Faculty
Vivek is interested in the development of new methodologies and applications for large scale dynamic optimization.
He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2007 and is the Patrick J. McGovern (1959) Professor at MIT.
Vivek is a recipient of an INFORMS MSOM Student Paper Prize (2006), an INFORMS JFIG paper prize (2009, 2011), the NSF CAREER award (2011), MIT Sloan’s Outstanding Teacher award (2013), the INFORMS Simulation Society Best Publication Award (2014), the INFORMS Pricing and Revenue Management Best Publication Award (2015), the INFORMS MSOM Best Publication award in Management Science (2016), the MSOM Young Scholar Prize, and the MIT Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2020). His practice-based work has won the Wagner prize (2022) and has been judged a finalist for the Pierskalla Award (2011), the Gary L. Lilien ISMS-MSI Marketing Practice Prize (2016), and the Wagner Prize (2018). Vivek’s doctoral advisees have on various occasions won the Nicholson, MSOM, APS and RMP student paper prizes.
Outside of academia, Vivek was most recently cofounder/CTO at Celect (2014-19; acquired by Nike) and was a corresponding author of the Nature Communications paper underlying the technology at Seer (IPO in 2020). He serves on several technology startup advisory boards and has worked in various capacities in quantitive finance and private equity.
Featured Publication
"Learning Preferences with Side Information."Farias, Vivek, and Andrew A. Li. Management Science Vol. 65, No. 7 (2019): 3131-3149.
Featured Publication
"A Nonparametric Approach to Modeling Choice with Limited Data."Farias, Vivek F., Srikanth Jagabathula and Devavrat Shah. Management Science Vol. 59, No. 2 (2013): 305-322.
Baek, Jackie, and Vivek F. Farias. Management Science. Forthcoming.
Farias, Vivek F., Andrew A. Li, and Tianyi Peng. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. Forthcoming.
Farias, Vivek F., and Eli Gutin. Operations Research. Forthcoming.
Baek, Jackie, Justin J. Boutilier, Vivek F. Farias, Jónas Oddur Jónasson, and Erez Yoeli. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. Forthcoming. arXiv Preprint.
Additions to the MIT Sloan 2025 – 2026 course list include Intensive Hands-On Deep Learning, AI and Money, and The Arrhythmia of Finance.
Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly emerging as a key foundational platform for new applications. But hurdles remain, according to researchers.
In a recent paper, professors Michael Cusumano, Vivek Farias, and professor of the practice Rama Ramakrishnan suggested that "as with past market-disrupting technologies, generative AI is starting to reap the benefits of an evolving ecosystem of infrastructure layers and enabling tools and frameworks, along with a rapidly growing set of applications."
We asked 8 MIT Sloan faculty members about their new projects and what they see as the most exciting — and concerning — aspects of the AI boom.
Companies need to be careful when rolling out dynamic pricing, "Or else, when people see wild swings, it's perceived as price gouging."
"If I have a limited supply of something, I want to give it to the people that value it most. And so the dynamic pricing algorithm comes in … "
This operations management course offers unique, MIT-developed approaches to business operations strategy based on best-practice research conducted among the world’s leading companies. The program helps participants plan the most efficient use of material resources and manage complicated global networks. It also offers analytical, strategic insights into vertical integration, outsourcing, product strategy, supplier management, process technologies, capacity and risk management, and global networks.
