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An Interview with Ronald A. Howard

Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
rgarber{at}stanford.edu

Ronald A. Howard has contributed substantially to defining the field of decision analysis since his first publication using that term in 1966 (Howard 1966). He has been a professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford since 1965, currently teaching an average of 450 students per year and having had 86 Ph.D. students in the last 44 years. In addition to numerous journal publications, Ron Howard has authored five books, including one very recent book on ethical decision making (Howard 1960, 1971; Howard and Matheson 1977, 1984; Howard and Korver 2008). He earned his Sc.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Howard was associate professor of electrical engineering, associate professor of industrial management, and associate director of the Operations Research Center at MIT. In 1986 he received the Frank P. Ramsey Award for "distinguished contributions in decision analysis." Professor Howard was also a cofounder of Strategic Decisions Group (a private consulting firm) and the Decision Education Foundation (a philanthropic educational foundation). Earlier this year I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Howard to discuss his life and his experiences in academia and business, as well as his current directions.

Key Words: decision analysis; Ronald A. Howard; Bayesian statistics; influence diagrams; decision education foundation
History: Received on April 12, 2009. Accepted on September 14, 2009.