Published: April 8, 2002

Lewis M. Branscomb, professor emeritus of Harvard University, will lecture on "Government-University Partnership in the Era of Catastrophic Terrorism" on Thursday, April 18, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The talk will begin at 3:30 p.m. in room 140 of the Cristol Chemistry and Biochemistry Building.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of the 40th anniversary celebration of JILA, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which Branscomb co-founded.

Branscomb is co-chair of the Project on Science and Technology for Counter Terrorism sponsored by the national academies of science and engineering and the Institute of Medicine. Branscomb is a member of all three national academies.

He is professor emeritus of public policy and corporate management and emeritus director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In 1962, President Richard Nixon appointed Branscomb director of the National Bureau of Standards, now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Branscomb was named vice president and chief scientist of IBM Corp. in 1972, where he served until his retirement in 1986. He also was appointed by President Carter to the National Science Board and by President Reagan to chair the Technology Panel of the Commission on Productivity.

His latest book, "Taking Technical Risks: How Innovators, Managers and Investors Manage Risk in High Tech Innovation," was released in January 2001.

JILA was founded in April 1969 with Branscomb serving as its first chair.

JILA was one of the nation's first partnerships between a university and a government agency and hosts the research laboratories of 2001 physics Nobel laureates Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman, both of whom also are fellows of JILA.

JILA is an interdisciplinary institute for research and graduate education in the physical sciences.

For information on the lecture call (303) 492-7789. For more information on JILA visit the Web site at .Ìý