The late Prof. Ady Seidman (1930-2009), fourth Dean of Tel Aviv University‘s Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and the first chairman of its Electrical Engineering Department, was commemorated during the 2019 Board of Governors meeting with the inauguration of a lobby in his name. His daughter Edith Simchi-Levi and Prof. David Simchi-Levi of MIT supported the renovation and dedication of the Ady Seidman Lobby in the Wolfson Electrical Engineering Building.

Beyond being a comfortable meeting place and study area for students, the Lobby also serves as a venue for lectures, symposia and other events.

Amos Elad, TAU Vice President for Resource Development, noted that Ms. Simchi-Levi is an alumna of TAU, as are Prof. Simchi-Levi and her brothers. “We cherish this continuity and love for the University, and are sure that the beautiful lobby will perpetuate the legacy of Prof. Seidman and the family.” Mr. Elad added that, “To be successful, you need partners, and we’re immensely grateful for the partnership of Dean of Engineering Yossi Rosenwaks, American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU), Edith and David in making this project a reality.”

Ms. Simchi-Levi said, “After my father passed away, the School of Electrical Engineering organized a symposium in his honor, but the family sought a more permanent commemorative project. We’re very excited about the lobby. I am also joining the Board of Directors of AFTAU and hope to play a role in bringing about more projects in this vein.”

Pioneer of engineering in Israel

Ady Seidman was born in Czernowitz (now in the Ukraine) and arrived in Israel in 1950.

TAU’s Prof. Avraham Gover, for whom Prof. Seidman was the first academic mentor and master’s thesis advisor, said that “Ady was one of the pioneers of the period after the establishment of the State of Israel. He was instrumental in making TAU’s Faculty of Engineering and School of Electrical Engineering the world-class institutions they are today. Through the education of our students, Ady made an important contribution to the strength of the electronics industry of Israel and to the economy in general.”

Gover recalled how, in 1965, Prof. Seidman was recruited from the defense establishment to the University by physicist Prof. Yuval Ne’eman, who later became President of TAU and Minister of Science and Energy, and entrusted to establish a small electronics department. Prof. Seidman was successful in making connections with industry and later, as Dean, substantially advanced the expansion and development of the Faculty of Engineering by receiving support to add two buildings for Electrical Engineering — one for labs (where the Ady Seidman Lobby is located) and one for classrooms.

Ms. Simchi-Levi, who graduated from TAU with a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science, is an entrepreneur in supply chain and operations analytics. She was co-founder and executive of Opalytics, an advanced analytics cloud platform that is now part of Accenture, and co-founder of LogicTools, a supply chain optimization software company acquired by ILOG/IBM. Ms. Simchi-Levi is also co-author (with David) of the award-winning textbook Designing and Managing the Supply Chain.

David Simchi-Levi, who graduated from TAU with a PhD in Operations Research, is a Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. He is considered one of the premier thought leaders in supply chain management and business analytics and is the current Editor-in-Chief of Management Science, one of the two flagship journals of INFORMS. He served as the Editor-in-Chief for Operations Research (2006-2012), the other flagship journal of INFORMS, and for Naval Research Logistics (2003-2005). His PhD students have accepted faculty positions in leading academic institutes including the University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgia Tech, Harvard, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan, Purdue and Virginia Tech. He has published widely in professional journals on both practical and theoretical aspects of operations management and co-authored four books, two with Edith. He co-founded one supply chain and two business analytics companies: LogicTools (which became part of IBM in 2009), OPS Rules (which became part of Accenture in 2016) and Opalytics (which became part of Accenture in 2018).

“Edith and David ‘get’ the strong connection between studies and research at TAU’s Engineering Faculty, on the one hand, and Israel’s high-tech success on the other — something Edith’s father championed during his career,” said Mr. Elad. “With this beautiful new lobby, we can expect new generations of talented students to meet, study, exchange novel ideas and maybe hatch the next life-changing start-up!”