Thomas L. Saaty

Thomas L. Saaty (born 1926) is an American mathematician. He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He is the inventor, architect, and primary theoretician of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision-making framework used for large-scale, multiparty, multi-criteria decision analysis, and of the Analytic Network Process, its generalization to decisions with dependence and feedback.

Saaty has had 14 doctoral students according to the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Prior to coming to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Saaty was professor of statistics and operations research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1969-79). Prior to that, he spent fifteen years working for U.S. government agencies and for companies doing government-sponsored research. His employers at that time included the Operations Evaluation Group of MIT at the Pentagon, the Office of Naval Research, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the U.S. State Department.

Dr. Saaty has made contributions in the fields of operations research (parametric linear programming, epidemics and the spread of biological agents, queuing theory, and behavioral mathematics as it relates to operations), arms control and disarmament, and urban design. He has written more than 30 books and 300 papers on mathematics, operations research, and decision making. Their subjects include graph theory and its applications, nonlinear mathematics, analytical planning, and game theory and conflict resolution.

In line with his long-time interest in peace and conflict resolution, in 1983 Saaty proposed that an International Center for Conflict Resolution needs to be established that would have branches in many countries and would be manned by retired diplomats, negotiators and conflict analysts. This idea was first published in an article "Center for Conflict Resolution," in the March 1984 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and it also appeared as an appendix in his 1989 book on Conflict Resolution co-authored with J.M. Alexander. A current revised version of this proposal is posted here with his University of Pittsburgh vita.

A 2002 article listing the most important contributions to operations research from 1654 to date listed four from Dr. Saaty: Parametric Programming (1954, with S. I. Gass), "Mathematical Methods of Operations Research" (1959), "Elements of Queueing Theory" (1961), and "The Analytic Hierarchy Process" (1980).^[1]

Saaty has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2005), and the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, 1971). In 1973, he received the Lester R. Ford Award from the Mathematical Association of America for expository excellence in his work on the four color problem, and in 2000 he was awarded the gold medal of the International Society on Multi-criteria Decision Making. He is the 2007 recipient of the Akao Prize of the QFD Institute.

In 2008, he received the INFORMS Impact Prize for his development of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The Impact Prize is awarded every two years to recognize contributions that have had a broad impact on the fields of operations research and the management sciences. Emphasis is placed on the breadth of the impact of an idea or body of research.

Education

PhD, Mathematics, Yale University, 1953 (thesis, under Einar Carl Hille: "On the Bessel Tricomi Equation"). Post-graduate study, University of Paris, 1952-53. MA, Mathematics, Yale University, 1951. MS, Physics, Catholic University of America, 1949. BA, Columbia Union College, 1948.^[2]

Bibliography

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)

1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning, Priority Setting, Resource Allocation, ISBN 0-07-054371-2, McGraw-Hill
1982 Decision Making for Leaders: The Analytical Hierarchy Process for Decisions in a Complex World, ISBN 0-534-97959-9, Wadsworth. 1988, Paperback, ISBN 0-9620317-0-4, RWS
1982 The Logic of Priorities: Applications in Business, Energy, Health, and Transportation, with Luis G. Vargas, ISBN 0-89838-071-5 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-89838-078-2 (Paperback), Kluwer-Nijhoff
1985 Analytical Planning: The Organization of Systems, with Kevin P. Kearns, ISBN 0-08-032599-8, Pergamon
1991 Prediction, Projection and Forecasting: Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process in Economics, Finance, Politics, Games and Sports, with Luis G. Vargas, ISBN 0-7923-9104-7, Kluwer Academic
1992 The Hierarchon: A Dictionary of Hierarchies, with Ernest H. Forman, ISBN 0-9620317-5-5, RWS
1994 Fundamentals of Decision Making and Priority Theory with the Analytic Hierarchy Process, ISBN 0-9620317-6-3, RWS
1994 Decision Making in Economic, Social and Technological Environments, with Luis G. Vargas, ISBN 0-9620317-7-1, RWS
1996 Vol. III and IV of the Analytic Hierarchy Process Series, ISBN 1-888603-07-0 RWS
2001 Models, Methods, Concepts & Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, with Luis G. Vargas, ISBN 0-7923-7267-0, Kluwer Academic
2007 Group Decision Making: Drawing Out and Reconciling Differences, with Kirti Peniwati, ISBN 1-888603-08-9, RWS

Analytic network process (ANP)

1996 Decision Making with Dependence and Feedback: The Analytic Network Process, ISBN 0-9620317-9-8, RWS
2005 Theory and Applications of the Analytic Network Process: Decision Making with Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks, ISBN 1-888603-06-2, RWS
2005 The Encyclicon, A Dictionary of Decisions with Dependence and Feedback based on the Analytic Network Process, with Müjgan S. Özdemir, ISBN 1-888603-05-4, RWS
2006 Decision Making with the Analytic Network Process: Economic, Political, Social and Technological Applications with Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks, with Luis G. Vargas, ISBN 0-387-33859-4, Springer
2008 The Encyclicon, Volume 2: A Dictionary of Complex Decisions using the Analytic Network Process, with Brady Cillo, ISBN 1-888603-09-7, RWS
2008 The analytic hierarchy and analytic network measurement processes: Applications to decisions under Risk', European Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 1 (1), 122-196, (2008)

Neural network process (NNP)

1999 The Brain: Unraveling the Mystery of How it Works, The Neural Network Process, ISBN 1-888603-02-X, RWS
2009 Principia Mathematica Decernendi: Mathematical Principles of Decision Making - Generalization of the Analytic Network Process to Neural Firing and Synthesis, ISBN 1-888603-10-0, RWS

Operations research

1959 Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, no ISBN (translated into Japanese and Russian), McGraw-Hill. 1988 Extended edition, ISBN 0-486-65703-5, Dover (paperback)
1961 Elements of Queueing Theory with Applications, no ISBN (translated into Russian, Spanish and German), McGraw-Hill

Mathematics

1964 Nonlinear Mathematics, with J. Bram, no ISBN, McGraw-Hill. 1981 Reprinted as ISBN 0-486-64233-X, Dover (paperback)
1964-1965 Lectures on Modern Mathematics, Volumes I, II, III (Thomas L. Saaty, Editor), no ISBN (translated into Japanese), John Wiley
1965 Finite Graphs and Networks, with R. Busacker, no ISBN (translated into Japanese, Russian, German and Hungarian), McGraw-Hill
1967 Modern Nonlinear Equations, no ISBN, McGraw-Hill. 1981, reprinted as ISBN 0-486-64232-1, Dover (paperback)
1969 The Spirit and Uses of the Mathematical Sciences, (Thomas L. Saaty, Editor, with F.J. Weyl), no ISBN, McGraw-Hill
1970 Optimization in Integers and Related Extremal Problems, no ISBN (translated into Russian), McGraw-Hill
1977 The Four-Color Problem; Assaults and Conquest, ISBN 0-07-054382-8, with Paul C. Kainen, McGraw-Hill. 1986 Revised edition, ISBN 0-486-65092-8, Dover (paperback)

Applied mathematics

1968 Mathematical Models of Arms Control and Disarmament, no ISBN, (translated into Russian), Wiley
1973 Topics in Behavioral Mathematics, no ISBN, Mathematical Association of America
1981 Thinking with Models: Mathematical Models in the Physical, Biological, and Social Sciences, with Joyce Alexander, hardback ISBN 0-08-026475-1, paperback ISBN 0-08-026474, Pergamon

References

^ Gass, Saul I. (2002-10-01). "Great Moments in HistORy (sic)". OR/MS Today. INFORMS. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
^ Faculty appointments from Wharton (Nov 14, 1969)

External links

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[1] Gass, Saul I. (2002-10-01). "Great Moments in HistORy (sic)". OR/MS Today. INFORMS. Retrieved 2008-10-12.

[2] Faculty appointments from Wharton (Nov 14, 1969)

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