Robert Carlson, a longtime professor at the School of Engineering, died Sept. 6 of leukemia at his home in Palo Alto, according to the Stanford Report. Carlson was 72.

Carlson, a native of Granite Falls, Minn., studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University in 1962 and earned a master’s degree in operations research in 1963 and a doctorate in mathematical sciences in 1976 at Johns Hopkins University.

After a stint as part of the technical staff in the Operations Analysis and Economic Studies Department of Bell Labs in Holmdell, N.J., Carlson came to Stanford in 1970, where he worked until this year.

At the Farm, Carlson taught and researched production and capacity planning; new product development; manufacturing strategy; and sustainable product design, development and manufacturing. He also served as chairman of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management.

Outside of the School of Engineering, Carlson also taught at the Graduate School of Business and held visiting faculty positions at the University of California-Berkeley, the Amos Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College and the International Management Institute in Geneva, Switzerland.

A memorial will be held at 4 p.m. at Memorial Church on Wednesday, Sept. 28.

–Ivy Nguyen