Prof. Richard K. Lester
Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center

Richard Lester is the founding Director of the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) and a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on industrial innovation and the management of technology, with an emphasis on the energy and environmental sectors. He has led several major studies of national and regional productivity, competitiveness and innovation performance commissioned by governments and industrial groups around the world.

His new book on the sources of creativity and innovation in advanced economies, Innovation - The Missing Dimension, co-authored with Michael J. Piore, was published by Harvard University Press in October 2004. This follows the publication in November 2003 of Making Technology Work: Applications in Energy and the Environment (Cambridge University Press), jointly authored with John M. Deutch. Other books include The Productive Edge: How American Industries are Pointing the Way to a New Era of Economic Growth (W.W. Norton, 1998), Made By Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1997) (with Suzanne Berger), and Made in America (MIT Press, 1989) (with Michael Dertouzos and Robert Solow.) Professor Lester recently served as a member of the MIT study team that produced the report The Future of Nuclear Power.