Besides the many developers working to advance the BARON and ALAMO projects worldwide, meet our essential commercialization team.

Dr. Nick Sahinidis

Co-Founder/CEO

Dr. Nick Sahinidis Co-Founder/CEO Dr. Nick Sahinidis is one of the world’s leading experts in global optimization and mixed integer nonlinear programming. Throughout his 20+ years at The Optimization Firm, he has worked as a full-time professor of chemical engineering and industrial engineering. A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 2022, he has won numerous awards and is a fellow of INFORMS and AIChE.

Dr. Yi Zhang

Optimization Research Scientist

Dr. Yi Zhang is a top algorithm engineer and research scientist in global optimization and artificial intelligence. He has brought statistical methods, machine learning strategies, and optimization models to industrial domains like petrochemical manufacturing and e-logistics. Dr. Zhang now focuses on novel research algorithms to increase the BARON software's computational efficiency.

Aphrodite Kishi

Director of Operations

Kishi joined The Optimization Firm in 2016. She manages the daily tasks of the sales and marketing area and supports the strategic planning and technical writing efforts in upcoming projects. Aphrodite has a Data Analytics Certificate from Cornell University (2024) and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Patrick Henry College (2016).