Born in Babol, Iran, Dr. Manoochehr Babanezhad received a PhD in Applied Statistics from the University of Ghent, Belgium, in 2005 and a Post-Doctorate from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 2016. Currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics and Mathematics, Golestan University, Iran, his research interests are structural models and algorithms, time and longitudinal data analysis, mathematical optimization algorithms, and statistical analysis of optimization methods.