Faculty Profile
Saul I. Gass received his BS in Education and MA in Mathematics from Boston
University, and his PhD in Engineering Science/Operations Research from the University
of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Gass first served as a mathematician for the Aberdeen Bombing Mission, U.
S. Air Force, and then transferred to Air Force Headquarters where he began his
career in operations research with the Directorate of Management Analysis, the organization
in which linear programming was first developed. For IBM, he was an Applied Science
Representative, Manager of the Project Mercury Man-in-Space Program, and Manager
of IBM's Federal Civil Programs. He was a member of the Science and Technology Task
Force of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement. He was Director of Operations
Research for CEIR, Senior Vice-President of World Systems Laboratories, and Vice-President
of Mathematica. He has served as a consultant to the U. S. General Accounting Office,
Congressional Budget Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
and other operations research and systems analysis organizations.
Included in his many publications are the texts Linear Programming (fifth
edition) and Decision Making, Models and Algorithms, and the book An Illustrated
Guide to Linear Programming. He is co-author of the book An Annotated Timeline
of Operations Research: An Informal History. He is co-editor of the Encyclopedia
of Operations Research and Management Sciences and A Guide to Models in Governmental
Planning and Operations. His co-authored/co-edited book, Profiles in Operations
Research: Pioneers and Innovators was published in 2011.
Dr. Gass is a past president of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA)
and Omega Rho, the international operations research honor society. He served as
vice-president for international activities of the Institute of Operations Research
and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and vice-president of the International Federation
of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). He is a recipient of ORSA's Kimball Medal
for distinguished service to the society and the profession, INFORMS's Expository
Writing Award for publications in operations research that have set an exemplary
standard of exposition, and the Military Operations Research Society's Jacinto Steinhardt
Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to military operations research. He
is a Fellow of INFORMS. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Computer and
Automation Research Institution, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a Fulbright
Senior Specialist from 2001 to 2005 under whose auspices he visited and lectured
at universities in Taiwan, New Zealand, Chile, Spain, and Japan. Dr. Gass is a University
of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and the Dean's Lifetime Achievement Professor
for the Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Research Interests
His research interests included: linear programming, large-scale systems, model
validation and evaluation, game theory, multi-objective decision analysis, the application
of operations research methodologies, and the history of operations research and
related fields.
