Biography: John McLeod obtained a BS in Engineering at Tulane University, with additional courses at University of Chicago, Harvard, and MIT. He worked as applications engineer for automatic controls with Taylor Instrument Companies, and served as Lieutenant (jg) in the Navy during World War II. He then joined Leeds & Northrup in Philadelphia as a research and development engineer, receiving two basic patents in the field of automatic control.

In 1947 he went to work at the U.S. Naval Air Missile Test Center (now Pacific Missile Range) Point Mugu, California. While there, he sparked and supervised development of the Guidance Simulation Laboratory, which within a few years, became one of the leading West Coast simulation facilities. In 1952 he organized the Simulation Council (now The Society for Modeling and Simulation International) and with his wife Suzette began publication of the Simulation Council Newsletter.

From 1956 to 1963 he worked as Design Specialist, Space Navigation and Data Processing, with General Dynamics/Astronautics in San Diego. While there, he received a grant to support testing of an extra-corporeal perfusion device (heart-lung machine) which he had developed on his own time. He also acted as co-founder of the San Diego Symposium for Biomedical Engineering, and edited the proceedings of the first symposium, held in 1961.

From 1963 to 1974, he served as Editor of SIMULATION, the technical journal of The Society for Computer Simulation, during which period he received the Electronic Associates Senior Scientific Simulation Award. He also worked as consultant to various organizations.

Other activities have included: Associate Editor, Instruments & Control Systems; Associate Editor, Behavioral Science; Distinguished Visiting Professor, California State University/Chico; Technical Editor, Simulation in the Service of Society; Publications Advisor, The Society for Computer Simulation. He is author of Simulation: The Dynamic Modeling of Ideas and Systems with Computers (McGraw-Hill, 1968); Co-author (with Peter House) of Large-Scale Models for Policy Evaluation (Wiley, 1977); Computer Modeling and Simulation: Principles of Good Practice (The Society for Computer Simulation, 1982); and signed article on "Simulation" in the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (McGraw-Hill, 1982).

The McLeod Institute of Simulation Sciences (MISS) was established some years ago within the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology at California State University/Chico. According to Dr. Ralph Huntsinger, the Institute "provides a mechanism through which faculty from various disciplines and their students and associates can bring their talents to bear in the general area of computer simulation, or can seek help with the application of simulation to new areas." McLeod Institutes of Simulation Sciences include locations at the Universities of Calgary, Ottawa, and Laurentian in Canada; the University of Ghent, Belgium; Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City; the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw; the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, China; Riga Technical University, Latvia; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Technical University of Clausthal, Germany, with satellite location at Technical University of Vienna; University of Genoa.

McLeod is a Registered Professional Engineer in California and biographee in American Men & Women of Science and Who's Who in the World.

Awards: Grantee, National Science Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities (EVIST Award) for the study of professional ethics for simulationists (1983); recipient "Outstanding Service Award" from the Institute of Management Sciences, College on Simulation and Gaming, 1986; "John McLeod Simulation Award" from The Society for Computer Simulation, 1987.