Biography of the Guest Editor

F. Thomas Bruss studied Mathematics in Saarbrücken (Germany), and, with a delegation grant from Saarbrücken, in Cambridge(UK) and in Sheffield(UK). He holds the Diplom-Mathematiker as well as his doctorate Dr. rer. nat. in Mathematics of the University of Saarbrücken. His scientific career began in 1977 at the University of Namur. In 1978 he received the docteur l´ egal Dr. en sc. and obtained tenure as First assistant a year later. His time in Namur also included visiting positions at the University of Zaire (1981) and at Strathclyde University Glasgow (1984). He then moved to the United States, first as Visiting Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara, then as Adjunct Professor (Feodor-Lynen) fellow at the University of Arizona, and then as Visiting Associate Professor at UCLA. In 1990 Thomas returned to Europe as Professor of the Vesalius College of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Independently, he obtained the inscription sur liste des professeurs of France. In 1993 he was appointed chair of Mathématiques Générales and Probabilités of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he has stayed ever since. Since then he also held visiting positions at the University of Antwerpen, the University of Namur and the Université Catholique de Louvain. Now, retired from the chair of Math´ ematiques G´ en´ erales, Thomas continues as Professeur de l’université of ULB, and as Invited Professor of the Université Catholique de Louvain. Prof. Bruss has made several important contributions to optimal stopping, including the 1/e-law of best choice (1984), Pascal processes (with LCG Rogers 1991), the odds algorithm (2000), or the solution of the last-arrival problem (with Marc Yor 2012). He also has strong interests in the theory of branching processes, as e.g. in bisexual Branching Processes and Resource-dependent Branching Processes (with Duerinckx 2015) as well as in various questions related with the theory of stochastic processes, as for instance the monotone subsequence problem (with Freddy Delbaen 2001, 2004). Thomas has served twice as head of the ULB Mathematics Department. He is also active in the national science foundations of Belgium, in the Belgian Statistical Society, the Belgian Mathematical Society, and the Collége Belgique. He is an elected member of the Tȕnissteiner Kreis (Germany), a fellow of the von-Humboldt Foundation (Germany) and a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (USA). Thomas is also renowned for his outreach activity, with articles published in journals such as Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Pour la Science, Le Soir and Die Welt, as well as for his appearances on radio and television for expertise in probability. He has received several national and international distinctions and awards. In 2011 F. Thomas Bruss was honoured Commandeur de l’ordre de Léopold of Belgium.