Nicolás Acevedo Villena

1. Sept. 2024 — present

   PhD in Operations Research

   Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Cambridge, MA

   • Expected 2029.
2. 2022 — 2023

   Master in Operations Management

   Universidad de Chile · Santiago, Chile

   • Thesis: Column generation-based decomposition for large-scale feature selection problems.
   • Graduated with highest honors (second-highest GPA).
3. 2017 — 2021

   Bachelor of Engineering Science in Industrial Engineering

   Universidad de Chile · Santiago, Chile

   • Graduated with highest honors (highest GPA).

1. Sept. 2024 — present

   Research assistant

   Operations Research Center, MIT · Cambridge, MA

   • Advised by Saurabh Amin and Deepjyoti (Deep) Deka; earlier PhD research guidance from Haihao (Sean) Lu.
   • Fair and equitable predictive modeling for property assessment; public-data modeling of data-center infrastructure and resource systems; numerical reliability of first-order solvers on GPUs.
2. Aug. 2022 — July 2024

   Research assistant

   FCFM, Universidad de Chile · Santiago, Chile

   • Advisor: Fernando Ordóñez. Co-advisor: Renaud Chicoisne.
   • Scalable decomposition for large-scale feature selection: unconstrained LASSO reformulated as a second-order cone program, with a column-wise decomposition driven by conic-dual subproblems.
3. Jan. 2021 — Jan. 2022

   Research assistant

   Complex Engineering Systems Institute · Santiago, Chile

   • Advisor: Ricardo Montoya. Co-advisor: Charles Thraves.
   • Online optimization for adaptive questionnaires: choosing both the subset and the sequence of questions to maximize expected information gain.
4. Sept. 2020 — March 2022

   Research assistant

   Complex Engineering Systems Institute · Santiago, Chile

   • Advisor: Charles Thraves.
   • Outlier-detection protocol for Chile's university selection exam, validated and presented to DEMRE, the agency responsible for administering it.

1. Dec. 2023 — Apr. 2024

   Researcher

   Web Intelligence Centre (WIC) / ACHS · Santiago, Chile

   • Department-level patient-volume forecasting integrated into a second-stage scheduling optimization for Hospital del Trabajador.
2. June 2022 — Apr. 2023

   Research engineer

   Nezasa AG / TripYeah · Zurich, Switzerland

   • Time-dependent travelling-salesman formulation and preliminary solver for ranking flight itineraries.
   • Probabilistic and learned edge-pruning models to reduce the size of the underlying graph.
3. Jan. 2020 — Feb. 2020

   Internship

   Hogar de Cristo · Santiago, Chile

   • Online beneficiary-tracking process and automated status checks for funding applications.

1. 2023

   Column generation-based decomposition for large-scale feature selection problems

   N. Acevedo Villena · Master's thesis · Universidad de Chile · Santiago, Chile

2. 2022

   On the outlier detection for standardized tests

   N. Acevedo Villena, C. Thraves and M. Varas · Conference presentation (unpublished) · XIV Chilean Conference on Operations Research (OPTIMA 2021) · Universidad Católica del Maule · Talca, Chile

Full list, with PDFs and BibTeX

1. Fall 2026

   15.C571[J] Optimization Methods

   Teaching assistant · MIT Sloan School of Management

2. Summer 2026

   15.087 Engineering Statistics and Data Science

   Teaching assistant · MIT Sloan / Leaders for Global Operations

3. Summer 2026

   15.086 Engineering Probability

   Teaching assistant · MIT Sloan / Leaders for Global Operations

4. Spring 2026

   The Analytics Edge

   Teaching assistant · MIT Sloan School of Management

5. Spring 2023 — Spring 2024

   Optimization Models and Algorithms

   Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Graduate

6. Fall 2020; Spring 2023

   Modeling and Optimization

   Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

7. Spring 2021 — Spring 2022

   Probability

   Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

8. Spring 2022

   Quantitative Marketing

   Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Graduate

9. Spring 2022

   Organizational Economics

   Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Graduate

10. Fall 2021

    Decision Making Under Uncertainty

    Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

11. Fall 2021

    Statistics

    Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

12. Spring 2021

    Applied Econometrics for Business and Economics

    Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

13. Fall 2020

    Operations Management I

    Teaching assistant · Universidad de Chile · Undergraduate

Teaching page, with recitation videos

1. 2023

   Best Master Thesis Award, FCFM, Universidad de Chile.

2. 2023

   Thesis distinction, School of Graduate Studies, Universidad de Chile (awarded December 2024).

3. 2022

   Chilean grant for graduate studies (Beca Magíster Nacional), ANID.

4. 2022

   Academic excellence scholarship (Beca de Excelencia Académica), Master in Operations Management.

5. 2019 — 2022

   Outstanding Student, FCFM & DII, Universidad de Chile (top 10% by GPA).

Talks

1. 2022

   Acevedo Villena, N., Thraves, C., Varas, M. On the outlier detection for standardized tests. XIV Chilean Conference on Operations Research, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile.

Posters

1. 2023

   Acevedo Villena, N., Ordóñez, F. Column generation-based decomposition for large-scale feature selection problems. Escuela de Verano en Inteligencia Computacional (EVIC), FCFM, Santiago, Chile.

   Poster PDF

Training

1. 2023

   XVIII Summer School in Discrete Mathematics, Instituto de Sistemas Complejos de Valparaíso: graphs with high chromatic number; provable algorithms for data mining and machine learning; linear programming and the quest for strongly polynomial algorithms.

Research projects