Harvey Brooks is Benjamin F. Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy (Emeritus) in the Center for Science and International Affairs of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1940, was a staff member of the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory during WWII from 1942 to 1946. After the war he was at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, where he served also as Associate Laboratory Head of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) until 1950, when he returned to Harvard as Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, becoming also Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard from 1957 to 1975, after which he moved to the Kennedy School to become Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program until his retirement in 1986.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society and was President of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences from 1971 to 1975. He served on the President’s Science Advisory Committee from 1957 to 1964, and as a member of the National Science Board from 1962 to 1974. He was the second Chairman of the Committee on Science and Public Policy (COSPUP) of the National Academy of Sciences from 1966 to 1971 and Chairman of the Commission on Sociotechnical Systems of the National Research Council from 1972 to 1976. He co-chaired the Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems (CONAES) of the NAS from 1976 to 1979. His research has been underwater acoustics, nuclear engineering, solid state physics, energy policy, and science policy. Recently, he co-chaired with Dr. John Foster the Committee on Technology Policy Options in a Global Economy of the National Academy of Engineering, whose report Mastering a New Role: Shaping Technology Policy for National Economic Performance, was released in March, 1993.

Since his official retirement, he has published about thirty papers and book chapters on science and technology policy, the future of academic research, university-industry relations, and technology and economic performance.