Professor Richard Larson Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS)
Prof. Richard Larson is a distinguished scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has authored over 175 scientific articles and six books. His seminal work, Urban Police Patrol Analysis (MIT Press, 1972), was awarded the Lanchester Prize of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA). He also co-authored the widely cited Urban Operations Research (Prentice Hall, 1981), which has garnered over 1,400 citations. His research on queues—including the Queue Inference Engine and the Hypercube Queueing Model—has resulted in groundbreaking computational techniques and extensive media coverage.
Recently, Prof. Larson was selected as Top Professor of the Year for 2025 by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP). This distinction recognizes his five decades of leadership and commitment to the industry. He will be honored at the IAOTP annual awards gala in Las Vegas this December and featured in TIP (Top Industry Professionals) Magazine.
Throughout his career, Prof. Larson has focused on applying operations research and systems expertise to public and private sector challenges, including emergency response, disaster planning, pandemics, logistics, and workforce planning. Two of his recent papers won Best-Paper-of-the-Year awards: a study on H1N1 vaccine distribution (2012) and an analysis of the STEM workforce (2015), the latter receiving the Lawrence M. Klein Award from the U.S. Department of Labor.
His leadership roles include serving as President of ORSA (1993–94), President of INFORMS (2005), and Co-Director of the MIT Operations Research Center for over 15 years. He has also served on government boards for the Institute of Medicine, advising on health sciences policy and emergency management.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering and an INFORMS Founding Fellow, Prof. Larson has received the INFORMS President’s Award, the Kimball Medal, and the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Daniel Berg Medal. From 1995 to 2003, he directed MIT’s Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES), focusing on technology-enabled learning, and was the founding director of the Learning International Networks Consortium (LINC).
Currently, Prof. Larson is the Principal Investigator of the MIT BLOSSOMS Initiative, where he researches structural changes in the U.S. education system. He earned his BS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1969.
Personal History & Philosophy
Prof. Larson views Operations Research (OR) as “the world’s most important invisible profession” or “The Physics of our Everyday World.” He explores these concepts in his recent book, MODEL THINKING For Everyday Life (available on Amazon).
Beyond his academic tenure, he operated a consulting firm for 40 years—most notably the ENFORTH Corporation—which helped cities implement mathematical models to improve emergency services. He attributes his success to persistence and mentorship, and when not working, he enjoys traveling and spending time with his family.
MIT BLOSSOMS Videos: https://web.mit.edu/blossoms/videos/
Career Summary:
See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Larson_(academic)
See Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tyL7wKIAAAAJ&hl=en
See MIT Professional Institute: https://professional.mit.edu/programs/faculty-profiles/dick-larson
“In December, 2025, Dr. Larson was awarded (in a Black-Tie event in Las Vegas) the LifeTime Achievement Award of IAOTP (INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TOP PROFESSIONALS). https://www.iaotp.com/ “
