Manfred Wilhelm Padberg (October 10, 1941 in

Bottrop, Germany Bottrop () is a city in west-central Germany, on the Rhine–Herne Canal, in North Rhine-Westphalia. Located in the Ruhr industrial area, Bottrop adjoins Essen, Oberhausen, Gladbeck, and Dorsten. The city had been a coal-mining and rail ce ...

- May 12, 2014) was a German mathematician who worked with

linear Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship (''function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear r ...

and

combinatorial optimization Combinatorial optimization is a subfield of mathematical optimization that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects, where the set of feasible solutions is discrete or can be reduced to a discrete set. Typical combi ...

. He and

Ellis L. Johnson Ellis Lane Johnson is the Professor Emeritus and the Coca-Cola Chaired Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1988, Johnson was elected a member ...

won the

John von Neumann Theory Prize The John von Neumann Theory Prize of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is awarded annually to an individual (or sometimes a group) who has made fundamental and sustained contributions to theory in operati ...

in 2000.

Biography

Padberg grew up in Zagreb, Croatia, and Westphalia. From 1961 he studied mathematics at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over ...

, where he graduated in 1967. In 1967, he was a research assistant at the

University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Academy of Sciences'', ...

. Starting in September 1968, he studied at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, where he obtained a master's degree and his Ph.D. (1971) in Industrial Administration. His advisor was

Egon Balas Egon Balas (June 7, 1922 in Cluj, Romania – March 18, 2019) was an applied mathematician and a professor of industrial administration and applied mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University. He was the Thomas Lord Professor of Operations Research ...

and his dissertation was titled ''Essays in Integer Programming''. Afterwards he worked from 1971 to 1974 at the Berlin Science Center. From 1974, he was Associate Professor and, from 1978, Professor of Operations Research at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. He became a professor emeritus in 2002. He moved to Paris in 2002.

Recognition

He,

Martin Shubik Martin Shubik (1926-2018) was an American mathematical economist who specialized in game theory, defense analysis, and the theory of money and financial institutions. The latter was his main research interest and he coined the term "mathematical ...

, and Harlan Crowder won the

Frederick W. Lanchester Prize The Frederick W. Lanchester Prize is an Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences prize (U.S. $5,000 cash prize and medallion) given for the best contribution to operations research and the management sciences published in Engli ...

in 1983. He was elected to the 2002 class of

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

s of the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger of ...

Personal life

He died in 2014 from cancer.

Works

* M. Padberg, ''Linear Optimization and Extensions'', Springer-Verlag, 1999.

References

John von Neumann Theory Prize winners German statisticians 1941 births 2014 deaths Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences {{Germany-mathematician-stub