About

Hayden Schaeffer is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he serves as the Director of Applied Mathematics. His research is in computational and applied mathematics, with interests in mathematical and scientific machine learning, optimization, numerical analysis, and modeling. His work combines mathematical analysis, computation, and machine learning to study algorithms and models. 

Before joining the faculty at UCLA in 2023, Schaeffer was a faculty member in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. He recieved his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA in 2013 and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California, Irvine.

At UCLA, Schaeffer coordinates the Applied Mathematics Graduate Program, the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAM) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), the UCLA Applied Mathematics Colloquium, and the Applied Mathematics Seminar Series. He mentors graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, undergraduate researchers, and REU participants, and supports research and education in applied mathematics.