George Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematician, who introduced the simplex algorithm and is considered the "father of linear programming". Dantzig is known for his development of the simplex algorithm, an algorithm for solving linear programming problems, and his work with linear programming. In statistics, Dantzig solved two open problems in statistical theory, which he had mistaken for homework after arriving late to a lecture of Jerzy Neyman. Dantzig was the Professor Emeritus of Transportation Sciences and Professor of Operations Research and of Computer Science at Stanford. George Bernard Dantzig Ourisson was born in 8 November 1914 in Portland, Oregon, USA. Dantzig earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Maryland (1936) and a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan (1937) before joining the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as a statistician. In 1939 he entered the graduate mathematics program at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1941 to 1946 Dantzig was the civilian head of the Combat Analysis Branch of the U.S. Army Air Forces Office of Statistical Control. In 1946 he returned for one semester to Berkeley to receive a doctorate in mathematics, and then he went back to Washington, D.C., to work for the U.S. Department of Defense. Among Dantzig’s numerous awards were the John von Neumann Theory Prize in operations research (1975), the National Medal of Science (1975), and the National Academy of Sciences Award in applied mathematics and numerical analysis (1977).