Steven Brams

Steven J. Brams
Steven J. Brams, professor at New York University, specializing in game theory; co-inventor with Alan D. Taylor of the fair division procedure, adjusted winner, and one of the independent discoverers of approval voting and the catch-up rule in sports.
Born	Steven J. Brams (1940-11-28) November 28, 1940 (age 82) Concord, New Hampshire
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Northwestern University
Known for	Independent discoverer of approval voting Solved the problem of envy-free cake-cutting Has applied game theory to a wide range of strategic situations
Scientific career
Fields	Political science
Institutions	Syracuse University New York University

Steven J. Brams (born November 28, 1940 in Concord, New Hampshire) is an American game theorist and political scientist at the New York University Department of Politics. Brams is best known for using the techniques of game theory, public choice theory, and social choice theory to analyze voting systems and fair division. He is one of the independent discoverers of approval voting, ^[1] as well as extensions of approval voting to multiple-winner elections to give proportional representation of different interests. ^[2]

Brams was a co-discoverer, with Alan Taylor, of the first envy-free cake-cutting solution for n people. ^[3] Previous to the Brams-Taylor procedure, the cake-cutting problem had been one of the most important open problems in contemporary mathematics. ^[4] He is co-inventor with Taylor of the fair-division procedure, adjusted winner, ^[5] which was patented by New York University in 1999 (# 5,983,205). ^[6] Adjusted winner has been licensed to a Boston law firm, which formed a company, Fair Outcomes, Inc., ^[7] that marketed several fair-division algorithms.

Brams has applied game theory to a wide variety of strategic situations, from the Bible ^{[8] [9]} and theology ^[10] to international relations ^{[11] [12]} to sports. ^{[13] [14]}

Education

Brams earned his B.S. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Politics, Economics, and Science in 1962. In 1966, he earned his Ph.D. in Political Science at Northwestern University.

Career

Brams worked briefly in U.S. federal government positions and for the Institute for Defense Analyses before taking an assistant professor position at Syracuse University in 1967. He moved to New York University in 1969, where he is professor in the Department of Politics. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

In 1990–1991 he was president of the Peace Science Society (International); ^[15] in 2004–2006, he was president of the Public Choice Society. ^[16] He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1986–87), an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (1992), and was a Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar (1998–99).

Bibliography

• Game Theory and Politics. New York: Free Press, 1975. Rev. ed., 2004 (Dover).
• Paradoxes in Politics: An Introduction to the Nonobvious in Political Science. New York: Free Press, 1976.
• The Presidential Election Game. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978. Rev. ed., 2008 (A K Peters).
• Co-edited with A. Schotter and G. Schwödiauer, Applied Game Theory: Proceedings of a Conference, Vienna, 1978. Würzburg, Germany: Physica-Verlag, 1979.
• Biblical Games: Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980. Rev. ed., 2003 (MIT Press). Japanese and Russian translations, 2006.
• Co-edited with William F. Lucas and Philip D. Straffin, Jr., Modules in Applied Mathematics: Political and Related Models, vol. 2. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983.
• Co-authored with Peter C. Fishburn, Approval Voting. Cambridge, MA: Birkhäuser Boston, 1983. Rev. ed., 2007 (Springer).
• Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know? Game-Theoretic Implications of Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immortality, and Incomprehensibility. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983. Rev. ed., 2007 (Springer).
• Superpower Games: Applying Game Theory to Superpower Conflict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
• Rational Politics: Decisions, Games, and Strategy. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1985. Reprinted by Academic Press, 1989.
• Co-authored with D. Marc Kilgour, Game Theory and National Security. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Spanish translation, 1989.
• Negotiation Games: Applying Game Theory to Bargaining and Arbitration. New York: Routledge, 1990. Rev. ed., 2003.
• Theory of Moves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• Co-authored with Alan D. Taylor, Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Co-authored with Alan D. Taylor, The Win-Win Solution: Guaranteeing Fair Shares to Everybody. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish translations, 2000; Chinese, Korean, and Russian translations, 2002.
• Mathematics and Democracy: Designing Better Voting and Fair-Division Procedures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
• Co-edited with William V. Gehrlein and Fred S. Roberts. The Mathematics of Preference, Choice, and Order: Essays in Honor of Peter C. Fishburn. Berlin: Springer, 2009.
• Game Theory and the Humanities: Bridging Two Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.
• Divine Games: Game Theory and the Undecidability of a Superior Being. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018

References

1. Brams, Steven J.; Fishburn, Peter C. (1978). "Approval Voting". American Political Science Review. Cambridge University Press (CUP). 72 (3): 831–847. doi:10.2307/1955105. ISSN   0003-0554. JSTOR   1955105. S2CID   154191938.
2. Brams, Steven J.; Kilgour, D. Marc; Potthoff, Richard F. (2018-10-05). "Multiwinner approval voting: an apportionment approach" (PDF). Public Choice. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 178 (1–2): 67–93. doi:10.1007/s11127-018-0609-2. ISSN   0048-5829. JSTOR   48703347. S2CID   254934379.
3. Brams, Steven J.; Taylor, Alan D. (1995). "An Envy-Free Cake Division Protocol". The American Mathematical Monthly. Mathematical Association of America. 102 (1): 9–18. doi:10.2307/2974850. ISSN   1930-0972. JSTOR   2974850.
4. Will Hively (March 1995). "Dividing the spoils - Steven Brams, Alan Taylor devise procedure to divide anything equitably". Discover Magazine. Archived from the original on 2007-04-10.
5. "Adjusted Winner Website". NYU.
6. USpatent 5983205,"Computer-based method for the fair division of ownership of goods" 
7. "Fair Outcomes, Inc". fairoutcomes.com. Archived from the original on 2007-12-31.
8. Brams, S.J. (2003). Biblical Games: Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-52332-5.
9. Brams, S.J. (2011). Game Theory and the Humanities: Bridging Two Worlds. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-01522-6.
10. Brams, S.J. (2018). Divine Games: Game Theory and the Undecidability of a Superior Being. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-03833-1.
11. Brams, S.J. (1985). Superpower Games: Applying Game Theory to Superpower Conflict. Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-23640-8.
12. Brams, S.; Kilgour, D.M. (1991). Game Theory and National Security. Wiley. ISBN   978-1-55786-003-3.
13. Brams, Steven J.; Ismail, Mehmet S. (2018). "Making the Rules of Sports Fairer". SIAM Review. Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM). 60 (1): 181–202. doi: 10.1137/16m1074540 . ISSN   0036-1445.
14. Brams, Steven J.; Ismail, Mehmet S.; Kilgour, D. Marc; Stromquist, Walter (2018-10-21). "Catch-Up: A Rule That Makes Service Sports More Competitive". The American Mathematical Monthly. Informa UK Limited. 125 (9): 771–796. arXiv: 1808.06922 . doi:10.1080/00029890.2018.1502544. ISSN   0002-9890. S2CID   4691445.
15. "Peace Science Society (International): Home". pss.la.psu.edu. 1998-12-05. Archived from the original on 2011-04-13.
16. "About Us - Past Presidents". Public Choice Society. Archived from the original on 2012-12-02.

External links

• Steven Brams - NYU
• Interview with the Wall Street Journal
• Video of Lecture at MIT
• Video of Big Think interview