Herbert alexander Simon (1916–2001) was born in Milwaukee, wisconsin, on 15 June 1916. his father, an electrical engineer, had come to the uSa in 1903 from germany, while his mother, an accomplished...

Herbert alexander Simon (1916–2001) was born in Milwaukee, wisconsin, on 15 June 1916. his father, an electrical engineer, had come to the uSa in 1903 from germany, while his mother, an accomplished pianist, was a third-generation american. even in high school, he was interested in the social sciences, especially psychology and economics. he received his BSc in economics and political science from the university of chicago in 1936, and his Phd from chicago three years later. in 1949 Simon moved to carnegie-Mellon institute in Pittsburgh to help develop a graduate programme that would combine business education with economics and behavioural science, later becoming a professor of psychology. it was at carnegie-Mellon that he made major breakthroughs in both economics and psychology. in studying decision making, he rejected the traditional economic notion that people are purely rational, instead arguing for models (based on behavioural data) which said that people seek satisfactory choices rather than ideal ones. Similarly, his interest in developing computer models for business processes led to his collaboration with allan newell on problem solving. admired by his peers for both his eclectic interests and his personal warmth, in 1978 Simon won the nobel Prize in economics ‘for pioneering research into the decision making process’. Simon remained active into his eighties, publishing and collaborating until shortly before his death in 2001, at the age of 84.