Lloyd S. Shapley *53

Lloyd Shapely, professor emeritus of mathematics at UCLA and a Nobel laureate in economics, died March 12, 2016, at age 92.

Shapley, the son of noted Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley, began studying mathematics at Harvard before leaving for the Army Air Corps in World War II. After the war, he returned to Harvard and completed his undergraduate degree. In 1953, he was awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton.

At Princeton, he was a friend of fellow mathematician John Nash *50, also a Nobel laureate in economics for work on game theory. Before joining the faculty at UCLA in 1981, Shapley worked at the RAND Corp. In 2012, he and Alvin E. Roth of Harvard shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic science for their work on market design and matching theory. Not working together, Roth applied Shapley’s ideas to practical problems.

Shapley was regarded as one of the giants of game theory. When told about the Nobel award, he was surprised and was quoted as saying, “I’m a mathematician. I’m not an economist.”

Shapley was predeceased in 1997 by his wife of 42 years, Marian. He is survived by two sons and two grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.