Le Thi Hoai An, France

Prof. Le Thi Hoai An earned her PhD with Highest Distinction in Optimization in 1994, and her Habilitation in 1997 both from university of Rouen, France. From 1998 to 2003 she was Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics at the National Institute for Applied Sciences, Rouen, and from 2003 to 2012 she was Full Professor in Computer Science at the University of Paul Verlaine – Metz. Since 2012 she has been Full Professor exceptional class, University of Lorraine. She held the position of Director of the Theoretical and Applied Computer Science Lab of University of Paul Verlaine and then University of Lorraine from 2008 to 2017. She is the holder of the Knight in the Order of Academic Palms Award of French government in July 2013. She was nominated a Senior Member of the Academic Institute of France (IUF) in June 2021, and received the 2021 Constantin Caratheodory Prize of the International Society of Global Optimization which rewards outstanding fundamental contributions that have stood the test of time to theory, algorithms, and applications of global optimization.  

  

Her research interests include machine learning, optimization and operations research and their applications in information systems and various complex industrial system. She is the co-founder of DC programming and DCA, power tools of non-convex programming and global optimization which were introduced by Professor Pham Dinh Tao in 1985 and intensively developed in their joint works since 1994. These theoretical and algorithmic tools, becoming now classic and increasingly popular, have been successfully applied by researchers and practitioners all the world over to model and solve their real-world problems in various fields. She is the author/co-author of more than 300 journal articles, international conference papers and book chapters, the co-editor of 24 books and/or special issues of international journals, and supervisor of 40 PhD theses/Habilitation. She is Chair of Scientific Committee, Chair of Organizing Committee, and member of Scientific Committee of numerous International Conferences, and leader of several regional/national/international projects.  

Recognized as one of the foremost experts on technology transfer in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence for challenging real world applications with great potential for the future, Prof Le Thi Hoai An is the leader of several great joint projects in Industry 4.0 framework with Big companies including RTE (French transmission system operator) and NAVAL group (the European leader in Naval defence and a major player in marine renewable energies).