 Seaborg spent most of his career as an educator and research scientist at the University of California , Berkeley , serving as a professor , and , between 1958 and 1961 , as the university 's second chancellor . He advised ten US Presidents – from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton – on nuclear policy and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971 , where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science . Throughout his career , Seaborg worked for arms control . He was a signatory to the Franck Report and contributed to the Limited Test Ban Treaty , the Nuclear Non @-@ Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty . He was a well @-@ known advocate of science education and federal funding for pure research . Toward the end of the Eisenhower administration , he was the principal author of the Seaborg Report on academic science , and , as a member of President Ronald Reagan 's National Commission on Excellence in Education , he was a key contributor to its 1983 report " A Nation at Risk " . 
