George Bernard Dantzig, an American mathematical scientist who contributed to various scientific fields which include, but are not limited to, operations research, computer science and statistics. He is known for his development of the Simplex Algorithm, which is used to solve Linear Programming problems. He was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1914. He obtained his doctoral degree at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of many honours, including the National Medal of Science in 1975 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1976.