Brunel
Lecture Series on Complex Systems
Engineering Systems Division
Lecture:
Living with Catastrophic Terrorism: Can Science and
Technology Make the U.S. Safer?
by Lewis
M. Branscomb, Co-chair, Committee on Science and Technology
for Countering Terrorism, National Research Council and
Professor Emeritus, Public Policy and Corporate Management,
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Click
here to view
lecture poster (.pdf).
Click here
to view MIT World video of this lecture.
About
the Lecture:
After
9/11, the three Academies – the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute
of Medicine – sponsored with their own funds a major
study of the role that science and technology might play
in countering the threat of catastrophic terrorism in the
United States. This study involved a committee of 24 experts,
co-chaired by Lewis Branscomb and Richard Klausner, and
was supported by 95 others on specialized panels.
The
400-page report was released on June 25, 2002 and presented
to Governor Ridge, to Dr. Marburger and to the House and
Senate. On August 2, 2002, the report was published by the
National Academies Press under the title Making America
Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering
Terrorism.
This
lecture will summarize the output of this project, address
its influence on legislation for a Department of Homeland
Security, and point to the areas of public policy that require
the most urgent attention. Professor Branscomb will also
present his own views on some issues treated only lightly
in the report.
About
the Speaker:
LEWIS
M. BRANSCOMB is Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate
Management (emeritus) at Harvard University. He is emeritus
director of Harvard's Science Technology and Public Policy
Program in the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, and a member of the CenterÕs Board of Directors.
Dr. Branscomb received the BA in physics, summa cum
laude, from Duke University in 1945 and PhD in physics
from Harvard in 1949, when he was appointed Junior Fellow
in the Harvard Society of Fellows.
He
is the co-chair, with Richard Klausner, of the AcademiesÕ
study entitled Making the Nation Safer: The Role of
Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism, released
on June 25, 2002 and published by National Academy Press
on August 2, 2002.
Branscomb
pioneered the study of atomic and molecular negative ions
and their role in the atmospheres of the earth and stars
and was a co-founder of the Joint Institute for Laboratory
Astrophysics (JILA) at the University of Colorado. While
there he was Editor of the Reviews of Modern Physics. After
serving as director of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards
(now the Institute for Standards and Technology) from 1969
to 1972, he was named vice president and chief scientist
of IBM Corporation and a member of the IBM Corporate Management
Board. In 1980 President Carter appointed him to the National
Science Board and in 1980 he was elected chairman, serving
until May 1984.
Branscomb
was appointed by President Johnson to the President's Science
Advisory Committee (1964-1968) and by President Reagan to
the National Productivity Advisory Committee. He is a member
of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy
of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the National
Academy of Public Administration. He is a director of the
AAAS and a director of National Research Council. He is
a former president of the American Physical Society and
a former president of Sigma Xi.
He
is a recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award of the National
Science Board, the Arthur Bueche Award of the National Academy
of Engineering, the Gold Medal of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, and the Okawa Prize in Communications and Informatics.
He received the Centennial Medal of the Harvard University
Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2002. He holds honorary
doctoral degrees from sixteen universities and is an honorary
associate of the Engineering Academy of Japan.
Prof.
Branscomb has written extensively on information technology,
comparative science and technology policy, and management
of innovation and technology. In addition to more than 450
published papers, his recent books are Taking Technical
Risks: How Innovators, Executives, and Investors Manage
High Tech Risk, (with Philip Auerswald, 2000); Industrializing
Knowledge: University-Industry Linkages in Japan and the
United States (edited with Fumio Kodama and Richard Florida,
1999); Investing in Innovation: A Research and Innovation
Policy that Works (edited with James Keller, 1998); Korea
at the Turning Point: Innovation-Based Strategies for Development
(with H.Y. Choi, 1996); Japanese Innovation Strategy: Technical
Support for Business Visions (with Fumio Kodama, 1993);
Empowering Technology: Implementing a U.S. Policy (1993);
Converging Infrastructures: Intelligent Transportation and
the National Information Infrastructure (with James Keller,
1996); Informed Legislatures: Coping with Science in a Democracy
(with Megan Jones and David Guston, 1996); Confessions of
a Technophile (1994); and Beyond Spinoff: Military and Commercial
Technologies in a Changing World, (with J. Alic, et.al.,
1992).
About
the Series:
THE
BRUNEL LECTURE SERIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS was made
possible by funds assembled and underwritten by Frank P.
Davidson, convener of the Channel Tunnel Study Group (1957).
It was this group's design, accomplished by agreement with
Bechtel Corporation, Brown & Root, Inc. and Morrison-Knudsen
Company, Inc. in 1959, that formed the basis of the subsea
railway link now in service between England and France.
Mr.
Davidson is a retired Senior Research Associate at MIT.
From 1970-1996, he was Chairman of the System Dynamics Steering
Committee, Sloan School of Management, and Coordinator of
the Macro-Engineering Research Group at MIT's School of
Engineering. He co-edited, with C. Lawrence Meador, Macro-Engineering:
Global Infrastructure Solutions, subtitled Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Brunel Lectures 1983-1992. With
Ernst G. Frankel and C. Lawrence Maedor, he co-edited Macro-Engineering,
subtitled MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure.
These volumes, published by Ellis Horwood and Horwood Publishing
Limited in 1992 and 1997, respectively, appeared in Chichester,
England, as did Macro-Problems and World Projects, subtitled
Essays in Honor of Frank Davidson, which appeared
in 1998, on the occasion of Mr. Davidsons retirement and
80th birthday. The latter volume was edited by MIT Professor
Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel and by Uwe Kitzinger, CBE, former
president of Templeton College, Oxford, and now a Visiting
Scholar at Harvard.
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Institute of Technology
Living
with Catastrophic Terrorism: Can Science and Technology
Make the U.S. Safer? (2002)
by Lewis M. Branscomb
Co-chair, Committee on Science and Technology for Countering
Terrorism, National Research Council and Professor Emeritus,
Public Policy and Corporate Management, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University
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Former President, CEO, and Chairman and Current Chairman,
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