Benjamin Lev

Brief Biography

Benjamin Lev is a former Vice President of Meetings for both The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS) and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). Lev received degrees in mechanical and industrial engineering from Technion Israel Institute of Technology in the 1960s prior to pursuing a PhD at Case Western Reserve University. After earning his doctorate, Lev joined the Department of Management at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lev has been a prolific author. During his tenure at Temple, he published four textbooks on analytic techniques and strategic planning for energy and production management. Most recently, Lev co-authored his fifth book,Advanced Business Analyticswith F. P. Garcia-Marquez, in early 2015. His research has contributed to a variety of application areas beyond energy including health care delivery and inventory management.

An involved member of professional management sciences societies since 1968, Lev has played a proactive role in arranging and chairing conferences. He served as the last TIMS Vice President of Meetings (1993-1994) and the first to hold that position with the INFORMS (1995-1996). Lev was General co-chair for the INFORMS International meeting in Israel in 1998 and held the same position for the 16^th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Other positions Lev has held with INFORMS, TIMS, and the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) have included President of the ORSA/TIMS Philadelphia Chapter and membership with the societies’ Public Relations Committees. Since 1995, he has been a member of the INFORMS Speakers Program, giving lectures on inventory models, OR paper revision, and real life application of OR/MS techniques. Since 2002, he has been Editor-in-Chief of Omega, the International Journal of Management Science.  Lev was elected a Fellow of INFORMS in 2003.

Lev left Temple to head the Management Department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1987. After three years, he moved to the University of Michigan-Dearborn to become Dean of its School of Management. Lev has been with Drexel University in Philadelphia since 2009 and was named a Trustee Professor in 2014. 

Other Biographies

INFORMS Connect with People. Speakers Program: Lev, Benjamin (Drexel University). Accessed June 5, 2015. (link)

Benjamin Lev (2016) Interview by Jeff Camm, November 13, 2016. Nashville, TN.

Benjamin Lev Interview

NOTE: The video chapter transcripts are searchable, with search results displayed as marks on the time bar above the search box.  Click a mark to jump to the search word or phrase in the video and transcript, or click on any word in the transcript to jump to that point in the video.