Introduction to feature cluster in memory of Douglas J. White Peter A Beling 1 * , William T Scherer 1 and Chelsea C White 2 1 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA; and 2 School of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA Journal of the Operational Research Society (2015) 66(10), 1589–1594. doi:10.1057/jors.2015.69 Douglas J (Doug) White, our esteemed colleague and dear friend and an extraordinary intellectual force in the operational research (OR) community, died on 27 July 2012 in the United Kingdom. We dedicate this feature cluster of papers to his remarkable contributions over a 40-year period to the body of knowledge in OR. Equally remarkable were his contributions over the same period as a leader, mentor, advisor, and friend to students and colleagues in the OR community. We all miss Doug dearly for both his intellectual contributions and leader- ship and the warm friendship and mentorship that he displayed to many at critical points in the development of their scholarly careers. We now provide an overview of Doug White’s academic life in terms of the universities where he served, the academic and professional leadership positions that he held, the honours he received, and of particular interest, the breadth and depth of his intellectual contributions. Doug White was one of the founding fathers of OR in academia in the United Kingdom and he developed an international research reputation in decision theory, particularly multi-objective decision making and sequential decision making based around dynamic pro- gramming. He was awarded the Beale Medal of the Operational Research Society in 1993 for the body of his work in this area and was made a Companion of the OR Society in 2001. After obtaining a Mathematics degree from the University of Oxford, he joined the group at Birmingham University, which was the first academic course in OR in the world in the early 1950s. He then set up from scratch two very different types of OR departments in the United Kingdom—in Strathclyde University and Manchester University, respectively. Finally he moved to the United States where he used his personal skills as well as his research reputation to lead forward a prestigious Systems Engineering programme at the University of Virginia. Doug White’s degrees were: ● BA Mathematics, Oxford University, 1956 ● MSc Operational Research, Birmingham University, 1959 ● MA Mathematics, Oxford University, 1960 ● PhD Operational Research, Birmingham University, 1962 ● MA Economics (Honorary), Manchester University, 1974 ● DSc Operational Research, Birmingham University, 1987 The universities where Doug served during his lifetime and his university leadership positions included: ● Birmingham University, Research Fellow (1960–1962) ● Manchester University, Centre for Business Research, Senior Research Fellow (1962–1964) ● Strathclyde University, where he was: Reader (1965–1968), Head and Founder of the Department of Operational Research (1968–1971), Director and Founder of the Center for Operational Research (1968–1971), and Director and Founder of Health Services Operational Research Unit (1970–1971) ● Manchester University, where he was: Professor of Decision Theory (1971–1972, 1990–2000), and Head and Founder of the Department of Decision Theory (1972–1988), Professor Emeritus (2000–2012) ● University of Virginia, where he was: Professor (1988–1990, 1993–1994) and Chair of the Department of Systems Engineering (1988–1989) Over his career, Doug White received many honours and held several professional leadership positions, including: ● Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Application ● Editor, Helderman Sigma Series in Applied Mathematics ● Chair of the Committee of Professors in Operational Research (1979–1982) ● Chair of the Committee of Education and Research Commit- tee of the Operational Research Society (1982–1984) ● Member of various government committees *Correspondence: Peter A Beling, Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, 151 Engineer’s Way, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. E-mail: beling@virginia.edu Journal of the Operational Research Society (2015) 66, 1589–1594 © 2015 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved. 0160-5682/15 www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/