Franz Thomas Bruss

Franz Thomas Bruss is a Belgian-German professor of mathematics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is director of "Mathématiques Générales" and co-director of the probability chair.

His main research activities in mathematics are in the field of probability:

• 1/e-law of best choice
• Pascal processes
• Odds theorem of optimal stopping
• Odds algorithm
• Galton–Watson processes
• Resource Dependent Branching Processes
• Borel–Cantelli lemma
• Robbins' problem (of optimal stopping)

Bruss studied mathematics at the Universities Saarbrücken, Cambridge and Sheffield. In 1977 he obtained the Dr. rer. nat in Saarbrücken with his thesis Hinreichende Kriterien für das Aussterben von Modifizierten Verzweigungsprozessen (Sufficient conditions for the extinction of Branching Processes) under Professor Gerd Schmidt, and the legal Dr. en sciences of Belgium one year later. After a scientific career at the University of Namur he moved to the United States and taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Arizona, Tucson, and University of California at Los Angeles. In 1990 he returned to Europe as Professor of Mathematics at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and in 1993 he was appointed chair of Mathématiques Générales and Probability at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he has stayed since then. He held visiting positions at the Universities of University of Strathclyde, Zaire, University of Antwerp, Purdue University, and repeatedly at the Université Catholique de Louvain.

Bruss is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and Member of the Tönissteiner Kreis e.V., Germany. He received the Jacques Deruyts Price (period 2000-2004) for distinguished contributions to Mathematics from the Belgian Academy of Science. In 2011, Bruss was honored Commandeur de Order of Leopold of Belgium. He is the current

President of the Belgian Statistical Society (Société Belge de Statistique - Belgische Vereniging voor Statistiek).