internet Technology Guest Editor
• IEEE Transactions on Network Science & Engineering Editorial Board
• IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing Editorial Board
• IEEE Transactions on Networking (ToN) Associate Editor
• INFORMS Operations Research Associate Editor
• INFORMS Journal of Computing Associate Editor
• Journal of the ACM Area Editor
• Queueing Systems Theory and Analysis (QUESTA) Editorial Board
• Sustainable Energy, Grids, & Networks (SEGAN) Editorial Board
• Performance Evaluation Editorial Board

Program Committees (past and current, each listed only once)

• ACM EC
• ACM e-Energy
• ACM Greenmetrics
• ACM LATA
• ACM MAMA
• ACM Sigmetrics
• ACM Web Conference (formerly WWW)
• AIStats
• COLT
• DCPerf
• ECQT
• ICLR
• ICML
• IEEE ACC
• IEEE CDC
• IEEE HPEC
• IEEE ICDCS
• IEEE Green Computing
• IEEE MASCOTS
• IEEE SmartGridComm
• ITC
• IFIP Performance
• INFORMS APS
• INFORMS MSOM
• NetCOOP
• NetEcon
• NeurIPS
• NSDI
• Reinforcement Learning in Networks & Queues
• ValueTools