Author Biographies

Jerry Banks
Jerry Banks retired in June, 1999 as Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. He then worked for two years as Senior Simulation Technology Advisor, Brooks Automation, Planning and Logistics Solutions, AutoMod Product Team. He is currently on the faculty of Monterrey Institute of Technology, Nuevo Leon, Mexico as a professor with the title Academic Leader. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of twelve books, one set of proceedings, several chapters in texts, and numerous technical papers. He is the editor of the Handbook of Simulation , published in 1998 by John Wiley. This book won the award for Excellence in Engineering Handbooks from the Professional Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers, Inc. He is the co-author, with John Carson, Barry Nelson, and David Nicol of Discrete-Event Systems Simulation, Fifth Edition , published by Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2010. He is also author of the text Getting Started with AutoMod, Second Edition , published by Brooks Automation in 2004. He is the co-author of Introduction to SIMAN V and CINEMA V , published by John Wiley, New York, in 1995. He is also the co-author of Getting Started with GPSS/H, Second Edition, published by Wolverine Software Corporation, Annandale, Virginia, in 1995. Other titles include the co-authored text Forecasting and Management of Technology, Second Edition in process, the co-authored book RFID Applied appearing in 2007, the single-authored text Principles of Quality Control published in 1989, all published by John Wiley, New York, and the co-authored book, Crafting Managers: 100 Principles for the Excellent Manager, in process, to be published by Nova Science Publishers Inc. He was a founding partner in the simulation-consulting firm Carson/Banks & Associates, Inc. located in Atlanta. The firm was purchased by AutoSimulations, Inc. in May of 1994. He is a full member of many technical societies including the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) for which he served eight years as that organization's representative to the Board of the Winter Simulation Conference, including two years as Board Chair. He is the recipient of the INFORMS College on Simulation Distinguished Service Award for 1999. He was named a Fellow of IIE in 2002.

Information about his current activity is found here.

 
John Carson, II
John S. Carson II is an independent simulation consultant. Formerly, he held management and consulting positions in the simulation services and software industry, including positions at AutoSimulations and the AutoMod Group at Brooks Automation. He was a co-founder and president of the simulation services firm Carson/Banks & Associates. He has over 30 years experience in simulation in a wide range of application areas, including manufacturing, distribution, warehousing and material handling, order fulfillment systems, postal systems, transportation and rapid transit systems, port operations (container terminals and bulk handling), and health-care systems. He has taught simulation and operations research at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Florida, plus numerous short courses on various aspects of simulation. He is also a co-author of the simulation language text Getting Started with GPSS/H . He was the General Chair of the Winter Simulation Conference in 1998.
 
Barry Nelson
Barry L. Nelson is the Charles Deering McCormick Professor and Chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University. Nelson is interested in the design and analysis of computer simulation experiments, particularly issues of statistical efficiency (such as variance-reduction techniques), multivariate output analysis (such as multiple-comparison procedures and optimization via simulation), multivariate input modeling (such as modeling and generation of time-series input processes) and metamodeling. He also works on approximation techniques for networks of nonstationary queues. His application areas include financial engineering, computer performance modeling, quality control, manufacturing and transportation systems.

Nelson teaches courses on stochastic modeling and computer simulation. He was named McCormick teacher of the year in 1998 and 2007, received the 2003 Northwestern Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award, and was given the 2004 IIE Operations Research Division Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Operations Research. He is a Fellow of INFORMS.

 
David Nicol
David M. Nicol is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is a long time contributor in the field of parallel and distributed discrete-event simulations, having written one of the early Ph.D. theses on the topic. He has also worked in parallel algorithms, algorithms for mapping workload in parallel architectures, performance analysis, and reliability modeling and analysis. His research contributions extend to well over 180 articles in leading computer science journals and conferences. His research is largely driven by problems encountered in industry and government---he has worked closely with researchers at NASA, IBM, AT&T, Bellcore, and Sandia National Laboratories. His current interests lie in modeling and simulation of very large systems, particularly communications and other infrastructure, with applications in evaluating system security. From 1996-2003 he served as Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation. He has served as program and general chair of several performance/modeling oriented conferences; in particular he is the General Chair of the 2006 Winter Simulation Conference. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ACM, and the inaugural recipient of the ACM SIGSIM Distinguished Contributions award.