Richard K. Lester
Richard K. Lester is an American nuclear engineer, educator, and author. He is the Japan Steel Industry Professor and vice provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he oversees the international engagements of the institute. He previously served as head of the at MIT and he is the founding director and faculty chair of the MIT .
Education
Lester received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College London. He was a high-school athlete and musician and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. While at Imperial he was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to study at MIT, where he received a doctorate in nuclear engineering. From 1977 to 1978 he was a visiting research fellow in international relations at the Rockefeller Foundation. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979.Nuclear power and waste management
First at the Rockefeller Foundation and later as a member of the MIT faculty, Lester developed a number of projects focusing on the management and international control of nuclear technology. During the mid-1980s he led a study of the role of innovative nuclear power technologies in restoring the economic viability and social acceptability of nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere.He also made contributions to the field of nuclear waste management, introducing the nation's first graduate course on this subject, serving on the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Radioactive Waste Management, and publishing, Radioactive Waste: Management and Regulation. During this period he held the Atlantic Richfield Professorship in Energy Studies at MIT.
Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge
In 1986, as an associate professor of Nuclear Engineering, he was appointed executive director of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, and led the research that culminated in the publication of Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge. An assessment of America's manufacturing performance and how to strengthen it, Made in America was widely influential in the U.S. and around the world, and for a while was the best-selling volume in the history of MIT Press.Returning to the themes of Made in America, he later authored The Productive Edge: A New Strategy for Economic Growth, an analysis of America's industrial resurgence during the 1990s.
MIT Industrial Performance Center
In 1992, Lester founded the MIT Industrial Performance Center, an interdisciplinary research center for the study of innovation, productivity, and competitiveness that brings together faculty and students from across MIT to explore questions such as: What is needed in order to prosper in a globalizing economy? What skills, what strategies, what technologies, and what new forms of organization are most likely to bring success in particular competitive situations? And how do technological changes now underway shape these options?While heading the IPC, Lester published the following books:Made By Hong Kong, co-authored with Suzanne Berger.Making Technology Work: Case Studies in Energy and the Environment, co-authored with John M. Deutch.Innovation – The Missing Dimension, co-authored with Michael J. Piore.Global Taiwan: Building Competitive Strengths in the New International Economy, co-edited with Suzanne BergerUnlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System, co-authored with David Hart
During this period he was also co-author of two influential MIT reports, The Future of Nuclear Power, and The Future of Coal.