Steven Low

Steven Low is the Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he also serves as Director of the Schmidt Academy for Software Engineering starting in 2026. A leader in Computer Science research, he received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1987, M.S. in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1992, both from the University of California, Berkeley. His career began at AT&T Bell Labs as a Member of Technical Staff from 1992 to 1996. He then served as Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne from 1996 to 2000, before joining Caltech as Associate Professor in 2000, advancing to Professor in 2006 and Gilloon Professor in 2018. Low co-founded and led FastSoft, Inc. as CEO from 2006 to 2008 and as Chairman until 2012; he also co-founded PowerFlex Systems, Inc., serving as Chairman from 2017 to 2019.

Low's research specializations include control and optimization of communication networks, power systems, smart grids, and cyber-physical systems. His work has advanced network congestion control, including FAST TCP, convex relaxations of optimal power flow problems, and energy-efficient networking strategies. He published the book Analytical Methods for Network Congestion Control (Morgan & Claypool, 2017) and influential papers such as "Optimization Flow Control—I: Basic Algorithm and Convergence" (IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 1999), "FAST TCP: Motivation, Architecture, Algorithms, Performance" (IEEE Communications Magazine, 2006), "Layering as Optimization Decomposition: A Mathematical Theory of Network Architectures" (Proceedings of the IEEE, 2007), "Zero Duality Gap in Optimal Power Flow Problem" (IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2012), and "Branch Flow Model: Relaxations and Convexification" (IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2014). Low has earned major awards including the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award (2024), IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award (2021), ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award (2021), IEEE William R. Bennett Prize (1997 and 2017), ACM Fellow (2020), and IEEE Fellow (2008). He has contributed as Senior Editor for IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems and other journals, and served on advisory committees for NSF, PCAST, and industry boards.

Professional Email: slow@caltech.edu