Seifollah Louis Hakimi (1932–June 23, 2005) was an Iranian-American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

born in Iran, a professor emeritus at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

, where he chaired the department of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from 1973 to 1978. He was chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, from 1986 to 1996. Hakimi received his Ph.D. from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

in 1959, under the supervision of

Mac Van Valkenburg Mac Elwyn Van Valkenburg (October 5, 1921–March 19, 1997) was an American electrical engineer and university professor. He wrote seven textbooks and numerous scientific publications. Early life and education Van Valkenburg was born in Union, ...

. He has over 100 academic descendants, most of them via his student Narsingh Deo. He is known for characterizing the degree sequences of

undirected graph In discrete mathematics, particularly in graph theory, a graph is a structure consisting of a set of objects where some pairs of the objects are in some sense "related". The objects are represented by abstractions called '' vertices'' (also call ...

s, for formulating the

Steiner tree problem In combinatorial mathematics, the Steiner tree problem, or minimum Steiner tree problem, named after Jakob Steiner, is an umbrella term for a class of problems in combinatorial optimization. While Steiner tree problems may be formulated in a ...

on networks, and for his work on

facility location Facility location is a name given to several different problems in computer science and in game theory: * Optimal facility location, the optimal placement of facilities as a function of transportation costs and other factors * Facility location (com ...

problems on networks.. O
p. 53
, Marianov and Serra write "The impact of Hakimi's two contributions is hard to overstate. A common opinion among location researchers is that the paper by Hakimi (1964) strongly contributed to trigger the interest in location theory and analysis, and started a long string of related publications that does not seem to be decreasing."

Selected publications

*. *. *. *. *.

References

1932 births 2005 deaths Northwestern University faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Graph theorists 20th-century Iranian mathematicians Iranian emigrants to the United States {{US-mathematician-stub