University of Michigan Slide Show

Richard C. Wilson in 1975.  Wilson joined the University of Michigan Industrial Engineering Department in 1961, served as Chair 1969-1972 and Chair of the successor Industrial and Operations Engineering Department 1973-1978 after serving as Associate Dean of Engineering.  Professor Wilson died in 2017 at the age of 95.

James C. Bean in 1985.  In 2001, Bean was the 7th President of INFORMS, and is a member of the inaugural class of INFORMS Fellows.  As a Professor in Industrial and Operations Engineering at Michigan, he rose to become an Associate Dean and co-Director of the Tauber Institute before joining the University of Oregon as business school Dean and then Provost.  He became the Provost of Northeastern University in 2013. 

The Industrial and Operations Engineering Building in 1983. The building contained faculty and staff offices, a small library, and seminar rooms on the first and second floors. The basement housed the ergonomics laboratories, a shop, and a large, shared office for PhD students. The open field in the foreground is now occupied by the IOE wing that houses the Center for Ergonomics offices, shops, IOE lecture rooms, and a reflecting pool.

Herbert Galliher joined the University of Michigan in 1963 from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was one of the founders of the field of OR. Galliher was a U-M IE faculty member from 1963 to 1982 and taught and developed courses in inventory and production analysis. He completed research in Stochastic Processes, studying applications of OR in airport operations management.

Walton Hancock chaired the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Michigan from 1963 to 1968. He applied OR methods  to problems such as patient scheduling and hospital staffing in the U-M Hospital. He also worked with Richard C. Wilson in the auto industry on facility layout, production planning, and scheduling problems, and conducted research on the "learning curve" in manual operations. Walton Hancock died in February, 2019, a few days after his 90th birthday.  

Katta G. Murty joined the University of Michigan in 1968 as an Assistant Professor. He took over the teaching of courses in mathematical programming from Robert M. Thrall. Murty had a deep understanding of and commitment to furthering the development of linear and nonlinear optimization methods and algorithms. His books have been used as the basis for teaching optimization methods and applications around the world. He also worked on many applications of OR over the course of his career.

Stephen M. Pollock joined the University of Michigan in 1969. His PhD from MIT provided him with a deep understanding and background in a variety of empirical and probabilistic-based operations research methodologies. He used these insights to collaborate with many other faculty members in solving problems related to public systems, manufacturing, sporting events and many others.

John R. Birge joined the University of Michigan in 1980 after completing his PhD at Stanford University. Birge established himself as an expert and scholar in the development and use of stochastic programming and large-scale optimization to solve a variety of problems in finance, electrical power distribution, health care, and vehicle manufacturing.

Romesh Saigal joined the University of Michigan in 1986 after receiving his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. Saigal teaches courses in continuous optimization, linear programming, and financial engineering. His research includes understanding risk in operational settings within the application areas of transportation, health care, and finance.

Robert L. Smith joined the University of Michigan in 1980 after receiving his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. His research and teaching focused on theory of dynamic programming and modeling stochastic processes related to communications, traffic routing and vehicle manufacturing.