Dr. Burton Richter

Dr. Burton Richter is the Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences Emeritus at Stanford University and the former Director of the SLAC National Accelerator Center. Richter discovered a new kind of subatomic particle after leading the construction of an advanced colliding beam in a program sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (1976) and the E.O. Lawrence Medal of the Department of Energy (1976) in light of his discoveries. Richter is a member of the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee and chairs the Transmutation Subcommittee. He is a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Advisory Board, the French Commissaire a l'Energie Atomique (CEA) Visiting Group, the Hoover Energy Task Force, and the Jason Group. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society; a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society, a society in which he was named President in 1994. He was also President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and served on advisory committees such as the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Laboratory Operations Board, Nuclear Energy Task Force, General Motors Science Advisory Committee, and chaired the National Research Council’s Board on Physics and Astronomy. He was previously a member of the Board of Directors of Varian Associates and Varian Medical Systems, AREVA Enterprises, Inc., and Board of Directors of Litel Instruments. He attended the Massachusetts institute of Technology and achieved a B.S. and Ph.D. in 1952 and 1956, respectively.