Obama Awards National Science Medals

President Obama bestowed medals on researchers and scientists in a ceremony in the East Room on Wednesday. The President presented the National Medal of Science to ten eminent researchers and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to three individuals and a three-person team for a wide range of groundbreaking achievements. The medals are the highest honors bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers, and inventors.

And the National Medal of Science winners are…

Yakir Aharonov, Chapman University, CA
“For his contributions to the foundations of quantum physics and for drawing out unexpected implications of that field ranging from the Aharonov-Bohm effect to the theory of weak measurement.”

Stephen J. Benkovic, Pennsylvania State University, PA
“For his research contributions in the field of bioorganic chemistry, which have changed our understanding of how enzymes function and advanced the identification of targets and strategies for drug design.”

Esther M. Conwell, University of Rochester, NY
“For her broad contributions to understanding electron and hole transport in semiconducting materials, which helped to enable commercial applications of semiconductor and organic electronic devices, and for extending her analysis to studying the electronic properties of DNA.”

Marye Anne Fox, University of California San Diego, CA
“For her research contributions in the areas of organic photochemistry and electrochemistry and for enhancing our understanding of excited-state and charge-transfer processes with interdisciplinary applications in material science, solar energy conversion, and environmental chemistry.”

Susan L. Lindquist, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
“For her studies of protein folding, demonstrating that alternative protein conformations and aggregations can have profound and unexpected biological influences, facilitating insights in fields as wide-ranging as human disease, evolution, and biomaterials.”

Mortimer Mishkin, National Institutes of Health, MD
“For his contributions to understanding the neural basis of perception and memory in primates, notably the delineation of sensory neocortical processing systems especially for vision, audition, and somatic sensation, and the organization of memory systems in the brain.”

David B. Mumford, Brown University, RI
“For his contributions to the field of mathematics, which fundamentally changed algebraic geometry, and for connecting mathematics to other disciplines such as computer vision and neurobiology.”

Stanley B. Prusiner, University of California San Francisco, CA
“For his discovery of prions, the causative agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and other related neurodegenerative diseases, and his continuing efforts to develop effective methods for detecting and treating prion diseases.”

Warren M. Washington, National Center for Atmospheric Research, CO
“For his development and use of global climate models to understand climate and explain the role of human activities and natural processes in the Earth’s climate system, and for his work to support a diverse science and engineering workforce.”

Amnon Yariv, California Institute of Technology, CA
“For foundational contributions to photonics and quantum electronics, including his demonstration of the semiconductor distributed feedback laser that underpins today’s high-speed optical fiber communications.”

National Medal of Technology and Innovation

Individuals

Harry W. Coover, Eastman Chemical Company, TN
“For his invention of cyanoacrylates—novel adhesives known widely to consumers as ‘super glues’—which today play significant roles in medicine and industry.”

Helen M. Free, Miles Laboratories, IN
“For her seminal contributions to diagnostic chemistry through development of dip-and-read urinalysis, which gave rise to a technological revolution in convenient, reliable, point-of-care tests and patient self-monitoring.”

Steven J. Sasson, Eastman Kodak Company, NY
“For the invention of the digital camera, which has revolutionized the way images are captured, stored, and shared, creating new opportunities in commerce, education, and global communication.”

Team

Federico Faggin,
Marcian E. Hoff Jr., Stanley Mazor; Intel Corporation, CA
“For the conception, design and application of the first microprocessor, which was commercially adopted and became the universal building block of digital electronic systems, significantly impacting the global economy and people’s day-to-day lives.”