David Norman Freeman, former Wharton professor, died on November 16 following a recent diagnosis of cancer. He was 86. 

Dr. Freeman was born in Boston and moved to Wynnewood, then to California, where he attended Tamalpais High School. He completed a post-graduate year at Phillips-Exeter Academy before entering Yale, where he graduated with a BA in mathematics in 1955. He completed a master’s at Cornell in 1958 and then worked for IBM for two years. While there, he won a graduate scholarship and returned to Cornell. In 1963, he earned a  PhD in Operations Research.

After completing his PhD, Dr. Freeman moved to Binghamton, where he resumed work with IBM to manage a team in the development of DOS/360. He left IBM to help lead development of the nation’s largest university computer center at Research Triangle Park in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

He joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 as a professor of statistics and operations in research at Wharton and was director of the Computer Center. He left Penn in 1971 for Rutgers University. A couple years later, he joined a private computer consulting firm as vice president of Ketron.

Dr. Freeman is survived by his wife, Ellen Wood; sisters, Nancy, Corinne and Margery; two half-sisters; children, Jon (Kate), Anne Clothier (Bob) and Greg (Chris); grandchildren, Kara Freeman Michel (Rob), Elizabeth, Anne and Jack Freeman, Sarah and Caleb Clothier, Zachary and Megan Freeman; and great-grandchild, Katharine Michel.