Richard Lester
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 Richard
K. Lester is the founder and
director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center and a
professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
As director of the Industrial
Performance Center, Dr. Lester works with faculty and students
from all five MIT Schools on a broad range of multidisciplinary
research projects concerning the uses of science and technology
in industry and the implications of these developments for
society and the global economy.
Professor Lester is currently
leading an international research project on the technological
transformation of local economies and the role of universities
and other public research institutions in this process. His
research team is analyzing and comparing the innovation and
economic performance of more than twenty regions in the U.S.,
U.K., Japan, Finland, and Taiwan. In a related project, he and
his colleagues are investigating the consequences of
globalization and industrial re-organization for productivity,
innovation and job creation in five major industries in North
America, Europe, and Asia.
Dr. Lester’s recent books
include Making Technology Work: Applications in Energy and
the Environment (Cambridge University Press, 2003),
co-authored with John M. Deutch, The Productive Edge
(Norton, 1998), an analysis of America’s industrial
resurgence during the 1990s, Made By Hong Kong (Oxford
University Press, 1997) co-authored with Suzanne Berger, and
Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge (MIT Press,
Cambridge, 1989), co-authored 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.) His latest book Innovation – The Missing
Dimension (Harvard, fall 2004), co-authored with Michael J.
Piore, proposes a new framework for developing and sustaining
the sources of creativity and innovation in the U.S. economy.
Professor Lester obtained his
undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial
College, London (1974), and was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to
study at MIT, where he received a doctorate in nuclear
engineering. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979.
Earlier in his career, Dr.
Lester became internationally known for his research on the
management and control of nuclear technology, and he continues
to teach and supervise students in the field of energy and the
environment. He is the co-author of Radioactive Waste:
Management and Regulation (Free Press, 1978).
Professor Lester serves as an advisor or
consultant to corporations, governments, and private foundations
and non-profit groups, and lectures frequently to academic,
business and general audiences throughout the world.
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