Jay W. Forrester (1918-?) is Germeshausen Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the System Dynamics Program in the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. The field of system dynamics was created in 1956 under Professor Forrester's leadership to evaluate how alternative policies affect growth, stability, fluctuation, and changing behavior in corporations, cities, and countries.
He lived on a Nebraska cattle ranch until he entered the University of Nebraska, where he received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1939. He received a M.S. degree from M.I.T. in 1945.
From 1945 through 1956 Professor Forrester was a pioneer in early digital computer developments and holds the basic patent for invention of random access, coincident-current magnetic storage which became the standard memory device for digital computers.
