Gerald L. Thompson

Gerald L. Thompson (born November 25, 1923, Rolfe, Iowa; died November 9, 2009 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was the IBM Professor of Systems and Operations Research (Emeritus) in the Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University.

The painting combines Thompson's aesthetic and mathematical skills (the indicated moves of a knight on a chessboard cycle through the color wheel).

From 1953 to 1958, Thompson taught at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he wrote Introduction to Finite Mathematics with John G. Kemeny and J. Laurie Snell.

In 1959, Thompson joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

His research encompassed mathematical programming, combinatorial optimization, production planning, large scale linear and network programming, computational economics, market games, optimal control theory, scheduling theory and practice, and management.