Robert A. Beaudet

Robert A. Beaudet "has been a full professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Southern California since 1971. He was chairman of the Chemistry Department from 1979 to 1983. Since then he has returned to full time research and teaching. He received his undergraduate training at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass. in 1957. His graduate work was conducted in microwave spectroscopy under Prof. E. Bright Wilson at Harvard University. He was awarded an A.M. in 1960 and a Ph. D. in 1962. He has been on the faculty at Univ. of Southern California since 1963 where he has been actively carrying our basic research in molecular spectroscopy, molecular structure determinations, internal rotation and motions in molecules. His outside interests include all aspects of chemical warfare, detection and monitoring, destruction of chemical munitions, and related treaty issues. He has also gotten expertise in energetic materials and conventional munitions.

"He was an NSF predoctoral fellow from 1957-1961 while at Harvard. He was awarded a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship in 1962. He received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1966, an Alexander Von Humboldt Special American Award in 1975. He also was a guest professor at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Electronics in Garching, Germany in 1979.

"His major research interests have encompassed all forms of spectroscopy and its applications to the study of chemistry. He has had extensive experience in the molecular structures of boranes and carboranes, laser spectroscopy of free radicals and other transient molecules, remote sensing applications of laser spectroscopy. Most recently he has initiated a research program in the infrared spectroscopy of Van der Waals complexes and clusters. His interests include the chemistry, combustion and reactions of energetic materials, applications of spectroscopy to detection, particularly chemical agents and energetic materials.

"He has also been extensively interested and involved in advisement for the US government. From 1968 to 1979, he was a member of the U.S. Army Science Advisory Panel, later renamed the Army Science Board. From 1969 to 1976, he was a member of the Presidential Science Advisory Council Panels on Ground Warfare, on Narcotics Enforcement, and on NATO. He also served on a Science Advisory Committee to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. More recently he was on the staff of Arroyo Center at JPL. He was involved in a study that demonstrated that passive remote sensing would be effective for CW Treaty Verification, and for detecting nonpersistent CW gas clouds from a Remotely Piloted Vehicle.

"He has also served on National Academy of Science/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Panel for the Detection of Chemical Agents, and the NAS/NRC's Panel on Energetic Materials, the NAS's Oversight Advisory Committee of the Army Chemical Research, Development and Engineering Center at Edgewood, MD. He was also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for CW Treaty Verification Group at CBDCOM, Edgewood Arsenal. Until 1998, he was a full member of the NAS/NRC's Board on Army Science and Technology (BAST) where he oversaw the CW Stockpile Committee and the Alternative Technologies Study Panel, which produced its report in October 1996.

"He cochaired the BW/CW Competency Panel in the recent Defense Science Board Summer Study on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats in 1997. During 2001, he was a member of the Defense Science Board Task Force on 'Intel needs for Homeland Defense.' From 1996 until the present, he chairs an NRC Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons and is a member of the NRC committee on Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Disposal Program.

"He remains a staff member of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where, for ten years, he participated in JPL's program supporting the Army's Advanced Artillery System (Crusader), a system using liquid propellant. He was also involved in probabilistic failure analysis and fuel cell development. He is now participating in Mars life detection and planetary protection programs.

"He is also a member of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Nonproliferation, Arms Limitation and Internal Security Advisory Committee and the Chemical and Material Science Directorate Advisory Committee."