3/16/06 Contact: Sara Borchik, 334/844-5284 (borchse@auburn.edu)
David Granger, 334/844-9999 (grangdm@auburn.edu)

PROFESSOR, STATE DEPARTMENT VET TO SPEAK ON DECISION-MAKING AND CREATIVITY AT AU

AUBURN - Thomas L. Saaty, a professor in the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh and a seven-year veteran of the U.S. Department of State’s Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, will speak Monday and Tuesday, March 20 and 21, at Auburn University.

Saaty, whose visit is sponsored by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, will discuss decision-making processes on Monday at 10 a.m. in 202 Dunstan Hall. The discussion will cover the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Analytic Network Process, software-based decision making programs Saaty designed following his experiences with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The talk will introduce practical ways of thinking about and solving decision-making problems.

Saaty will discuss his views on creativity Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. in the Governor’s Room at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. The focus will be on the relationship between creativity and intelligence and methods for teaching and stimulating creativity.

Saaty, who also has served as a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, holds a doctorate in mathematics from Yale University and did post-graduate work at the University of Paris. His main research interests include operations, decision sciences and artificial intelligence.

Saaty is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer. AU’s Ginn College of Engineering counts three graduates as members: Philip Lett, a 1941 mechanical engineering graduate; Oliver Kingsley, a 1966 engineering physics graduate; and John Junkins, a 1965 aerospace engineering graduate.

Auburn University is a preeminent land-grant and comprehensive research institution with more than 23,000 students and 6,500 faculty and staff. Ranked among the top 50 public universities nationally, Auburn is Alabama’s largest educational institution, offering more than 230 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs.

(Contributed by Sara Borchik.)

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