Steven J. Brams (born November 28, 1940) is a game theorist and political scientist at the New York University Department of Politics. Brams is best known for using the techniques of game theory and public choice to research voting systems and fair division. He is one of the independent discoverers of approval voting.[1] Also, he was a co-discoverer, with Alan Taylor of the first envy-free solution to the n-person cake cutting problem.[2][3] Previous to the Brams-Taylor procedure, the cake cutting problem had been one of the most important open problems in contemporary mathematics.[4] In 2006 with others he devised the surplus procedure, an optimal alternative to the ancient procedure of divide and choose.[5]
Brams was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He earned his B.S. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Politics, Economics, and Science in 1962. In 1966, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in Political Science at Northwestern University.
He worked briefly in U.S. federal government positions before taking an Assistant Professor position at Syracuse University in 1967. He moved to New York University in 1969, where he is a Professor in the Department of Politics. From 2004-2006, he was president of the Public Choice Society.