With this postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Hay will be working with Professor Michael Radnor and Professor Wallace J. Hopp of Northwestern University in order to examine the origins, development and diffusion of operations research (OR) from 1940- 1960. OR is a mathematical approach to complex problem solving created during World War II. A study of Allied scientific-military cooperation in developing and employing OR reveals its military importance. The postwar era (to 1960) shows how OR methods were extended to create mathematical programming, game theory, and other cornerstones of decision science. Dr. Hay will examine this postwar technology transfer from solely military use to private and public enterprize. He will employ American and British government archives, memoirs, official histories, other relevant monographs and articles. He will also interview key surviving OR practitioners.
