Chauncey Starr

Who was Chauncey Starr?

Chauncey Starr was an American electrical engineer and an expert in nuclear energy.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Starr received an electrical engineering degree in 1932 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1935 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Starr was Vice President of Rockwell International and President of its Atomics International Division. In 1967 he became the Dean of the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science. Six years later he founded the Electric Power Research Institute and was its first president. He is the only President Emeritus of the EPRI.

Starr was a member of the Board of Directors at the George C. Marshall Institute, a member of the Board of Science Advisors of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and, like most other members of that board, he signed the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change.

Starr died at his home in Atherton, California from natural causes. The day before his death he celebrated his 95th birthday at an EPRI ceremony.

Starr received in 1979 the Walter H. Zinn Award from the American Nuclear Society, and in 1990 he was awarded the National Medal of Technology by then President George H. W. Bush.