Operational research in everyday life – Model thinking

Operational research in everyday life – Model thinking Richard C. Larson, Mitsui Professor, explores the role of operations research in everyday life and the concept of model thinking. Welcome to the first of four short discussions on operational research and model thinking. Thank you for ‘tuning in’! The remaining three discussions will appear in the Open Access Government online publication at three-month intervals. Who am I, your author? Thanks for asking! I am a semi-retired professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a wonderful university where I developed critical thinking skills. I am what they call an ‘MIT lifer’, someone who entered as a freshman at age 18 and never left! I’ve had five different academic home departments – in MIT’s School of Engineering and its School of Architecture and Planning – exposing me to a wide variety of problem domains. As I write this, I am now a Professor, Post-Tenure, at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.