Egon Balas

Egon Balas (June 7, 1922 – March 18, 2019) was a Romanian applied mathematician. He was a professor of industrial administration and applied mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University. He was the Thomas Lord Professor of Operations Research at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. He was known for his fundamental work in developing integer and disjunctive programming.* Graham K. Rand: Egon Balas, Profiles in Operations Research (eds.: A.A. Asad, S.L. Gass), International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, 147, Springer, 2011.

 Life and education 
He was born in Cluj in Transylvania to a Hungarian Jewish family. His birth name was actually Blatt, but it was changed to the Hungarian Balázs ("BAW-lass"). It was changed again to Romanian Balaș ("BAH-lash"). He was married to art historian Edith Balas, a survivor of Auschwitz, and they birthed two daughters. He was imprisoned by the Communist authorities for several years after the war.

He left Romania in 1966 and ventured onto the United States to begin his new career. He started his teaching career in 1967 at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He got a "Diploma Licentiate" in economics in 1949, and he got Ph.D.s in economics and mathematics at different universities and in different years.E. Balas: Will to Freedom: A Perilous Journey through Fascism and Communism (Syracuse University Press, 2000) 

References

Category:1922 births
Category:2019 deaths
Category:Romanian mathematicians