Ward Whitt

Ward Whitt creates models of congestion (queues), and methods for analyzing those models, used to design and manage telecommunication, manufacturing, computer, and service systems.  This research focus evolved during Whitt’s 25 years at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs before joining the Columbia faculty in 2002. 

His recent work has focused on data-generated models for dynamic resource allocation in service systems such as telephone call centers and hospital emergency departments. A main theme has been developing tractable approximations through asymptotic methods. In addition to developing new asymptotic results, he has developed and applied numerical methods involving computer simulation, numerical transform inversion, and robust optimization.

Of particular interest to Whitt today is the challenge of creating and analyzing non-Markov nonstationary data-driven stochastic queueing models commonly arising in service systems when the arrival rate varies strongly over time and the service times have non-exponential distributions.

Whitt received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1964 and a PhD in operations research from Cornell University in 1969. He was on the Yale faculty in 1969-1977; at Bell Labs in 1977-1996; at AT&T Labs in 1996-2002; and joined the Columbia Faculty in 2002.  He has been active in the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and its Applied Probability Society.