Dr. Telson is presently the Director of National Laboratory Affairs for the University of California, in its Washington Office of Federal Government Relations, prior to which he served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and then Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy, with responsibilities including the preparation of the DOE’s nearly $20 billion annual budget.
Prior his positions at the DOE, Dr. Telson was a senior analyst on the staff of the House Budget Committee from 1975 to 1995, where he was responsible for reviewing energy, science and space issues in the federal budget, including the programs of the DOE, National Science Foundation, NASA and government-wide R&D policy. In the 95th Congress, he served as the Staff Economist of the House Ad Hoc Committee on Energy, created to enact the 1978 Energy Act.
In the 96th Congress, Dr. Telson served as Staff Coordinator of the Speaker’s Task Force on Energy created to deal with problems relating to the 1979 oil shortages.
Dr. Telson holds a Ph.D, and M.S. and B.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Masters Degree in Management from the Sloan School of Management.
He was a Hertz Fellow throughout his graduate studies, and in 1999 was elected AAA’s Fellow “for distinguished contributions in the formulation of science and technology policies and budgets, and in interpretation of these policies and budgets to the scientific community.” In 2004 Dr. Telson was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.