András Prékopa


András Prékopa was a Hungarian mathematician, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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 at the Institute for Applied Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 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 University, and became the founder, professor and first chairman of the Department of Operations Research. He retired from there in 2000. From 1985 until 2015, he was a distinguished professor of OR, statistics and mathematics at Rutgers University. He was also the graduate director of the Ph.D program in OR. In 2015 he retired from Rutgers as a distinguished professor emeritus. 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: he developed the research school and education curricula, organized international and local conferences, formed an academic committee, founded a 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 and honorary president of the János Bolyai Mathematical Society and the Hungarian OR Society, among others.

Awards

He was married to Kinga Széchenyi, educator, sculptor and writer; they had two children and two grandchildren.
He was a member of the Batthyány Society of Professors.

Selected publications

Books, book parts – editorial activity