Alison Grant Harcourt (; born 24 November 1929) is an Australian mathematician and statistician most well-known for co-defining the

branch and bound Branch and bound (BB, B&B, or BnB) is a method for solving optimization problems by breaking them down into smaller sub-problems and using a bounding function to eliminate sub-problems that cannot contain the optimal solution. It is an algorithm ...

algorithm along with

Ailsa Land Ailsa Horton Land (; 14 June 1927 – 16 May 2021) was a professor of Operational Research in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and was the first woman professor of Operational Research in Britain. She is most well ...

whilst carrying out research at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. She was also part of the team which developed a

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

as part of the Henderson Inquiry into

poverty in Australia Poverty in Australia refers to the incidence and measurement of relative poverty within Australia. Relative income poverty is typically measured as the percentage of the population earning less than the median wage of the working population. In ...

and helped to introduce the double randomisation method of ordering candidates used in Australian elections.

Early life and education

Harcourt was born Alison Doig in

Colac, Victoria Colac is a town in the Western District (Victoria), Western District of Victoria, Australia, approximately 150 kilometres south-west of Melbourne on the southern shore of Lake Colac. History For thousands of years clans of the Gulidjan people ...

, in 1929. Her father was Keith Doig, a physician and Australian rules footballer who received the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level until 1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) Other ranks (UK), other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth of ...

during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Her mother, Louie Grant, was of Scottish descent and was sister to physicist Sir

Kerr Grant Professor Sir Kerr Grant (1878–1967) was an Australian physicist and a significant figure in higher education administration in South Australia in the first half of the twentieth century. Kerr Grant was born in the then rural town of Bacchus ...

. She was schooled at Colac West State School, Colac High School and

Fintona Girls' School Fintona Girls' School is a small, independent, non-denominational, day school for girls, located in Balwyn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1896, Fintona is a non-selective school and currently caters for approximately 600 st ...

. After her schooling, she enrolled at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, gaining a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

with a major in mathematics, and then a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

majoring in physics. While specialising in statistics undertaking a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree, she developed a technique for

integer linear programming An integer programming problem is a mathematical optimization or feasibility program in which some or all of the variables are restricted to be integers. In many settings the term refers to integer linear programming (ILP), in which the objective ...

London School of Economics

On the basis of her work in linear programming, she started work at the

(LSE) in the late 1950s. In 1960, Doig and fellow LSE mathematician

, published a landmark paper in the economics journal ''

Econometrica ''Econometrica'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles in many areas of economics, especially econometrics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Econometric Society. The current editor-in-chief is ...

'' ("An Automatic Method for Solving Discrete Programming Problems"), which outlined a

optimisation algorithm for solving

NP-hard In computational complexity theory, a computational problem ''H'' is called NP-hard if, for every problem ''L'' which can be solved in non-deterministic polynomial-time, there is a polynomial-time reduction from ''L'' to ''H''. That is, assumi ...

problems. The algorithm is the backbone idea behind all modern

Integer programming An integer programming problem is a mathematical optimization or feasibility program in which some or all of the variables are restricted to be integers. In many settings the term refers to integer linear programming (ILP), in which the objective ...

solvers such as Gurobi,

Cplex IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio (often informally referred to simply as CPLEX) is an optimization software package. History The CPLEX Optimizer was named after the simplex method implemented in the C programming language. However, today ...

University of Melbourne

In 1963, Doig returned to Melbourne, where she took up a position as a senior lecturer in statistics at the University of Melbourne. In the mid-1960s, she joined a team headed by the sociologist Ronald Henderson which was attempting to quantify the extent of

. The team developed the Henderson Poverty Line in 1973, which was the disposable income required to support the basic needs of a family of two adults and two dependent children. The techniques developed by the Henderson team have been used by the

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (often simply referred to as "The Melbourne Institute") is an Australian Economics, economic research institute based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. The institute is ...

to regularly update the

for Australia since 1979. In 1970, Harcourt took study leave in Sweden, where she co-authored two papers on theoretical chemistry—"A simple demonstration of Hund’s Rule for the helium 2S and 2P States" and "Wavefunctions for 4-electron 3-centre bonding"—with her husband, the chemist Richard Harcourt. In 1975, following the dismissal of the Whitlam government, Harcourt and fellow statistician Malcolm Clark noticed irregularities in the distribution of party ordering on the Senate ballot papers for the 1975 federal election which was determined by drawing envelopes from a box, with Coalition parties holding one of the first two positions in every state. Harcourt and Clark made a submission to the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which resulted in a 1984 amendment to the ''

Commonwealth Electoral Act The ''Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918'' is an Act of the Australian Parliament which continues to be the core legislation governing the conduct of elections in Australia, having been amended on numerous occasions since 1918. The Act was introdu ...

'' to introduce a more rigorous double randomisation method. Harcourt and Clark published a paper about their analysis and recommendations for the ''Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics'' in 1991. Harcourt retired as an academic from the University of Melbourne in 1994, but continues to work there as a sessional tutor in statistics. In October 2018 Harcourt was named as 2019 Senior Victorian Australian of the Year. In early December 2018, the University of Melbourne awarded Harcourt with an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In June 2019, Harcourt was made an

Officer of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

in recognition of her "distinguished service to mathematics and computer science through pioneering research and development of integer linear programming".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harcourt, Alison 1929 births Living people Australian mathematicians Australian statisticians Australian women mathematicians Australian women statisticians Officers of the Order of Australia Academic staff of the University of Melbourne University of Melbourne alumni People from Colac, Victoria