Venkatesh Narayanamurti

Venkatesh Narayanamurti is the Benjamin Peirce Research Professor of Technology and Public Policy at Harvard. He has served on numerous advisory boards of the federal government, research universities and industry.  He was formerly the John L. Armstrong Professor and Founding Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Professor of Physics and Dean of Physical Sciences at Harvard. From 2009 to 2015 he served as the Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He served as Dean of the UCSB College of Engineering from 1992 to 1998, as Vice President for Research at Sandia National laboratories (1987 -1992) and spent much of his scientific research career at AT&T Bell Laboratories (1968-1987).

He obtained his PhD in physics from Cornell University in 1965 and he has an Honorary Doctorate from Tohuku University (2009). He is the author of more than 240 scientific papers in different areas of condensed matter and applied physics and technology innovation policy. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Indian Academy of Science, Indian National Academy of Engineering, IEEE, AAAS and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and of the World Academy of Sciences. He served as NAE Foreign Secretary from 2011 to 2015 and is currently on the Board of Directors and the Academic Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2018 he received the Arthur Bueche Award of the NAE “for seminal contributions to condensed matter physics and visionary leadership of multi-disciplinary research in industry, academia, and national labs that generated research and engineering advances”.