Dr. John P. Holdren
Science and Technology Policy in the Obama Administration: A Progress Report
MAY 8, 2013
ABSTRACT: President Obama entered office in January 2009 with a pledge to “put science in its rightful place” in his new administration. What did that mean? What has he done to keep this pledge? What difference have these efforts made for Federal support for R&D, for jobs and the economy, for healthcare, for progress on the challenges of energy and climate change, for NASA and space exploration, and for science and math education for American kids? What is the outlook for all of this in the second Obama term? This talk will address those questions and more.
BIOGRAPHY: Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Trained in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics at MIT and Stanford, he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prior to joining the Obama administration he was a professor in both the Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard, as well as Director of the Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.
Dr. Holdren's lecture was made possible in part through a gift from Stevens alumnus, Dr. William W. Destler, '68, President, Rochester Institute of Technology.