John P. Holdren: Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy in the Obama Administration

Presented By: Office of the President

Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), will be the speaker at the 2011 DuBridge Distinguished Lecture Series.

In a question-and-answer session after his speech, Holdren will be accompanied by renowned scientist and Nobel Laureate Dr. Ahmed Zewail, Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at Caltech. Dr. Zewail is a member of PCAST and is the United States Science Envoy to the Middle East. Since the January 25 revolution in Egypt, he has played a critical role in aiding the transition to a democratic state and to development in his mother country.

Prior to joining the Obama administration, Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as a professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Holdren was a member of the Caltech community as a senior research fellow in the Environmental Quality Laboratory.

The Lee A. DuBridge Distinguished Lecture series brings prominent speakers of national and international importance to the Caltech campus. The series was inaugurated in 1996 in honor of Lee A. DuBridge, president of Caltech from 1946 to 1969. DuBridge, who died in 1994, was once called America's "senior statesman of science" by Time magazine, and was considered an exemplary research-university president in an era of vast scientific, societal, and educational change. He guided the growth of the modern Caltech while maintaining an understanding and interest in national affairs that was rare among university presidents. Previous DuBridge speakers include Charles "Charlie" Munger, Warren Buffett, Walter Cronkite, John Hume, Jack Valenti, and Judy Woodruff.