Matthew Meselson

Matthew Stanley Meselson is Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and a member of the Belfer Center Board of Directors.

He received the Ph.B. degree from the University of Chicago in 1951 and the Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1957.

He was a research fellow and then Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry at CalTech until he joined the Harvard faculty in 1960, where he conducts research in molecular genetics and evolution.

Since 1963 Dr. Meselson has been interested in chemical and biological defense and arms control and has served as a consultant on this subject to various government agencies. He is co-director of the Harvard-Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation and co-editor of its quarterly journal, The Chemical Weapons Convention Bulletin. Dr. Meselson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Academie des Sciences (Paris), the Academia Sanctae Clarae (Genoa), the Royal Society (London), the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

He has received numerous awards in molecular biology and genetics, most recently the 2004 Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science and the 2008 Mendel Medal of the UK Genetics Society. He has served on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the Council of the Smithsonian Institution, the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Advisory Board to the U.S. Secretary of State and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Pugwash Study Group on the Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions.