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Breakthrough Dividend: Appendix D - About the Author

Dr. Irvin M. Asher, is President of Asher Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in international S&T and S&T policy. After receiving his B.S. (1966) and Ph.D. (1971) degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and a research career at the Harvard-M.I.T. Program in Health Sciences and Technology, he moved to Washington, D.C. as a Science Advisor to the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He became the FDA's first Director of International Affairs in 1979.

In 1981 Dr. Asher was appointed Science Program Director of the Office of the Science Advisor in the U.S. Agency for International Development. During the ten years of his tenure, he set up and provided technical and managerial direction to a highly-successful $55 million research portfolio (300 projects) divided between two innovative U.S.-sponsored research grant programs: The U.S. Program in Science and Technology Cooperation (PSTC) and the U.S.-Israel Cooperative Development Research Program (CDR). Both programs used R&D in biotechnology and associated technologies to help solve persistent international development problems. In the course of his work, Dr. Asher helped evaluate over 3500 proposals from the U.S., Israel and 50 foreign countries to invest the Agency's technological “venture capital,” and performed site visits worldwide.

Now residing in Israel, Dr. Asher has served as a consultant to the U.S. National Research Council, U.S.-Israel BARD, Israel Ministry of Science, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Israel National Science Foundation and others. He also publishes a variety of science newsletters, annual reports and other publications for his clients, including the well-known biennial Science in Israel: A Practical Guide.