Ward Whitt

Ward Whitt is the Wai T. Chang Professor Emeritus in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. A renowned expert in operations research, Whitt's academic and professional work has made foundational contributions to the fields of queueing theory, stochastic processes, and performance modeling of telecommunications, manufacturing, and service systems.

Whitt earned his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1964 and completed his Ph.D. in Operations Research at Cornell University in 1969. His doctoral research, advised by D. L. Iglehart, focused on weak convergence theorems for queues in heavy traffic—a theme that would define much of his later scholarship.

Before joining Columbia in 2002, Whitt had a distinguished career at AT&T. He was a Technology Leader and AT&T Fellow at AT&T Labs (1996–2002), and prior to that, a long-serving Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories. Across various departments and roles, he worked on the mathematical foundations and practical implementation of network management and performance systems.

Whitt’s scholarly impact is reflected in numerous honors, including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996 and the INFORMS John von Neumann Theory Prize in 2001 for his fundamental contributions to operations research. He has also received the Harold Larnder Prize from the Canadian Operational Research Society and was named an inaugural Fellow of INFORMS in 2002. His book, Stochastic-Process Limits: An Introduction to Stochastic-Process Limits and Their Application to Queues, received the 2003 INFORMS Lanchester Prize.

A dedicated educator, Whitt has been recognized with the SEAS Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award and the INFORMS Expository Writing Award. In 2007, he was appointed to the Wai T. Chang Professorship at Columbia.

In addition to his teaching and research, Whitt has played a major editorial role in the field. He has served as an associate and area editor for leading journals, including Operations Research, Mathematics of Operations Research, and Queueing Systems, among others. He has also been deeply involved in the INFORMS Applied Probability Special Interest Group, serving as vice chairman and chairman.

Update June 3, 2025