Ralph Edward Gomory  is an American applied mathematician and executive. Gomory worked at IBM as a researcher and later as an executive. During that time, his research led to the creation of new areas of applied mathematics. Ralph E. Gomory was born May 7, 1929, in Brooklyn Heights, New York. He graduated from Williams College in 1950, studied at Cambridge University, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1954. Professor Gomory is a member of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering. He has been a trustee of Princeton University and has served on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Professor Gomory was awarded eight honorary degrees and many prizes including the National Medal of Science. He was a director of several Fortune 500 companies including the Washington Post Company and the Bank of New York, and was named one of America's ten best directors by Director's Alert magazine in 2000.