ORSA President, 1968
Joseph Engel was the 17th President of ORSA. Upon returning from World War II, he worked as an analyst with the Operations Evaluation Group at MIT and was a director at the Center for Naval Analysis and at the Communications Satellite Corporation. For his service in World War II, he earned the Air Medal with Three Oak Leaf Clusters and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He became a professor and head of the Systems Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle where he built the O.R. Program over an eight-year period. He returned to Washington to head the Mathematical Analysis Division of the National Bureau of Standards.
In ORSA, he held a number of key posts in addition to being President. He was Secretary, chairman of numerous committees, and an associate editor of Operations Research. He helped found Omega Rho, our honorary society, and served as its second President for 1978-80.
Engel is a Fellow of INFORMS and holder of the Steinhardt Prize (1986) for his contributions to military O.R.
BS CCNY; PhD (mathematics), Wisconsin.