András Prékopa

András Prékopa

András Prékopa
Born September 11, 1929
Hungary
Residence U.S.
Fields Operations Research
Institutions Rutgers University
Alma mater University of Debrecen
Notable awards Széchenyi Prize (1996)

András Prékopa (born September 11, 1929 in Nyíregyháza) is a Hungarian mathematician, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Contents

Education

He received his university diploma as teacher of mathematics and physics from the University of Debrecen in 1952.

Academic career

In 1952 he became a Ph.D student (aspirant) at the Institute for Applied Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) and defended his thesis, entitled “On Stochastic Set Functions”, in 1956. His advisor was Alfréd Rényi. Between 1956-68 he was first assistant, later associate professor at the Department of Probability Theory of the L. Eötvös University. In 1968 he became full professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Technical University of Budapest, where he remained until 1983. In that year he returned to the Eötvös Univesity, and became the founder, professor and first chairman of the Department of Operations Research (OR). He retired from there in 2000. Since 1985 he has been distinguished professor of OR, statistics and mathematics at Rutgers University. Currently he is the graduate director of the Ph.D program in OR. Prékopa’s part-time appointments were also very important in his scientific career in Hungary. In 1958 he founded the first research department in OR at the Math. Inst. of the HAS and in 1977 the Department of Applied Math. at the Computing and Automation Inst. of the HAS.

Research and achievements

Prékopa is the father of the Hungarian Operations Research in many ways: developed research school, education curricula, organized international and local conferences, formed academic committee, founded scientific periodical, etc. He published more than a dozen books and about 350 papers alone and with co-authors and supervised 51 Ph.D students, many of whom are internationally known academics and industrial leaders.

In 1979 Prékopa was elected a corresponding member and in 1985 full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was also elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Engineering of Mexico, fellow of the Econometric Society, member of the International Statistical Institute, honorary president of the János Bolyai Mathematical Society and the Hungarian OR Society, among others.

Awards

Personal life

He is married to Kinga Széchenyi, educator, sculptor and writer, they have two children and two grandchildren.

Selected publications

Books, book parts – editorial activity

Papers

See also

References