Clark Abt

Prof. Clark Abt is an engineer, educator, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and social scientist. Trained as an industrial engineer at MIT, he completed seven years at Raytheon Missile and Space Systems Division as Manager of its Strategic Studies Department. Awarded a Ph.D. in Political Science by MIT in 1965, he founded an interdisciplinary socio-economic policy research company, Abt Associates Inc. which he grew into one of the leading international applied socio-economic research firms. After retiring as CEO of Abt Associates Inc. in 1986, he became publisher of some 100 social science and policy research books and CD-ROM's under the Abt Books imprint until 1990. From 1991 to 1995 he was a professor of international relations at Boston University, and Director of the BU Center for the Study of Small States and Director of the BU Defense Technology Conversion Center. After 9/11/2001 Dr. Abt directed studies on nuclear and biological terrorism defenses for the US government and the Ford Foundation. After retiring from the Abt Associates Board as Chairman Emeritus in 2006, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Management at Cambridge College, where he taught courses in research methods, health care policy and ethics, and terrorism and disaster management. In 2007-8 he taught Energy Engineering to automotive engineering students at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. In 2009 he was appointed Adjunct Professor of Energy and Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University's Heller School of Social Policy and Management, where he teaches courses on renewable energy and its cost-effectiveness, and seminars on social experiments and disaster management.