TIMS President, 1966
George Dantzig was the 13th President of TIMS. He received his doctorate in mathematics from Berkeley. He worked for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, served as Chief of the Combat Analysis Branch for USAF Headquarters Statistical Control and as Mathematical Advisor for USAF Headquarters, Research Mathematician for RAND Corporation, and Professor of Operations Research and Chairman of the Operations Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966 he jointed Stanford University.
He was Professor of Operations Research and Computer Science, Co-Director of the Systems Optimization Laboratory, and Director of the PILOT Energy-Economic Model Project at Stanford. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the National Medal of Science, plus eight honorary degrees, Professor Dantzig's seminal work laid the foundation for much of the field of systems engineering and is widely used in network design and component design in computer, mechanical, and electrical engineering.
His work inspired the formation of the Mathematical Programming Society, a major section of the Society for industrial and applied mathematics, and numerous professional and academic bodies. Generations of Professor Dantzig's students have become the leaders in all facets of society.
Since 1994, The George B. Dantzig Award is given annually for the best dissertation in any area of operations research and the management sciences
Professor Dantzig died in 2005 at the age of 90. A detailed biography can be found here.
BA (math and physics), 1936, Maryland; MA, 1939, Michigan; PhD (Statistics), 1946, UC Berkeley.