Photo of Stephen Boyd, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty

Dr. Stephen Boyd is the author of many research articles and three books: Convex Optimization (with Lieven Vandenberghe, 2004), Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory (with L. El Ghaoui, E. Feron, and V. Balakrishnan, 1994), and Linear Controller Design: Limits of Performance (with Craig Barratt, 1991). His group has produced several open source tools, including CVX (with Michael Grant), a widely used parser-solver for convex optimization.

Dr. Boyd has received many awards and honors for his research in control systems engineering and optimization, including an ONR Young Investigator Award, a Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the AACC Donald P. Eckman Award, given annually for the greatest contribution to the field of control engineering by someone under the age of 35. In 2013, he received the IEEE Control Systems Award, given for outstanding contributions to control systems engineering, science, or technology. In 2012, Michael Grant and he were given the Mathematical Optimization Society's Beale-Orchard-Hays Award, given every three years for excellence in computational mathematical programming. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and SIAM, a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Control Systems Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has been invited to deliver more than 75 plenary and keynote lectures at major conferences in control, optimization, and machine learning.

He currently teaches graduate courses on Linear Dynamical Systems and Convex Optimization, each attracting around 250 students from many departments. From 1988 through 2003 he also taught introductory undergraduate Electrical Engineering courses on Circuits, Signals and Systems, Digital Signal Processing, and Automatic Control, as well an advanced course on Nonlinear Feedback Systems. In 1994 he received the Perrin Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in the School of Engineering, and in 1991, an ASSU Graduate Teaching Award. In 2003, he received the AACC Ragazzini Education award, for contributions to control education, with citation: “For excellence in classroom teaching, textbook and monograph preparation, and undergraduate and graduate mentoring of students in the area of systems, control, and optimization.”

Dr. Boyd's current research focus is on convex optimization applications in control, signal processing, and circuit design.