Yifei Lou received her Ph.D. in Applied Math from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2010, when she was co-supervised by Prof. Andrea Bertozzi in the Mathematics Department and Prof. Stefano Soatto in the Computer Science Department.
After graduation, she joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, as a postdoctoral fellow, supervised by Prof. Allen R. Tannenbaum. A year later, she had a joint position as a visiting lecturer at the Department of Mathematics, University of California, San Diego, and a postdoc at UCLA. Since June 2012, she has been a postdoc working with Prof. Jack Xin and Prof. Hongkai Zhao at the Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine.
She was on the faculty in the Mathematical Sciences Department at the University of Texas at Dallas from 2014 to 2023, first as an Assistant Professor and then as an Associate Professor. Since July 2023, she has held a joint position at the associate level in the Department of Mathematics and the School of Data Science and Society (SDSS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was promoted to full professor in 2026.
Her research interests are
Compressive sensing and its applications
Image analysis (medical imaging, hyperspectral imaging, and seismic imaging)
Numerical analysis and optimization algorithms
News:
Dr. Lou is featured as a Global Heel after receiving two Global Partnership Awards in 2025.
Dr. Lou will co-chair the 2026 SIAM Conference on Imaging Science (IS26) with Weihong Guo, which will be held at Salt Lake City, Utah, from November 16 to 19, 2026.
NSF-sponsored 2025 Research Collaboration Workshop in Science of Data and Mathematics (WiSDM), UNC Chapel Hill, August 4- 8, 2025. Click here for a news report.
Dr. Lou served as one of the panlists on the AWM panel, "Navigating Challenges, Opportunities, and Uncertainties as Women in Data Science," during the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings (AN25), Montréal, Québec, Canada, July 29, 2025. Click here for a news report.
SIAM Texas-Louisiana Section Holds Fifth Annual Meeting, University of Houston, November 4-6, 2022. Click here for a news report.
SIAM Texas-Louisiana Section Holds Fourth Annual Meeting, in South Padre Island, Texas, November 5-7, 2021. Click here for a news report.
DFW Area 2021 Virtual Poster Competition in Mathematics. Click here for more information.
NSF CAREER Award (DMS-1846690): "Mathematical Modeling from Data to Insights and Beyond," 2019-2024. Click here for a news report.
NSF-sponsored workshop (DMS-1821870): "Recent Developments on Mathematical/Statistical Approaches in Data Science," May 31-Jun 2, 2019. Please see the workshop webpage for more details.