Richard Revesz ’79
New York, NY

Region 1 Candidate

“I arrived at Princeton as an engineering student, but quickly became interested in the intersection between science and technology problems and public policy,” says Richard Revesz ’79. “This significant broadening of my intellectual horizons, which I attribute to the close contact that I got to have with leading members of the faculty, set me on the path to my current career as a legal academic working in the area of environmental policy.” Revesz is currently Dean of New York University School of Law.

Revesz was born and raised in Argentina and arrived in the U.S one week before beginning his freshman year at Princeton. “My parents had been displaced by the Holocaust and my father had died when I was eight years old,” says Revesz. “Argentina was going through very difficult times—it was a period of serious economic crisis and the beginning of the ‘dirty war’ that led to thousands of disappearances and killings at the hands of the military government. I would never have been able to afford to study in the United States had Princeton not offered me a great deal of financial aid, which few academic institutions at the time would have provided to a foreign student.” He earned his BSE summa cum laude in Civil Engineering and a Woodrow Wilson School Certificate and was named to Phi Beta Kappa.

After Princeton, Revesz headed to MIT where he received his MS in Civil Engineering, and to Yale Law School, where he earned his JD and was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. He was then a law clerk to Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1985, Revesz joined NYU School of Law; he was tenured in 1990, named Lawrence King Professor of Law in 2001 and Dean in 2002. He has published over 40 articles and books on environmental and administrative law; his most recent book, Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health, co-authored with an NYU law student, will be published by Oxford University Press in April.

As Dean at NYU, Revesz has led efforts to make higher education available to talented but economically-disadvantaged students. “I have established an extensive scholarship and enrichment program for students who are the first in their families to go to graduate or professional school, as well as scholarships for graduate students from developing countries. I believe that education is the most powerful instrument of social mobility, and will continue to do all I can to help talented and ambitious students achieve their fullest potential.” Revesz has also greatly expanded the programs designed to assist graduates who aspire to public service careers.

Internationally recognized for his scholarship, Revesz has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. He has remained in close touch with some of his Princeton students, helping them embark on environmental careers. He has sat on numerous boards, including the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Board of the American Law and Economics Association. He has also provided pro bono representation to the Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He currently sits on the Board of the American Museum of Natural History, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Princeton has continued to play an important part in my life,” says Revesz. “As Dean for New York University School of Law, I have made it my priority to provide our students with the opportunities that Princeton provided me.”