Aaron M. Ferber, PhD

Postdoc

Cornell University

Bowers CIS

Technical Instructor

I’m Aaron Ferber, a researcher, engineer, and community builder bridging the gaps between AI, science, and society. I’m currently a postdoc at Cornell University working with Carla Gomes in the CU AI for Science Institute.

I’m passionate about solving impactful real-world problems with elegant and efficient solutions. My research experience focuses on end-to-end integration of deep learning and automated reasoning, with applications in several domains such as wildlife trafficking, invasive species management, neuroscience, photonic design, recommendation systems, finance, and more.

I received my PhD from the University of Southern California, advised by Prof. Bistra Dilkina, working in the Center for AI in Society (CAIS), with a disseration titled “Artificial Decision Intelligence: Integrating Deep Learning and Combinatorial Optimization”.

Outside of research I enjoy raquet sports, climbing, cooking, sailing, diving, and pretty much anything outdoors. I’m always looking for new things in research and recreation so reach out and let’s do something!

Publications

arXiv

Diffusion Models as Constrained Samplers for Optimization with Unknown Constraints

Lingkai Kong, Yuanqi Du, Wenhao Mu, Kirill Neklyudov, Valentin De Bortol, Haorui Wang, Dongxia Wu, Aaron Ferber, Yi-An Ma, Carla P Gomes, and Chao Zhang

arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.18012, 2024

arXiv Bib

@article{kong2024diffusion,
  google_scholar_id = {5nxA0vEk-isC},
  title = {Diffusion Models as Constrained Samplers for Optimization with Unknown Constraints},
  author = {Kong, Lingkai and Du, Yuanqi and Mu, Wenhao and Neklyudov, Kirill and De Bortol, Valentin and Wang, Haorui and Wu, Dongxia and Ferber, Aaron and Ma, Yi-An and Gomes, Carla P and Zhang, Chao},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.18012},
  year = {2024}
}

ICML

GenCO: Generating Diverse Designs with Combinatorial Constraints

Aaron Ferber, Arman Zharmagambetov, Taoan Huang, Bistra Dilkina, and Yuandong Tian

In Forty-first International Conference on Machine Learning , 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ferber2024genco,
  google_scholar_id = {Se3iqnhoufwC},
  title = {Gen{CO}: Generating Diverse Designs with Combinatorial Constraints},
  author = {Ferber, Aaron and Zharmagambetov, Arman and Huang, Taoan and Dilkina, Bistra and Tian, Yuandong},
  booktitle = {Forty-first International Conference on Machine Learning},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=DiyE6OOGBa}
}

ICML

Contrastive Predict-and-Search for Mixed Integer Linear Programs

Taoan Huang, Aaron Ferber, Arman Zharmagambetov, Yuandong Tian, and Bistra Dilkina

In Forty-first International Conference on Machine Learning , 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{huang2024contrastive,
  google_scholar_id = {0EnyYjriUFMC},
  title = {Contrastive Predict-and-Search for Mixed Integer Linear Programs},
  author = {Huang, Taoan and Ferber, Aaron and Zharmagambetov, Arman and Tian, Yuandong and Dilkina, Bistra},
  booktitle = {Forty-first International Conference on Machine Learning},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=zatLnLvbs8}
}

NeurIPS

Landscape surrogate: Learning decision losses for mathematical optimization under partial information

Arman Zharmagambetov, Brandon Amos, Aaron Ferber, Taoan Huang, Bistra Dilkina, and Yuandong Tian

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems , 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{zharmagambetov2024landscape,
  url = {https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2023/hash/574f145eac328cc4aaf9358e27120eb5-Abstract-Conference.html},
  google_scholar_id = {LkGwnXOMwfcC},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
  title = {Landscape surrogate: Learning decision losses for mathematical optimization under partial information},
  author = {Zharmagambetov, Arman and Amos, Brandon and Ferber, Aaron and Huang, Taoan and Dilkina, Bistra and Tian, Yuandong},
  volume = {36},
  year = {2024},
  pages = {27332--27350}
}

arxiv

Distributional MIPLIB: a Multi-Domain Library for Advancing ML-Guided MILP Methods

Weimin Huang, Taoan Huang, Aaron Ferber, and Bistra Dilkina

arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.06954, 2024

Bib HTML

@article{huang2024distributional,
  google_scholar_id = {3fE2CSJIrl8C},
  title = {Distributional MIPLIB: a Multi-Domain Library for Advancing ML-Guided MILP Methods},
  author = {Huang, Weimin and Huang, Taoan and Ferber, Aaron and Dilkina, Bistra},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.06954},
  year = {2024}
}

IISE

Interdiction of wildlife trafficking supply chains: An analytical approach

Emily C Griffin, Aaron Ferber, Lucas Lafferty, Burcu B Keskin, Bistra Dilkina, and Meredith Gore

IISE Transactions, 2024

Bib HTML

@article{griffin2024interdiction,
  url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24725854.2023.2255643},
  google_scholar_id = {roLk4NBRz8UC},
  title = {Interdiction of wildlife trafficking supply chains: An analytical approach},
  author = {Griffin, Emily C and Ferber, Aaron and Lafferty, Lucas and Keskin, Burcu B and Dilkina, Bistra and Gore, Meredith},
  journal = {IISE Transactions},
  volume = {56},
  number = {3},
  pages = {355--373},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}
}

ICML

Surco: Learning linear surrogates for combinatorial nonlinear optimization problems

Aaron Ferber, Taoan Huang, Daochen Zha, Martin Schubert, Benoit Steiner, Bistra Dilkina, and Yuandong Tian

In International Conference on Machine Learning , 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ferber2023surco,
  google_scholar_id = {IjCSPb-OGe4C},
  title = {Surco: Learning linear surrogates for combinatorial nonlinear optimization problems},
  author = {Ferber, Aaron and Huang, Taoan and Zha, Daochen and Schubert, Martin and Steiner, Benoit and Dilkina, Bistra and Tian, Yuandong},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Machine Learning},
  pages = {10034--10052},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {PMLR}
}

CPAIOR

Predicting Wildlife Trafficking Routes with Differentiable Shortest Paths

Aaron Ferber, Emily Griffin, Bistra Dilkina, Burcu Keskin, and Meredith Gore

In International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research , 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ferber2023predicting,
  google_scholar_id = {Y0pCki6q_DkC},
  title = {Predicting Wildlife Trafficking Routes with Differentiable Shortest Paths},
  author = {Ferber, Aaron and Griffin, Emily and Dilkina, Bistra and Keskin, Burcu and Gore, Meredith},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research},
  pages = {460--476},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {Springer Nature Switzerland Cham}
}

CPAIOR

Local branching relaxation heuristics for integer linear programs

Taoan Huang, Aaron Ferber, Yuandong Tian, Bistra Dilkina, and Benoit Steiner

In International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research , 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{huang2023local,
  google_scholar_id = {Tyk-4Ss8FVUC},
  title = {Local branching relaxation heuristics for integer linear programs},
  author = {Huang, Taoan and Ferber, Aaron and Tian, Yuandong and Dilkina, Bistra and Steiner, Benoit},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research},
  pages = {96--113},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {Springer Nature Switzerland Cham}
}

ICML

Searching large neighborhoods for integer linear programs with contrastive learning

Taoan Huang, Aaron Ferber, Yuandong Tian, Bistra Dilkina, and Benoit Steiner

In International Conference on Machine Learning , 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{huang2023searching,
  google_scholar_id = {W7OEmFMy1HYC},
  title = {Searching large neighborhoods for integer linear programs with contrastive learning},
  author = {Huang, Taoan and Ferber, Aaron and Tian, Yuandong and Dilkina, Bistra and Steiner, Benoit},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Machine Learning},
  pages = {13869--13890},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {PMLR}
}

PNAS

Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks

Meredith L Gore, Emily Griffin, Bistra Dilkina, Aaron Ferber, Stanley E Griffis, Burcu B Keskin, and John Macdonald

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023

Bib HTML

@article{gore2023advancing,
  google_scholar_id = {YsMSGLbcyi4C},
  title = {Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks},
  author = {Gore, Meredith L and Griffin, Emily and Dilkina, Bistra and Ferber, Aaron and Griffis, Stanley E and Keskin, Burcu B and Macdonald, John},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  volume = {120},
  number = {10},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {National Academy of Sciences}
}

Big Earth Data

A data directory to facilitate investigations on worldwide wildlife trafficking

Meredith L Gore, Rowan Hilend, Jonathan O Prell, Emily Griffin, John R Macdonald, Burcu B Keskin, Aaron Ferber, and Bistra Dilkina

Big Earth Data, 2023

Bib HTML

@article{gore2023data,
  google_scholar_id = {eQOLeE2rZwMC},
  title = {A data directory to facilitate investigations on worldwide wildlife trafficking},
  author = {Gore, Meredith L and Hilend, Rowan and Prell, Jonathan O and Griffin, Emily and Macdonald, John R and Keskin, Burcu B and Ferber, Aaron and Dilkina, Bistra},
  journal = {Big Earth Data},
  volume = {7},
  number = {2},
  pages = {338--348},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}
}

Omega

Quantitative investigation of wildlife trafficking supply chains: A review

Burcu B Keskin, Emily C Griffin, Jonathan O Prell, Bistra Dilkina, Aaron Ferber, John MacDonald, Rowan Hilend, Stanley Griffis, and Meredith L Gore

Omega, 2023

Bib HTML

@article{keskin2023quantitative,
  google_scholar_id = {UeHWp8X0CEIC},
  title = {Quantitative investigation of wildlife trafficking supply chains: A review},
  author = {Keskin, Burcu B and Griffin, Emily C and Prell, Jonathan O and Dilkina, Bistra and Ferber, Aaron and MacDonald, John and Hilend, Rowan and Griffis, Stanley and Gore, Meredith L},
  journal = {Omega},
  volume = {115},
  pages = {102780},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {Pergamon}
}

Zenodo

Identifying datasets for global wildlife trafficking

Meredith Gore, Burcu Keskin, John Macdonald, Aaron Ferber, Emily Griffin, Oakley Prell, Bistra Dilkina, and Rowan Hilend

2022

Bib HTML Website

@article{gore2022identifying,
  google_scholar_id = {WF5omc3nYNoC},
  title = {Identifying datasets for global wildlife trafficking},
  author = {Gore, Meredith and Keskin, Burcu and Macdonald, John and Ferber, Aaron and Griffin, Emily and Prell, Oakley and Dilkina, Bistra and Hilend, Rowan},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {Zenodo}
}

Learning Lagrangian Multipliers for the Travelling Salesman Problem

Augustin Parjadis, Quentin Cappart, Bistra Dilkina, Aaron Ferber, and Louis-Martin Rousseau

In Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming , 2024

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{parjadis2023learning,
  google_scholar_id = {hqOjcs7Dif8C},
  title = {Learning Lagrangian Multipliers for the Travelling Salesman Problem},
  author = {Parjadis, Augustin and Cappart, Quentin and Dilkina, Bistra and Ferber, Aaron and Rousseau, Louis-Martin},
  booktitle = {Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming},
  year = {2024},
  organization = {Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}
}

INFORMS

Erratum to “budgeted prize-collecting traveling salesman and minimum spanning tree problems”

Alice Paul, Daniel Freund, Aaron Ferber, David B Shmoys, and David P Williamson

Mathematics of Operations Research, 2023

Bib HTML

@article{paul2023erratum,
  google_scholar_id = {zYLM7Y9cAGgC},
  title = {Erratum to “budgeted prize-collecting traveling salesman and minimum spanning tree problems”},
  author = {Paul, Alice and Freund, Daniel and Ferber, Aaron and Shmoys, David B and Williamson, David P},
  journal = {Mathematics of Operations Research},
  volume = {48},
  number = {4},
  pages = {2304--2307},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {INFORMS}
}

CPAIOR

Learning pseudo-backdoors for mixed integer programs

Aaron Ferber, Jialin Song, Bistra Dilkina, and Yisong Yue

In International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research , 2022

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ferber2022learning,
  google_scholar_id = {qjMakFHDy7sC},
  title = {Learning pseudo-backdoors for mixed integer programs},
  author = {Ferber, Aaron and Song, Jialin and Dilkina, Bistra and Yue, Yisong},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research},
  pages = {91--102},
  year = {2022},
  organization = {Springer International Publishing Cham}
}

AAAI

Controllable Guarantees for Fair Outcomes via Contrastive Information Estimation

Umang Gupta, Aaron Ferber, Bistra Dilkina, and Greg Ver Steeg

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, May 2021

Bib HTML

@article{gupta2021controllable,
  google_scholar_id = {2osOgNQ5qMEC},
  title = {Controllable Guarantees for Fair Outcomes via Contrastive Information Estimation},
  volume = {35},
  url = {https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI/article/view/16931},
  doi = {10.1609/aaai.v35i9.16931},
  number = {9},
  journal = {Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  author = {Gupta, Umang and Ferber, Aaron and Dilkina, Bistra and Ver Steeg, Greg},
  year = {2021},
  month = may,
  pages = {7610-7619}
}

AAAI

Mipaal: Mixed integer program as a layer

Aaron Ferber, Bryan Wilder, Bistra Dilkina, and Milind Tambe

In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence , May 2020

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ferber2020mipaal,
  google_scholar_id = {MXK_kJrjxJIC},
  title = {Mipaal: Mixed integer program as a layer},
  author = {Ferber, Aaron and Wilder, Bryan and Dilkina, Bistra and Tambe, Milind},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  volume = {34},
  number = {02},
  pages = {1504--1511},
  year = {2020}
}

Budgeted prize-collecting traveling salesman and minimum spanning tree problems

Alice Paul, Daniel Freund, Aaron Ferber, David B Shmoys, and David P Williamson

Mathematics of Operations Research, May 2020

Bib HTML

@article{paul2020budgeted,
  google_scholar_id = {9yKSN-GCB0IC},
  title = {Budgeted prize-collecting traveling salesman and minimum spanning tree problems},
  author = {Paul, Alice and Freund, Daniel and Ferber, Aaron and Shmoys, David B and Williamson, David P},
  journal = {Mathematics of Operations Research},
  volume = {45},
  number = {2},
  pages = {576--590},
  year = {2020},
  publisher = {INFORMS}
}

ESA

Prize-collecting TSP with a budget constraint

Alice Paul, Daniel Freund, Aaron Ferber, David B Shmoys, and David P Williamson

In European Symposium on Algorithms , May 2017

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{paul2017prize,
  google_scholar_id = {d1gkVwhDpl0C},
  title = {Prize-collecting TSP with a budget constraint},
  author = {Paul, Alice and Freund, Daniel and Ferber, Aaron and Shmoys, David B and Williamson, David P},
  booktitle = {European Symposium on Algorithms},
  year = {2017},
  organization = {Schloss-Dagstuhl-Leibniz Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}
}