It’s fashionable these days to combine a physics degree with, say, business or education. Such pairing of disciplines is considered a selling point for attracting students into physics and later, when they graduate, for landing them jobs. But that wasn’t always the case. In the mid-1970s, when Richard Meserve capped off his physics PhD with a law degree, the combination was unusual—and was perceived by some to be a defection from physics. In the ensuing years, a career that has included clerking for a Supreme Court justice, serving as legal counsel to President Jimmy Carter’s science adviser, heading the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and—as of this past April—leading the Carnegie Institution of Washington has borne out Meserve’s hunch that he “could walk the line between law and science.”
Meserve’s doctoral research in applied physics at Stanford University involved calculating electronic properties of large molecules. As his PhD neared completion, he says, “I confronted the depths of the job depression for physicists. I had a family to support, and I knew many very good people who were hovering around universities and going through postdocs and further postdocs as they waited for positions to open up. That caused me to wonder, Does this make any sense?” As an undergraduate in math and physics at Tufts University, Meserve had considered studying law—the profession of both his father and his older brother. “I retraced my steps and went on to law school at Harvard with the idea right from the beginning that I would try to use my scientific background in the practice of law,” he says.
His physics background was helpful right away, Meserve says. “A lot of the training of lawyers is focused on understanding the abstract principles that underlie the resolution of the fact situation presented in a legal dispute. And the development of models and their consequences is completely natural to a scientist, particularly a physicist.” Meserve earned his law degree in 1975 and then returned to editing his PhD thesis, which earned him the title of doctor in 1976.
Science in litigation
After law school, Meserve clerked first for a judge in the highest court of Massachusetts, and then for Justice Harry Blackmun in the US Supreme Court. “I think I was intriguing to him because he had been a math major as an undergraduate,” says Meserve. One case that used Meserve’s analytical skills involved discrimination against Hispanics in the selection of grand juries in southern Texas. “I did a simple calculation of the probability that so few Hispanics would be on the juries. It turned out to be less than one chance in 1020 that this was a random draw.” As a result of the Supreme Court opinion, says Meserve, “there are now a lot of lawyers who practice in the discrimination area who have had to learn statistics.”
Meserve’s next job, for four years starting in 1977, was as legal counsel to Frank Press, President Carter’s science adviser. In that role, he was involved in a wide range of policy issues, from evaluating science budgets to kick-starting technology innovation to worrying about energy resources. “There was a lot of concern at that time about supply interruptions from the Middle East, so our office was very active in dealing with energy issues,” he says. And after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, Meserve says he “ran the staff-level White House group that was responding to the disaster.”
After his stint in the White House, Meserve stayed in Washington, DC, and joined the law firm of Covington & Burling, where, he says, “I was viewed as being the lawyer-scientist.” His first client was the American Physical Society. One series of international cases for which Meserve represented APS and the American Institute of Physics (which publishes Physics Today) was a drawn-out dispute with Gordon & Breach Publishing Group. The dispute stemmed from two articles in Physics Today and one in the APS Bulletin that compared journal subscription prices and showed G&B’s to be among the costliest per thousand characters. The suits were decided in favor of APS and AIP (see Physics Today, June 2001, page 10).
The work he did for the physics organizations was “mostly routine,” says Meserve. But other clients made more use of his analytical skills. One memorable case involved an oil field in Iran. In 1979, when the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini came in, says Meserve, Iran “basically kicked out all of the American companies. My part in the case was figuring out how much oil my client would have recovered if it hadn’t been excluded from Iran.” Meserve presented and cross-examined witnesses on petroleum engineering issues in a special claims tribunal in the Hague.
Two Supreme Court cases that Meserve was involved in concerned the presentation of scientific and technical evidence. In the early 1990s, he represented the National Academy of Sciences in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc, which involved claims that a drug intended to appease morning sickness in pregnant women caused birth defects. The question was, he says, “What standards should govern the admission of scientific testimony that the drug could cause birth defects?” Later, he represented the National Academy of Engineering in Kumho Tire Co v. Carmickael, which involved an alleged design defect in car tires. “The cases ultimately provide a safeguard to insulate juries from shoddy science,” says Meserve. “Now judges will typically have ‘Daubert hearings’ to decide whether scientific evidence is sufficiently reliable and relevant to be heard.”
Joining the law firm was part of a long-range strategy, says Meserve. “I hoped that an interesting job in science policy might come along in the future—and that’s easier if you are already in Washington.” In 1999, after 17 years at Covington & Burling, one did come along.
Nuclear resurgence
“The call came out of the blue,” says Meserve of the offer from the Clinton White House to chair the NRC, the agency that regulates civilian uses of nuclear materials. “It fit my strategy of trying to use law and science together. And it was an interesting job in any event.” Over the years, Meserve had chaired a host of committees for the National Academy of Sciences—dealing with, among other matters, control of weapons-grade nuclear material in Russia, the Chernobyl accident, and fuel efficiency of cars. He credits those studies with making him visible to the White House and, ultimately, landing him the top job at the NRC.
Nuclear energy, Meserve predicts, will play an increasing role in powering the US, which currently gets 20% of its electrical energy from 103 nuclear power plants. “There has been a resurgence in interest in nuclear power that I did not anticipate—I don’t think anyone anticipated,” says Meserve. Safety, waste, and proliferation are the concerns related to nuclear power, he adds. “I believe that all of those problems are solvable. Every energy source has its disadvantages and its costs.” During his tenure, the NRC extended the operating lifetimes of some power plants from 40 to 60 years and certified designs for new reactors. “The next generation of reactors will have inherent safety features that don’t exist in the currently operating fleet of plants,” he says.
As NRC chair, Meserve took heat for the agency’s handling of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, Ohio. In late 2001, the NRC granted the reactor operator a six-week extension before shutdown for an inspection required for all reactors of its type. When the inspection was carried out, an area of corrosion the size of a pineapple was found on the reactor’s pressure vessel head. Critics pointed accusing fingers at Meserve and the NRC for granting the extension and for the agency’s internal handling of the incident. For his part, Meserve says “it was a very serious incident. But it was not an accident—nothing happened.” Given the information available at the time, he adds, granting the postponement was the right thing to do. “In retrospect, had [the NRC commissioners] known, they would never have let this plant continue.” The Davis-Besse reactor has not started up again because of ongoing repairs.
The biggest issue facing the NRC is Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, says Meserve. When the Department of Energy submits the anticipated application to bury spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste there, it will be up to the NRC to give the final go-ahead. But that decision will fall to Meserve’s successors. He left the agency in March, about a year before the end of his term, to become president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” he says.
Cautious at Carnegie
The organization Meserve now heads is a patchwork of departments in six science areas. “It’s a very smoothly functioning organization, thanks to my predecessor, Maxine Singer,” says Meserve. “We are mid-flight on a whole series of initiatives she started.” Those include instruments for Carnegie’s telescopes in Chile, a new building for the organization’s developmental biologists on the Johns Hopkins University campus, and the establishment of a department of global ecology housed at Stanford University. The Carnegie Institution has a yearly operating budget of about $45 million, largely from its century-old endowment. Meserve’s first goal is to raise $75 million by the end of 2006. “I want to be cautious about new priorities. First, we need to fulfill the commitments that have already been launched,” he says.
“I can’t say that in any of my jobs I’ve used PhD-level physics knowledge,” says Meserve. “But being comfortable with the things that physics teaches you, and knowing the science community, and being able to interact with scientists has been invaluable.” Looking back on his decision to combine physics and law, Meserve adds, “I had the sense that science was at the core of a lot of important public issues and that if there weren’t some lawyers who had scientific training, it was a detriment to the country.”
Richard Meserve, as head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, visiting the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland in late 1999.
Richard Meserve, as head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, visiting the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland in late 1999.
