Peter Eisenberger joined Columbia University on September 1, 1996, as Vice-Provost of the Earth Institute and Director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Eisenberger holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University. He has served in the corporate sector, as Senior Director of Exxon Research and Engineering Company’s Corporate Research Laboratories, and in the academic sector as Director of the Princeton Materials Institute at Princeton University. Early in his career, he was Department Head at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He Brings to Lamont-Doherty and the Earth Institute a unique and vital set of skills and experiences.

Columbia has identified the development of the Earth Institute as one of the University’s most important strategic initiatives. The activities of the Earth Institute will be key to positioning Columbia as an international university, ideally situated to provide strategies for managing our planet as we move into the next century. The Earth Institute will bring together researchers and educators from throughout the University -- as well as from other institutions outside of Columbia -- to work on complex planetary problems. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Biosphere 2 Center Inc. will be at the center of the new institute.

Eisenberger understands that the solutions to many planetary problems can be found only at the interfaces of many different disciplines and knows how to do this perhaps better than anyone else. At Exxon in the early 1980’s, Eisenberger recognized the increasing importance of cross-disciplinary work and brought together interdisciplinary teams to address complex issues facing the oil industry.

Eisenberger has recently served on the Technology Council of the Advisory Board to Congressman Zimmer of the Space, Science and Technology Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives; the NRC Panel on Bimolecular Materials; the Advisory Committee for the Mathematical and Physical Science Division of NSF (as chair); the Board of the Invention Factory Science Museum; and the Board of Trustees for New Jersey’s Inventors Hall of Fame.