Our Story

Management Science and Engineering officially became a department in 2000, when the mergers between three existing departments—Operations Research (OR) Industrial Engineering-Engineering Management (IE-EM), and Engineering-Economic Systems (EES)—were completed.

Since then, we have become one of the most respected Management Science and Engineering departments in the world, and we deeply appreciate our exceptional faculty, students, alums, and staff who brought us here. 

Our faculty have pioneered new fields, and our alumni have gone on to great success and impact. Just a few of many examples: George Dantzig developed the Simplex Method, which was hugely influential in Linear Programming; Ronald Howard coined the term Decision Analysis for his methods; and Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, the first woman to chair a Stanford Engineering department, has advised NASA utilizing her risk analysis techniques. For more, see awards & recognition our faculty have earned, and learn from alumni news. 

MS&E's history began long before the department was formed, and even before IE-EM, OR, and EES became departments themselves. Industrial Engineering made its start as a program in the Department of Civil Engineering in 1945 before becoming its own department ten years later. It added Engineering Management to its mission, and name, in 1977. 

Engineering-Economic Systems was born out of a generous grant to the School of Engineering, and was first created as an Institute within the School before it became a department in 1967. Also in 1967, Operations Research became a department, although research in OR had been conducted at Stanford since the mid-1950s.

Your role in MS&E's story

MS&E has a long history of collaboration with our alumni, industry partners, researchers within Stanford and beyond, and more. When we consider the department's future, it's clear that those partnerships will remain a key part of our success. We continue to hire exciting new faculty and recruit the brightest students, but in the words of Professor Ashish Goel, Fortinet Founders Chair of MS&E: "We can't do it alone. We need your help, your ideas, your support." (learn more about Professor Goel here.)

Alumni and industry partners support MS&E in many ways, from volunteering to host career events for current students, to joining affiliates programs, serving as sounding boards for our strategic direction, and making financial gifts to the department. 

In short: Your engagement and support matter. Learn more about how you can support MS&E.

MS&E's first 25 years

In 2025, the MS&E department celebrated its first 25 years of research, impact, and community with a full-day event on campus. Alumni, faculty, students, and staff learned from academic talks and panels by faculty and alums, then celebrated with a game night inspired by the Monte Carlo method.

As part of that celebration, we interviewed faculty leaders, alums, and staff to share their knowledge and experiences of MS&E, our legacy departments, and a look toward the future. The result is a commemoratory mini-documentary, below:

To revisit the 25th anniversary, you can read our article about the event, watch the talks and panels, and view photos from the day's activities.

Related
2025 was a year filled with milestones at Stanford: The School of Engineering and Graduate School of Business both celebrated their centennial anniversaries that year. Learn more below.

School of Engineering centennial site
A shared century of innovation (article)
Taking care of business (article)

MS&E as told by faculty leaders

The former chairs of the department trace its story through their lens as leaders:

Content from the archives