Professor Paul Williams

Professor Paul Williams

Emeritus Professor of Operational Research

Department of Management

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About me

Professor Paul Williams was born in Cornwall, and still spends a lot of time there. After attending the local Grammar school he studied Mathematics at Cambridge followed by a PhD in Mathematical Logic at Leicester University under the late Professor R.L.Goodstein.

His first job was with IBM where he worked on Linear and Integer Programming and gained a lasting interest in these subjects. He realised that a lot about them, particularly methods of modelling, were not properly understood and he did a lot of the early work on developing modelling as a subject, as well as making contributions to the algorithmic and computational side. He then held a number of academic jobs, as a lecturer at Sussex University, Professor at Edinburgh, Southampton (Dean and Head of Department) Universities before joining LSE where he has served as Head of the Department of Operational Research (currently the Management Science Group).

Most of his research has been in Linear and Integer Programming, where he has further developed modelling methods, new algorithms and economic interpretations as well as many practical implementations. He has paid extended academic visits to many universities in the USA, Australia , Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore. For many years he also held a visiting Chair at Universiy College Dublin.

In retirement he continues to be very active in research, in particular working on the development of an economically meaningful dual of an Integer Programme and using Mathematical Programming to clarify the dichotemy between equity and utilitarianism in resource allocation. He also consults in helping organisations to formulate and solve their problems as mathematical models.

Expertise Details

Linear programming; allocation and fairness; linear integer programming; operational research; travelling salesmen; combinatorial optimisation; mathematical models; decision theory