Larry Stone, Ph.D., Board Chair (Antioch University graduate)

Larry Stone, Ph.D., joined the board in 2002. He received a B.S. from Antioch College in 1964. In the next three years, he earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics from Purdue University. Since 1986, Dr. Stone has worked for Metron, Inc., where he currently Chief Scientist. Metron is a scientific consulting firm with offices in Reston, Virginia, and San Diego. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.

In 1975, the Operations Research Society of America awarded the Lanchester Prize to Dr. Stone’s text, Theory of Optimal Search. He was co-director of the 1979 NATO Advance Research Institute on Search Theory and Applications in Faro, Portugal, and co-editor of the conference proceedings, Search Theory and Applications. He has published numerous papers in search theory, taught the subject at the Naval Postgraduate School, and has participated in many search operations. In 1986, he produced the probability maps used by the Columbus America Discovery Group to locate the S.S. Central America which sank in 1857, taking millions of dollars of gold coins and bars to the ocean bottom one and one-half miles below.

Recently, he led Metron’s efforts to provide search planning advice for the successful search for the underwater wreckage of Air France Flight 447 that crashed in the mid-Atlantic on June 1, 2009, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

He is a coauthor of the 1999 book, Bayesian Multiple Target Tracking, and continues to work on a number of tracking and search planning systems for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, including the Coast Guard’s Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System.