Donald G. Saari

Donald G. Saari

Donald Gene Saari (born March 1940 in Houghton, Michigan) is the Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Economics and director of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at the University of California Irvine. He received his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics in 1962 from Michigan Technological University, his Master of Science and PhD in Mathematics from Purdue University in 1964 and 1967, respectively. From 1968 to 2000, he served as assistant, associate, and full professor of mathematics at Northwestern University. He holds the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences Distinguished Chair at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. In 2001 he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, and in 2004 he was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Saari has been widely quoted as an expert in voting methods and lottery odds. His research interests include the n-body problem, the Borda count, and application of mathematics to the Social Sciences. In 1999, a conference on celestial mechanics was held at Northwestern in honor of his 60th birthday. Saari is also known for having some discussion with Theodore J. Kaczynski in 1978, prior to the mail bombings that led to Kaczynski's 1996 arrest. He has Erdős number 2 due to his 1968 collaboration with Harry S. Pollard.