Two Stanford professors to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Two Stanford professors – Jonathan Levin and William Dally – have been selected to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Jonathan Levin (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

They are among 30 distinguished leaders from industry, academia and nonprofit organizations nominated to advise President Biden and the White House on matters affecting science, technology and innovation policy. They will help develop evidence-based recommendations related to such key issues as the economy, worker empowerment, education, energy, the environment, public health, national and homeland security, and racial equity, according to the White House announcement.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the country with such a distinguished group of scientists,” said Levin, the Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Levin said he is “excited” by the opportunity because “it is a pivotal time for the U.S. to sustain our scientific and technological leadership, and I believe collaboration between government, academic institutions and business is critical for this to happen.”

Dally is also enthusiastic about applying science and technology as a way to address urgent issues.

“I think we can use science as a tool to solve a lot of the hard problems facing the nation,” said Dally, who joined Stanford’s computer science department in 1997 and has served the school in a variety of capacities and is now an adjunct professor. “To me, one of the biggest issues that we are facing is climate change and I think there are a lot of technological solutions centering around sustainable energy to basically stop and reverse climate change,” he added.

Levin is an economist and academic leader widely recognized for his research in industrial organization and technological change. In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal as the American economist younger than 40 who has made the most significant contributions to the field. Levin also has participated in projects that brought together the government and private sector to advance innovation, including the design of the first vaccine Advanced Market Commitment, and the FCC broadcast incentive auction.

Dally is a computer scientist who invented hardware architectures that power parallel computing, modern supercomputers and artificial intelligence. Dally holds 120 patents and has authored more than 250 papers and four textbooks in these subject areas.

Also serving on the council are Penny Pritzker, a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees who served as the 38th U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and Andrea J. Goldsmith, the Stephen Harris Professor in the School of Engineering, Emerita, who is currently the dean of engineering at Princeton University.