Richard Lester is Japan Steel Industry Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is also the faculty co-chair and founding Director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center. His research focuses on innovation management and policy, with an emphasis on the energy and manufacturing sectors. He is currently leading the Energy Innovation Project, a major MIT study of strategies for upgrading the U.S. energy innovation system.
As head of NSE, Professor Lester works with his faculty colleagues to advance the Department’s role at the forefront of research and education on energy and non-energy applications of nuclear science and technology.
As director of the Industrial Performance Center (IPC), Dr. Lester has led several major studies of national and regional competitiveness and innovation performance commissioned by governments and industrial groups around the world. Recently, in the Local Innovation Systems Project, he directed an international network of researchers studying the technological transformation of industries in regional economies and the role of universities in that process. He currently serves as faculty advisor to the MIT President’s Council on Regional Engagement.
Professor Lester’s book on the sources of creativity and innovation in advanced economies, Innovation – The Missing Dimension, jointly authored with Michael J. Piore, was published by Harvard University Press in 2005. Other recent books include Making Technology Work: Applications in Energy and the Environment (Cambridge University Press, 2004), with John M. Deutch; and Global Taiwan (M.E. Sharpe, 2005), co-edited with Suzanne Berger. Professor Lester is also the author of The Productive Edge: A New Strategy for Economic Growth (W.W. Norton, 2000); Made By Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1997) with Suzanne Berger; and Made in America (MIT Press, 1989) with Michael Dertouzos and Robert Solow. (With over 300,000 copies in print in eight languages, Made in America is the best-selling title in the history of MIT Press.)
Professor Lester co-teaches a popular MIT course on “Applications of Technology in Energy and the Environment”. He is a co-author of the widely-cited recent MIT reports on The Future of Nuclear Power (2003) and The Future of Coal (2007), and has published many articles on the management and control of nuclear technology.
Professor Lester obtained his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College (London) and a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979. He serves as an advisor or consultant to corporations, governments, foundations and non-profit groups, and lectures frequently to academic, business and general audiences throughout the world.
