I am an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia, as part of the AI Methods for Scientific Impact (AIM-SI) cluster. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher, working with Stephen J. Wright at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I received my PhD from EPFL in 2021 and my undergraduate degree from Bilkent University in 2016.
My research interests are in optimization, machine learning and reinforcement learning. I especially focus on understanding the theoretical properties of practical optimization algorithms and improving them.
Email: alacaoglu at math dot ubc dot ca