Nato nel 1940 è un eminente economista ed un Professore di Politica Economica presso la Kennedy School of Government dell'Università di Harvard.

 È uno degli enfant prodige riuniti dal Segretario della Difesa Robert Mc Namara per sviluppare analisi finalizzate al disegno di strategie militari al tempo della Guerra Fredda.

 Autore o coautore di diversi libri scientifici è anche un noto giocatore del circuito americano che ha vinto un paio di titoli NABC's e che veleggia spesso tra le prime posizioni dei Campionati Nazionali.

  Richard Zeckhauser is the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Kennedy School, Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard College (summa cum laude) and received his Ph.D. there. 

 He is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he won the United States National Mixed Pairs Championship in contract bridge.

 Zeckhauser is a Senior Principal at Equity Resource Investments (ERI), a special situations real estate firm. 

He chairs the Investment Decisions and Behavioral Finance Executive Program at Harvard. 

Zeckhauser pioneered the field of policy analysis, and is a leading expert on economic behavior under uncertainty. 

His current research projects analyze environmental disasters, deception and reputations, trust in Islamic and Western nations, decisions in health care, investing in highly uncertain worlds, and effective relationships between the public and private sectors. Zeckhauser is the author or coauthor of 248 articles.