Dr. Richard Meserve is President of Carnegie Institution of Washington.  He became the ninth
president of the Carnegie Institution in April 2003, after stepping down as chairman of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), where he served from October 1999 under both
Presidents Clinton and Bush.  He had been a member of Carnegie's board of trustees since 1992. 
Before joining the NRC, Meserve was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington
& Burling. With his Harvard law degree, received in 1975, and his Ph.D. in applied physics from
Stanford in 1976, he devoted his legal practice to issues arising at the intersection of law, science,
and public policy. Early in his career, he served as legal counsel to the President’s science
advisor, and was a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court.