Chris Potts (13 Mar 1949 - 30 Jan 2026)

Chris Potts, Emeritus Professor of Operational Research (OR) at the University of Southampton, died peacefully on January 30th 2026 following several years of illness. He dealt with his two cancer diagnoses with courage, dignity, and a remarkable lack of self-pity. Until his final three months, he never let his illness prevent him continuing with his academic work (sometimes from his hospital bed), visiting family, and attending sporting events.
Chris was born and grew up in Wembley, north-west London. He obtained a first-class BSc in Mathematics at the University of Manchester, an MSc in OR at the University of Hull and a PhD in OR at the University of Birmingham. In 1973 he was appointed as Lecturer in OR at Keele University and in 1986, Lecturer in OR at the University of Southampton, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was awarded the UK OR Society’s Beale Medal in 2021, the Society’s most prestigious award, recognising over 50 years of outstanding contributions to OR. Initially his main research area was the scheduling of production systems in manufacturing, but he later developed innovative theory and methods for problems arising in logistics and transportation, including airport runway scheduling, railway timetabling, and vehicle routing. He is internationally recognised as a leading researcher in his field, with his work regularly cited by other academics worldwide. Despite his academic brilliance, he was a modest person who enjoyed working with other researchers and PhD students. He was always generous, encouraging and supportive, and many people have said how they benefited personally from working with him.
As anyone who knew Chris will be aware, he had a lifelong passion for all kinds of sport. There are very few sports that Chris was not interested in or did not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of. Family holidays were often linked to sporting events: the Olympic Games, the cricket World Cup, and the athletics World Championships, to name but a few. He also regularly went to the cycling World Championships and enjoyed watching live rugby, both Union and League. Together with his wife Sally, also a sports fan, he was a life member of Hampshire Cricket Club and regularly went to matches there.
In addition to his wife Sally, Chris leaves his daughter Catherine, his grandchildren Daniel and Eleanor, his stepchildren Rachel, David and Anthony, and his step-granddaughters Martha and Imogen. He will be hugely missed, not only by his family but also by his many friends, colleagues and collaborators all over the world.