Robert M. Simon

Dr. Robert M. Simon is an independent consultant and advisor on energy, science, and technology issues. He is also teaching this semester as an Adjunct Professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Policy at Georgetown University. Dr. Simon retired in April 2016 from his position as Principal Advisor to the Director for Energy, Transportation, and Resources at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP. He had joined OSTP in 2013 after a 20-year career in energy and science policy in Congress. From 1999 to 2013, Dr. Simon was the Democratic Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and the full committee Staff Director when Democrats were in the majority in the Senate. His work at the committee contributed to the enactment of 426 public laws in the areas of energy policy, public lands conservation, and natural resources management. He played a major role in the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. From 1989 to 1998, he was with the U.S. Department of Energy, where he was the founding Executive Director of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and then Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Research (1991-1993), which funded over $3 billion in fundamental scientific research in 1992. He served on detail as a technical and scientific advisor in the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 1998. A graduate of Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, Dr. Simon received his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, for his contributions to integrating science with public policy.