Maryam Fazel

Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Mathematics

Electrical Engineering Department,
University of Washington

Office: Paul Allen Center, CSE 230
Address:: University of Washington
Department of Electrical Engineering
Campus Box 352500
Seattle, WA 98195-2500
Phone: (206) 616-4781
Fax: (206) 543-3842
E-mail:: mfazel (at) ee(dot)washington(dot)edu
URL:: http://faculty.washington.edu/mfazel

Prior to joining UW EE, I was a Research Scientist at the Control and Dynamical Systems Department at Caltech. I received my PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University where I was part of the Information Systems Lab.

News and Events

Old events page (including: weekly Compressed sensing reading group; Visitors; and Seminars):
Events Wiki page
Our group acknowledges funding from NSF! NSF CAREER Award ``Parsimonious Modeling via Matrix Rank Minimization" (9/2009--9/2014).

Research Interests

Broadly speaking: Convex optimization; Systems and Control Theory

Current focus: Parsimonious modeling and Matrix Rank Minimization

connection to compressed sensing and sparse signal recovery
applications in: machine learning, system identification
algorithms for rank minimization

Other interests:

Optimization in communication networks; Random Access Compressed Sensing
Applications of convex optimization and control in systems biology

Research group

Students:

Karthik Mohan, EE (BS IIT Madras, India)

De Meng, EE (BS Zhejiang Univ, China)

Amin Jalali, EE (BS Sharif Univ of Technology)

Reza Eghbali, EE (BS Sharif Univ of Technology)

Brian Hutchinson, EE (MS UW). Co-advised with Prof. Mari Ostendorf.

Dvijotham Krishnamurthy, CSE (BS IIT Bombay, India). Main Adviser: Prof. Emo Todorov.

Alumni:

Ting Kei Pong, PhD in Mathematics, June 2011 (Co-advised with Prof. Paul Tseng, Prof. Rekha Thomas).
Currently: Postdoc, Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo

Undergraduate Researcher:

Palma London, Junior in EE, UW.

Publications

Preprints:

M. Fazel, T. K. Pong, D. Sun, P. Tseng, Hankel matrix rank minimization with applications in system identification and realization, Submitted.
M. Nabi-Abdolyousefi, M. Fazel, Mehran Mesbahi, Graph Identification via Transfer Matrices, Similarity Transformations, and Matrix Approximations. Submitted to American Control Conference (ACC), 2011.
K. Mohan, M. Fazel, Iterative Reweighted Algorithms for Matrix Rank Minimization, Submitted.
Published in Journal or Peer-reviewed Conference:
F. Fazel, M. Fazel, M. Stojanovic, Compressed Sensing in Random Access Networks with Applications to Underwater Monitoring. To Appear in Physical Communications Journal (Elsevier), special issue on Compressive sensing in communications).
F. Fazel, M. Fazel, M. Stojanovic, Random Access Compressed Sensing: An Integrated Architecture For Energy-efficient Networking. Invited paper, to appear in Proc. Asilomar Conf. on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov 2011.
B. Hutchinson, M. Ostendorf, M. Fazel, Low Rank Language Models for Small Training Sets. IEEE Signal Processing Letters. 18(9), pages 489-492, Sep 2011.
F. Fazel, M. Fazel, M. Stojanovic, Random Access Compressed Sensing in Energy-Efficient Underwater Sensor Networks. Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), 29(9), Sep 2011.
S. Oymak, K. Mohan, M. Fazel, B. Hassibi, A Simplified Approach to Recovery Conditions for Low-rank Matrices. Proc. Intl. Sympo. Information Theory (ISIT), Aug 2011.
R. Arora, A. Kapila , M. Gupta, M. Fazel, Clustering by Left-Stochastic Decomposition. Proc. of International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), July 2011.
F. Fazel, M. Fazel, M. Stojanovic, Design of a Random Access Network for Compressed Sensing. Proc. Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA), Feb 2011.
F. Fazel, M. Fazel, M. Stojanovic, Random Access Compressed Sensing in Underwater Acoustic Networks. Proc. Allerton Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing, Sep 2010.
K. Mohan, M. Fazel, Iterative Reweighted Least Squares for Matrix Rank Minimization, Proc. Allerton Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing, Sep 2010.
B. Recht, M. Fazel, P. Parrilo, Guaranteed Minimum-Rank Solutions of Linear Matrix Equations via Nuclear Norm Minimization. SIAM Review, Vol 52, no 3, pages 471-501, 2010.
K. Mohan, M. Fazel, New Restricted Isometry Results for Noisy Low-rank Matrix Recovery, Proc. Intl. Symp. Info. Thoery (ISIT), Austin, TX, June 2010.
K. Mohan, M. Fazel, Reweighted Nuclear Norm Minimization with Application to System Identification, Proc. American Control Conference (ACC), 2010.
D. Georgiev, M. Fazel, E. Klavins, Model Discrimination of Chemical Reaction Networks by Linearization, Proc. American Control Conference (ACC), 2010.
K. Dvijotham, M. Fazel, A Nullspace Analysis of the Nuclear Norm Heuristic for Rank Minimization, Proc. of ICASSP 2010, Dallas, Texas, March 2010.
M. Fazel, E. J. Candes, B. Recht, P. Parrilo, Compressed Sensing and Robust Recovery of Low Rank Matrices, Proc. of Asilomar Conference, Pacific Grove, CA, Nov 2008.
N. Yamamoto, M. Fazel, Computational Approach to Quantum Encoder Design for Purity Optimization. Physical Review A, vol. 76, no. 1, July 2007. Available at http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v76/e012327
B. Recht, M. Fazel, P. Parrilo, Guaranteed Minimum-Rank Solutions of Linear Matrix Equations via Nuclear Norm Minimization. Allerton Conference, Allerton House, Illinois, Sep 2007.
M. Lobo, M. Fazel, and S. Boyd, Portfolio Optimization with Linear and Fixed Transaction Costs. Annals of Operations Research, special issue on Financial Optimization, 152(1):376-394, July 2007.
D. Gayme, M. Fazel, J. Doyle, Complexity in Automation of SOS Proofs: An Illustrative Example. Proc. Conference on Decision and Control, San Diego, California, Dec 2006.
M. Fazel, D. Gayme, M. Chiang, Transient Analysis for Wireless Power Control. Proc. Globecom Conference, San Francisco, California, Nov 2006.
H. El-Samad, M. Fazel, X. Liu, A. Papachristodoulou, S. Prajna, Stochastic Reachability Analysis in Complex Biological Networks. Proc. American Control Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2006.
A. Fakheri, M. Fazel, A Methodology for Optimization of Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers in Series . International Journal of Heat Exchangers, volume VII, number 1, June 2006.
M. Fazel, M. Chiang, Network Utility Maximization with Nonconcave Utilities Using Sum-of-Squares Method. Proc. Conference on Decision and Control, Seville, Spain, Dec 2005.
T.-M. Yi, M. Fazel, X. Liu, T. Otitoju, A. Papachristodoulou, S. Prajna, and J. Doyle, Application of Robust Model Validation Using SOSTOOLS to the Study of G-Protein Signaling in Yeast . In Proc. Foundations of Systems Biology and Engineering, Santa Barbara, California, August 2005.
M. Sharif, C. Florens, M. Fazel, B. Hassibi, Amplitude and Sign Adjustment for Peak to Average Power Reduction . IEEE trans. on Communications, volume 53, number 8, pp. 1243--1247, August 2005.
M. Fazel, H. Hindi, and S. Boyd, Rank Minimization and Applications in System Theory. Proc. American Control Conference, Boston,
Massachusetts, June 2004.
M. Sharif, C. Florens, M. Fazel, B. Hassibi, Peak to Average Power Reduction Using Amplitude and Sign Adjustment. Proc. International Conference on Communications, Paris, France, June 2004.
M. Fazel, H. Hindi, and S. Boyd, Log-det Heuristic for Matrix Rank Minimization with Applications to Hankel and Euclidean Distance Matrices. Proc. American Control Conference, Denver, Colorado, June 2003.
M. Fazel, H. Hindi, and S. Boyd, A Rank Minimization Heuristic with Application to Minimum Order System Approximation. Proc. American Control Conference, Arlington, Virginia, June 2001.
Technical reports:
M. Fazel, J. Goodman, Approximations for Partially Coherent Optical Imaging Systems. Technical Report, Stanford University, 1998.
M. Fazel, S. Boyd, T. Kailath, Electron-beam Proximity Correction Using Convex Optimization. Technical Report, Stanford University, 1997.

Teaching

2011-2012:

EE/AA/ME 578: Optimization in System Sciences (a.k.a. Convex optimization and its applications)
Winter 2012
Updated Course Webpage

EE 546: Topics Convex Optimization (New Course!)
Spring 2012
Course webpage

2010-2011:

EE235: Continuous-time Linear Systems (Signals and Systems)
Spring 2011

EE/AA/ME 578: Optimization in System Sciences (a.k.a. Convex optimization and its applications)
Winter 2011

2009-2010:

EE546/STAT593C: Sparse Representations: Theory, Algorithms, Applications
Spring 2010
Course Webpage

EE/AA/ME 578: Optimization in System Sciences (a.k.a. Convex optimization and its applications)
Winter 2010

2008-2009:

EE235: Continuous-time Linear Systems (Signals and Systems)
Spring 2009

EE/AA/ME 578: Optimization in System Sciences (a.k.a. Convex optimization and its applications)
Winter 2009

2007-2008:

EE/AA/ME/ChemE 591: Seminar series in Optimization and Engineering Applications
Spring 2008
Seminar Webpage

EE/AA/ME 578: Optimization in System Sciences
Winter 2008
Course Webpage
Course Announcement

Education

Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, CA, March 2002
M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, CA, June 1997
B.Sc. Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, 1995

Ph.D. Thesis

Matrix Rank Minimization with Applications. Elec. Eng. Dept, Stanford University, March 2002.
Thesis: (ps file), (pdf file), (gzipped ps file)

*** Page under construction! ***
Last modified: Dec 2011