Edward H. Kaplan

Edward H. Kaplan’s research has been reported on the front pages of the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post, editorialized in the Wall Street Journal, recognized by the New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas, and discussed in many other major media outlets.

He is the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Operations Research and Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Engineering at Yale,  published more than 150 research articles, and received both the Lanchester Prize and the Edelman Award, two top honors in the operations research field, among many other awards. An elected member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academies, he has also twice received the prestigious Lady Davis Visiting Professorship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has investigated AIDS policy issues facing the State of Israel.

Professor Kaplan pioneered the application of operations research to public health issues such as HIV prevention and bioterror preparedness, and also played a leading role applying operations research to problems in counterterrorism and homeland security. More recently, as a member of Yale’s COVID-19 Public Health Committee, he developed novel models  to understand, monitor, and prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

In 2014, Professor Kaplan was elected to the presidency of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the world’s largest society of operations research and analytics academics and professionals. He served as president-elect in 2015, president in 2016, and past president in 2017. An interview discussing Professor Kaplan’s academic career is available  here.