Our Team
Ziena's founders include a world-renowned team of scientists specializing in nonlinear and large-scale optimization. Their areas of expertise encompass modeling and solution of optimization problems arising in business and engineering. The methods and software created by Ziena's scientists are in use at hundreds of sites worldwide to address a variety of problems in energy, communications, finance, and engineering.
Richard Waltz, President
As president and chief software engineer, Richard is the primary creator and developer of Ziena's software. He is involved in all stages of the optimization technology, from the initial algorithm design and analysis and its software implementation, to its final product form.Richard holds a B.S.degree in Physics from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northwestern University. Richard co-founded Ziena in 2001.
Rich Cohen, VP of Business Development
As vice president of business development, Rich oversees key business relationships, sales, and marketing activities. He is in charge of evaluating go-to-market strategies and identifying and executing selling activities.During the past 20 years, Rich has experience in strategy, business planning, and operations management within software program development and international business. His experience spans Fortune 500 to start-up businesses. He holds a Masters of Engineering Managment from Northwestern University. Rich is a lecturer of International Strategic Planning and is founder of a global sourcing business.
Jorge Nocedal, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for software development, Jorge plays an active role in the design, development and testing of all of Ziena's products. He originated the research project that gave rise to the KNITRO optimizer and was instrumental in the formation of Ziena to develop and market KNITRO. He oversees Ziena's consulting activities and takes a leading role in formulating future software directions.Jorge holds a B.S. degree from the University of Mexico (UNAM) and a Ph.D. from Rice University. He holds joint appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University.
Robert Fourer, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for optimization modeling, Bob oversees Ziena's strategy for integrating its software with both general-purpose and application-specific modeling languages and systems. He has over 25 years of experience studying the design of optimization software and observing the optimization systems business. He co-designed the popular AMPL modeling language and system.Bob holds a B.S. degree from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. He has been a member of Northwestern University's Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department since 1979, and has spent two sabbatical years as a visitor to the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Laboratories.
Todd Plantenga, Senior Software Designer
As senior software designer, Todd collaborates with Richard Waltz in the
creation and support of Ziena's software. He is involved in all aspects of
software development, and has primary responsibility for customer support
and IT issues.
Todd has over 15 years of experience in software development. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, with emphasis on numerical optimization. From 1994 to 2000 he was a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and in 2000 he joined PeopleSoft as a senior software developer, where he designed and implemented core software for business enterprise application products.
Richard Byrd, Senior Scientist
As senior scientist for numerical computing, Richard is directly involved in the design and analysis of Ziena's optimization algorithms and software. Currently he is working on Ziena's new active set algorithm, and is responsible for the numerical accuracy and efficiency of all of Ziena's software. Richard has over 25 years of experience in optimization and scientific computing, and is a leading expert in local and global optimization.Richard holds B.S. and Ph.D degrees from Rice University. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
