Changes at Carnegie. The Carnegie Institution of Washington spent 2 years searching the world for a new leader--before finding him on its board of trustees. Richard Meserve, who currently heads the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), will take over the century-old research institution in April from biochemist Maxine Singer.
Meserve
CREDITS: NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
A 58-year-old physicist turned lawyer, Meserve confesses that he hasn't worked at the bench since graduate school and that he's "a different type of chief executive" from Singer, a National Medal of Science winner who joined Carnegie in 1987. He's also a newcomer to big-time fundraising. But Singer "is leaving this place in great shape," he says.
Singer, 71, plans to remain active in the institution's educational projects with local schools. And this month she becomes chair of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meserve is leaving NRC a year before his term expires because "the Carnegie job was too good to pass up."
