Alan Schriesheim
President, C²ST
Dr. Alan Schriesheim received his bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn-Polytechnic University and immediately enrolled in graduate school at Penn State University. By 1954, he had his Ph.D. in chemistry in what he says was “record time” and a job with the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Schriesheim stayed for two years in Washington before decamping for Standard Oil of New Jersey, better known as Esso and then Exxon. There he worked his way through the research lab ranks. He worked on such diverse projects as improving refining processes to major improvements in catalytic combustion that decrease emissions. Dr. Schriesheim developed a national reputation—publishing extensively and winning the American Chemical Society’s award for research in petroleum chemistry—during his 27 years at Exxon. He was general manager of Exxon Engineering and director of the Corporate Research Lab when another lab called.
The Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, the first national laboratory established by the Federal Government in 1946, had never recruited its leader from business and industry before. Selecting Dr. Schriesheim after a national search proved a good fit: He served as director from 1983 to 1996, the longest tenure of any director. Under his leadership, Argonne’s budget increased from $250 million to nearly $600 million with 5,000 employees working on multiple research programs. Dr. Schriesheim oversaw projects including developing high-temperature superconductors, research on biological microchips, sequencing the human genome, and work on nuclear engineering. He also championed the design and construction of the Advanced Photon Source, a $456 million accelerator three-quarters of a mile in diameter, which he describes as “the world’s most powerful X-ray” with biological and materials science applications.
Dr. Schriesheim is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and holds 22 U.S. patents. He was recently appointed as chair of the National Academy Committee on Innovation Models for Aerospace Technologies. In addition to his many professional, business, and philanthropic board memberships, Dr. Schriesheim and television science journalist Bill Kurtis established the Chicago Science Explorers program. The program exposes thousands of teachers and students to science and math through study guides for Kurtis’ PBS program The New Explorers.
Dr. Schriesheim is an Alumni Fellow of Penn State (1984) and holds honorary degrees from Penn State, the Illinois Institute of Technology and Northern Illinois University.
In 2006, Dr. Schriesheim, Paul Knappenberger, President of the Adler Planetarium, and Jon Miller, John A. Hannah Professor of Integrative Studies at Michigan State University, began discussing the need for a regional organization that could adopt a role in the science community. Thus the Chicago Council on Science and Technology was born.
