Richard R. Nelson is George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He has also taught at Yale University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Oberlin College. He has also been a senior staff member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and a researcher at the RAND Corporation. His central research interests have been on long run economic change, with a particular focus on how technology advances over time, and the nature and function of economic institutions. This led to the development, along with Sidney Winter, of an evolutionary theory of economic change. He has written extensively on technological advance, and topics in science and technology policy, and is currently interested in the evolution of human know-how, particularly in the fields of medicine and education. He is currently a member of the Committee on a Strategic Education Research Plan (SERP): Bridging Research and Practice, the Committee on Government-Industry Partnerships for the Development of New Technologies, and the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy: Phase II. Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. from Yale.