From nuclear proliferation to local weather change, Richard Ok. Lester faucets analysis expertise to map a path towards a sustainable planet.
Wanting again on almost a half-century at MIT, Richard Ok. Lester, affiliate provost and Japan Metal Trade Professor, sees a “considerably eccentric skilled trajectory.”
However whereas his path has been irregular, there was a clearly outlined by way of line, Lester says: the emergence of recent science and new applied sciences, the potential of those developments to shake up the established order and tackle a few of society’s most consequential issues, and what the outcomes may imply for America’s place on the planet.
Maybe no project in Lester’s portfolio higher captures this theme than the brand new MIT Local weather Grand Challenges competitors. Spearheaded by Lester and Maria Zuber, MIT vp for analysis, and launched on the top of the pandemic in summer time 2020, this initiative is designed to mobilize your complete MIT analysis neighborhood round tackling “the actually arduous, difficult issues presently standing in the way in which of an efficient international response to the local weather emergency,” says Lester. “The main focus is on these issues the place progress requires creating and making use of frontier information within the pure and social sciences and cutting-edge applied sciences. That is the MIT neighborhood swinging for the fences in areas the place now we have a comparative benefit.”
It is a ardour mission for him, not least as a result of it has engaged colleagues from almost all of MIT’s departments. After almost 100 preliminary concepts had been submitted by greater than 300 school, 27 groups had been named finalists and acquired funding to develop complete analysis and innovation plans in such areas as decarbonizing complicated industries; danger forecasting and adaptation; advancing local weather fairness; and carbon elimination, administration, and storage. In April, a small subset of this group will change into multiyear flagship tasks, augmenting the work of current MIT models which can be pursuing local weather analysis. Lester is sunny within the face of those terribly complicated issues. “It is a bottom-up effort with thrilling proposals, and the place the Institute is collectively dedicated — it’s MIT at its greatest.”
Forging cross-disciplinary ties and bringing artistic individuals collectively round a typical purpose have confirmed beneficial abilities as Richard Lester has stepped into positions of ever-greater accountability on the Institute, together with his present function as affiliate provost. Credit score: Gretchen Ertl
Nuclear to the core
This initiative carries a specific resonance for Lester, who stays deeply engaged in nuclear engineering. “The function of nuclear vitality is central and might want to change into much more central if we’re to reach addressing the local weather problem,” he says. He additionally acknowledges that for nuclear vitality applied sciences — each fission and fusion — to play a significant function in decarbonizing the financial system, they have to not simply win “within the court docket of public opinion, however within the market,” he says. “Over time, my analysis has sought to elucidate what must be executed to beat these obstacles.”
Actually, Lester has been campaigning for a lot of his profession for a U.S. nuclear innovation agenda, a dedication that takes on elevated urgency because the contours of the local weather disaster sharpen. He argues for the fast growth and testing of nuclear applied sciences that may complement the renewable however intermittent vitality sources of solar and wind. Whether or not highly effective, large-scale, molten-salt-cooled reactors or small, modular, gentle water reactors, nuclear batteries or promising new fusion tasks, U.S. vitality coverage should embrace nuclear innovation, says Lester, or danger shedding the high-stakes race for a sustainable future.
Chancing right into a self-discipline
Lester’s introduction to nuclear science was pure happenstance.
Born within the English industrial metropolis of Leeds, he grew up in a musical household and performed piano, violin, after which viola. “It was a giant a part of my life,” he says, and for a time, music beckoned as a profession. He tumbled right into a chemical engineering focus at Imperial School, London, after taking a job in a chemical manufacturing unit following highschool. “There’s a sure randomness to life, and in my case, it’s mirrored in my alternative of main, which had a really giant affect on my final profession.”
In his second 12 months, Lester talked his method into operating a small experiment within the college’s analysis reactor, on radiation results in supplies. “I obtained hooked, and commenced pondering of finding out nuclear engineering.” However there have been few graduate applications in British universities on the time. Then serendipity struck once more. The trainer of Lester’s single humanities course at Imperial had beforehand taught at MIT, and urged Lester check out the nuclear program there. “I'll all the time be grateful to him (and, not directly, to MIT’s Humanities program) for opening my eyes to the existence of this establishment the place I’ve spent my complete grownup life,” says Lester.
He arrived at MIT with the notion of mitigating the harms of nuclear weapons. It was a time when the nuclear arms race “was an existential risk in everybody’s life,” he remembers. He focused his graduate research on nuclear proliferation. However he additionally encountered an electrifying examine by MIT meteorologist Jule Charney. “Professor Charney produced one of many first scientific assessments of the consequences on local weather of accelerating CO2 concentrations within the environment, with quantitative estimates that haven't essentially modified in 40 years.”
Lester shifted instructions. “I got here to MIT to work on nuclear safety, however stayed within the nuclear area due to the contributions that it could actually and should make in addressing local weather change,” he says.
“Be affected person. The arduous issues, those which can be actually price doing, will take a very long time to do.” Placing the local weather disaster behind us will take two generations, Lester believes. Credit score: Gretchen Ertl
Analysis and coverage
His path ahead, Lester believed, would contain making use of his science and expertise experience to crucial coverage issues, grounded in instant, real-world considerations, and aiming for broad coverage impacts. Whilst a member of NSE, he joined with colleagues from many MIT departments to check American industrial practices and what was required to make them globally aggressive, after which based MIT’s Industrial Efficiency Middle (IPC). Working on the IPC with interdisciplinary groups of school and college students on the sources of productiveness and innovation, his analysis took him to many nations at totally different phases of industrialization, together with China, Taiwan, Japan, and Brazil.
Lester’s wide-ranging work yielded books (together with the MIT Press bestseller “Made in America”), advisory positions with governments, firms, and foundations, and surprising collaborations. “My pursuits had been all the time pretty broad, and being at MIT made it attainable to workforce up with world-leading students and extraordinary college students not simply in nuclear engineering, however in lots of different fields corresponding to political science, economics, and administration,” he says.
Forging cross-disciplinary ties and bringing artistic individuals collectively round a typical purpose proved a beneficial ability as Lester stepped into positions of ever-greater accountability on the Institute. He didn’t precisely relish the prospect of a desk job, although. “I religiously prevented administrative roles till I felt I couldn’t preserve avoiding them,” he says.
Right this moment, as affiliate provost, he tends to MIT’s worldwide actions — a frightening process given rising scrutiny of analysis universities’ globe-spanning analysis partnerships and schooling of overseas college students. However even within the midst of those consuming chores, Lester stays dedicated to his house division. “Being a nuclear engineer is a central a part of my id,” he says.
To college students coming into the nuclear area almost 50 years after he did, who're understandably “keen to repair every little thing that appears improper instantly,” he has a message: “Be affected person. The arduous issues, those which can be actually price doing, will take a very long time to do.” Placing the local weather disaster behind us will take two generations, Lester believes. Present college students will begin the job, however it'll additionally take the efforts of their kids’s era earlier than it's executed. “So we'd like you to be energetic and inventive, after all, however no matter you will we additionally want you to be affected person and to have ‘stick-to-itiveness’ — and perhaps additionally an ethical compass that our era has lacked.”
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