Shiqian Ma

Shiqian Ma

Professor
Data Science and AI Institute
Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics
Department of Computer Science
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

Email: sqma@jhu.edu

Google Scholar | ORCID

Biography

Shiqian Ma is a Professor in the Data Science and AI Institute, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

His research focuses on the mathematical foundations of modern AI, with particular emphasis on optimization, geometry, and machine learning. He develops scalable optimization algorithms and mathematical frameworks for efficient and reliable training of foundation models and large-scale machine learning systems.

Ma currently serves as an Action Editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) and Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR), and as an Associate Editor for SIAM Journal on Optimization (SIOPT) and Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (JOTA). He has served as a Senior Area Chair for NeurIPS, ICML, and AISTATS, among other leading machine learning conferences.

His research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. His work on Riemannian optimization has been recognized by the 2024 INFORMS Computing Society Prize and the 2024 SIAM Review SIGEST Award.

Ma received his B.S. in Mathematics from Peking University, M.S. in Computational Mathematics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Columbia University.

Research Interests

Mathematical Foundations of AI, Optimization, Foundation Models, Machine Learning, and Riemannian Optimization.

Group

I am looking for motivated Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers interested in mathematical foundations of AI, foundation models, optimization, and machine learning.

Current Group Members

Former Group Members