The 2005 John von Neumann Theory Prize was awarded to Robert J. Aumann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in recognition of his fundamental contributions to game theory and related areas.

Named for one of the legendary figures in O.R. history, the prize honors scholars who have made fundamental, sustained contributions to theory in operations research and the management sciences. Committee Chair Lawrence Wein made the presentation at the INFORMS meeting in San Francisco.

Reading from the citation, Wein said, "Beginning with the 1944 publication of von Neumann's 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior' (with Oskar Morgenstern), game theory has played an important role in operations research and management science, providing a framework for the analysis of complex systems where multiple decision-makers, driven by individual incentives, operate.

"Aumann has played an essential and indispensable role in game theory's development for almost half a century. The common theme in Aumann's work is a unified view of rational behavior. His scientific contributions are characterized by an unusual combination of depth and breadth: they are path-breaking, innovative, comprehensive and rigorous. Aumann's work introduced basic concepts and principles, created appropriate tools for their study, developed theoretic foundations for significant ideas, established important relationships and analyzed various particular applications."

The citation went on to note Aumann's specific contributions including:

• Modeling perfect competition in multi-agent systems with many participants through games with a continuum of players. He has studied various game-theoretic tools in this framework (partly in collaboration with others, including Lloyd Shapley), inspiring others to apply it to the Internet, traffic routing and congestion.
  
  
• Introducing the concept of correlated equilibrium — an important mechanism in game theory engineering that is natural in its formulation, is based on intuitive dynamics, is tractable (computable) and has an appealing convexity structure.
  
  
• Formulating the interaction of information among agents and formalizing the notion of common knowledge. Ideas Aumann introduced are fundamental in the understanding of the strategic value of information in multi-agent systems.
  
  
• Laying the foundations for the theory of repeated games that model long-term interactions among decision-makers. Aumann's book, "Repeated Games with Incomplete Information," co-authored with Michael Maschler, won the Lanchester Prize in 1995.
  
  
• Introducing the bargaining set in coalitional games (with Michael Maschler) and the extensive study of cooperative games with transferable and nontransferable utility.
  
  
• Developing an axiomatic foundation of subjective quantification of uncertainty.

Aumann is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science and of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Bonn, Université Catholique de Louvain and the University of Chicago, in addition to numerous prizes. He was the founding area editor in game theory of Mathematics of Operations Research and is the founding president of the Game Theory Society, reflecting his central and fundamental role in guiding and leading the development of the study of decision-making in multi-agent systems.

Aumann recently won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in game theory. INFORMS President Richard Larson was quick to point out that the von Neumann Theory Prize Committee chaired by Wein made its selection before the Nobel Prize was announced. "This is not the first time that INFORMS has beaten the Nobel Committee to the punch in recognizing important achievements," Larson quipped.

Appearing via videotape from Jerusalem, Professor Aumann told the INFORMS audience in San Francisco that he was "very happy and proud to receive the von Neumann Prize and to join all the illustrious people who have won this prize in the past, especially the large number of game theorists. Game theory has played a very large role in the history of the von Neumann Theory Prize, and that's exactly as it should be, because, of course, von Neumann founded this area, and it was his biggest contribution to operations research."






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