Michael B. Maschler

Brief Biography

Born in Jerusalem, Michael B. Maschler was a Frederick W. Lanchester Prize recipient. He received his PhD from the Hebrew University in 1956 under the supervision of Stefan Bergman and Michael Fekete. Upon completing his dissertation, Maschler joined the university faculty. He soon after met with a newly recruited lecturer, Robert J. Aumann, who had recently graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Auman played a major role in “converting” Maschler into a game theorist. The duo went onto to form a close working collaboration that spanned decades and produced some of the most important contributions to game theory.

In the early 1960s, both Maschler and Aumann visited the United States as research associates at the Econometric Research Program at Princeton University, having the opportunity to work alongside leading American game theorists. Later on, they were members of a specialist group that advised the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmenent Agency (ACDA) in Washington, DC, helping originate the theory of games with incomplete information. This led to Maschler’s influential work in cooperative game theory, a subject which became a focal point of his career. Another bi-product of his ACDA tenure led to important developed to the inspection games theory.

In the 1970s, Maschler and Aumann coauthored a Management Science article on the minimax principle. Maschler’s lecture notes from this period were published at numerous internationally renowned universities, reflecting their global influence. His collaborative work continued throughout the next three decades, working closely with John von Neumann Theory Prize recipient, Lloyd S. Shapley, and Econometric Society Fellow Bezalel Peleg.

Maschler and Aumann were jointly awarded the 1995 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize for their book, Repeated Games with Incomplete Information. Incorporating their previous work spanning decades, Repeated Games was honored as a landmark contribution to the theory on relationships between rational decision makers. Maschler and Aumann employed an attractive blend of deep and subtle mathematics, all while offering serious and tangible application possibilities.

Maschler was an active figure in the Israel educational system, chairing curriculum committees for mathematics in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation. He published books in both Hebrew and English, allowing for his influence to be felt by game theorists across borders. At the time of his death, he was a professor in the Einstein Institute of Mathematics and the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University.

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Wikipedia Entry for Michael Maschler