Herbert A. Simon

Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
	Simon c. 1981
Born	Herbert Alexander Simon; June 15, 1916; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	February 9, 2001 (aged 84); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education	University of Chicago; (B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1943)
Known for	Bounded rationality; Satisficing; Information Processing Language; Logic Theorist; General Problem Solver
Spouse	Dorothea Isabel Pye (m. 1939)
Children	3
Awards	Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1967); APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1969); Turing Award (1975); Nobel Prize in Economics (1978); National Medal of Science (1986); Harold Pender Award (1987); von Neumann Theory Prize (1988); APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (1993); ACM Fellow (1994); IJCAI Award for Research Excellence (1995);
	Scientific career
Fields	Economics; Artificial intelligence; Computer science; Political science
Institutions	Carnegie Mellon University
Doctoral advisor	Henry Schultz
Other academic advisors	Rudolf Carnap; Nicholas Rashevsky; Harold Lasswell; Charles Merriam; John R. Commons
Doctoral students	Edward Feigenbaum; Allen Newell; Richard Waldinger; John Muth; William F. Pounds; Oliver E. Williamson; Saras Sarasvathy ; David Bree

Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary research interest was decision-making within organizations and he is best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing".^[6]^[7] He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978 and the Turing Award in computer science in 1975.^[8]^[9] His research was noted for its interdisciplinary nature, spanning the fields of cognitive science, computer science, public administration, management, and political science.^[10] He was at Carnegie Mellon University for most of his career, from 1949 to 2001,^[11] where he helped found the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, one of the first such departments in the world.

Notably, Simon was among the pioneers of several modern-day scientific domains such as artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, problem-solving, organization theory, and complex systems. He was among the earliest to analyze the architecture of complexity and to propose a preferential attachment mechanism to explain power law distributions.^[12]^[13]

^ Herbert Simon, "Autobiography", in Nobel Lectures, Economics 1969–1980, Editor Assar Lindbeck, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992.
^ Forest, Joelle, "John R. Commons and Herbert A. Simon on the Concept of Rationality", Journal of Economic Issues Vol. XXXV, 3 (2001), pp. 591–605
^ "Herbert Alexander Simon". AI Genealogy Project. Archived from the original on April 30, 2012. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
^ https://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~dbree/fullcv.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ "Dorothea Simon Obituary - Pittsburgh, PA - Post-Gazette.com". Post-Gazette.com. Retrieved August 8, 2015.
^ "Guru: Herbert Simon". The Economist. March 20, 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
^ Artinger, Florian M.; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Jacobs, Perke (2022). "Satisficing: Integrating Two Traditions". Journal of Economic Literature. 60 (2): 598–635. doi:10.1257/jel.20201396. hdl:21.11116/0000-0007-5C2A-4. ISSN 0022-0515. S2CID 249320959.
^ "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1978". NobelPrize.org.
^ Heyck, Hunter. "Herbert A. Simon - A.M. Turing Award Laureate". amturing.acm.org.
^ Edward Feigenbaum (2001). "Herbert A. Simon, 1916-2001". Science. 291 (5511): 2107. doi:10.1126/science.1060171. S2CID 180480666. Studies and models of decision-making are the themes that unify most of Simon's contributions.
^ Simon, Herbert A. (1978). Assar Lindbeck (ed.). Nobel Lectures, Economics 1969–1980. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
^ Simon, H. A., 1955, Biometrika 42, 425.
^ B. Mandelbrot, "A Note on a Class of Skew Distribution Functions, Analysis and Critique of a Paper by H. Simon", Information and Control, 2 (1959), p. 90

[nobelAutoBiog-1] Herbert Simon, "Autobiography", in Nobel Lectures, Economics 1969–1980, Editor Assar Lindbeck, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992.

[2] Forest, Joelle, "John R. Commons and Herbert A. Simon on the Concept of Rationality", Journal of Economic Issues Vol. XXXV, 3 (2001), pp. 591–605

[3] "Herbert Alexander Simon". AI Genealogy Project. Archived from the original on April 30, 2012. Retrieved March 15, 2012.

[4] ttps://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~dbree/fullcv.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[DorotheaSObit-5] "Dorothea Simon Obituary - Pittsburgh, PA - Post-Gazette.com". Post-Gazette.com. Retrieved August 8, 2015.

[econ-6] "Guru: Herbert Simon". The Economist. March 20, 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2018.

[7] Artinger, Florian M.; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Jacobs, Perke (2022). "Satisficing: Integrating Two Traditions". Journal of Economic Literature. 60 (2): 598–635. doi:10.1257/jel.20201396. hdl:21.11116/0000-0007-5C2A-4. ISSN 0022-0515. S2CID 249320959.

[8] "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1978". NobelPrize.org.

[amturing-9] Heyck, Hunter. "Herbert A. Simon - A.M. Turing Award Laureate". amturing.acm.org.

[edward2001-10] Edward Feigenbaum (2001). "Herbert A. Simon, 1916-2001". Science. 291 (5511): 2107. doi:10.1126/science.1060171. S2CID 180480666. Studies and models of decision-making are the themes that unify most of Simon's contributions.

[11] Simon, Herbert A. (1978). Assar Lindbeck (ed.). Nobel Lectures, Economics 1969–1980. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Retrieved May 22, 2012.

[simon-12] Simon, H. A., 1955, Biometrika 42, 425.

[13] B. Mandelbrot, "A Note on a Class of Skew Distribution Functions, Analysis and Critique of a Paper by H. Simon", Information and Control, 2 (1959), p. 90

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Herbert A. Simon
Simon c. 1981
Born	Herbert Alexander Simon (1916-06-15)June 15, 1916 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	February 9, 2001(2001-02-09) (aged 84) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education	University of Chicago (B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1943)
Known for	Bounded rationality Satisficing Information Processing Language Logic Theorist General Problem Solver
Spouse	Dorothea Isabel Pye^[5] (m. 1939)
Children	3
Awards	Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1967) APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1969) Turing Award (1975) Nobel Prize in Economics (1978) National Medal of Science (1986) Harold Pender Award (1987) von Neumann Theory Prize (1988) APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (1993) ACM Fellow (1994) IJCAI Award for Research Excellence (1995)
Scientific career
Fields	Economics Artificial intelligence Computer science Political science
Institutions	Carnegie Mellon University
Doctoral advisor	Henry Schultz
Other academic advisors	Rudolf Carnap Nicholas Rashevsky Harold Lasswell Charles Merriam^[1] John R. Commons^[2]
Doctoral students	Edward Feigenbaum Allen Newell Richard Waldinger^[3] John Muth William F. Pounds Oliver E. Williamson Saras Sarasvathy David Bree^[4]