Professor John B. Goodenough has been awarded the National Medal of Science by President Obama. Goodenough's work makes possible all the battery-operated, digital equipment and devices ubiquitous in our lives from cell phones to electric cars. Photo by Ryan K Morris/National Science &Technology Medals Foundation.
On December 21, 2012, President Obama named twelve eminent researchers as recipients of the National Medal of Science and eleven extraordinary inventors as recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the United States Government upon scientists, engineers, and inventors. The recipients will receive their awards at a White House ceremony in early 2013. The University of Texas is proud to report that Department of Mechanical Engineering professor Dr. John Goodenough and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Dr. Allen Bard were among the scientists selected for the award. These two awards bring the university's overall total to five since 1962.
"I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," President Obama said. "They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this Nation great—and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment."
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The National Medal of Science
Medal selection and criteria
The National Medal of Science was created by statute in 1959 and is administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation. Awarded annually, the Medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering. A committee of Presidential appointees selects nominees on the basis of their extraordinary knowledge in and contributions to chemistry, engineering, computing, mathematics, or the biological, behavioral/social, and physical sciences.
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was created by statute in 1980 and is administered for the White House by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Patent and Trademark Office. The award recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the Nation's technological workforce. Nominees are selected by a distinguished independent committee representing the private and public sectors.
This year's recipients are listed below.
National Medal of Science
- Dr. Allen Bard, University of Texas at Austin, TX
- Dr. Sallie Chisholm, MA
- Dr. Sidney Drell, Stanford University, CA
- Dr. Sandra Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
- Dr. Sylvester James Gates, University of MD
- Dr. Solomon Golomb, University of Southern California, CA
- Dr. John Goodenough, University of Texas at Austin, TX
- Dr. M. Frederick Hawthorne, University of Missouri, MO
- Dr. Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology, WA
- Dr. Barry Mazur, Harvard University, MA
- Dr. Lucy Shapiro, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA
- Dr. Anne Treisman, Princeton University, NJ
National Medal of Technology and Innovation
- Dr. Frances Arnold, California Institute of Technology, CA
- Dr. George Carruthers, U.S. Naval Research Lab, DC
- Dr. Robert Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
- Dr. Norman McCombs, AirSep Corporation, NY
- Dr. Gholam Peyman, Arizona Retinal Specialists, AZ
- Dr. Art Rosenfeld, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CA
- Dr. Jan Vilcek, NYU Langone Medical Center, NY
Team:
- Dr. Samuel Blum, IBM Corporation, NY
- Dr. Rangaswamy Srinivasan, IBM Corporation, NY
- Dr. James Wynne, IBM Corporation, NY
Company:
- Raytheon BBN Technologies, MA, *Represented by CEO, Edward Campbell
Goodenough holds the Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering and has received many honors for his work, including the 2009 Enrico Fermi Award presented on behalf of the White House, and the 2001 Japan Prize, the country's equivalent to the Nobel Prize. Goodenough is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. He is a Foreign Member of L'Academie des Sciences de L'Institute de France, The Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas, y Naturales of Spain, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's 350-year-old national academy of science. He has been honored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,the Department of Mechanical Engineering and received the first Inventor Award from the university's Office of Commercialization in 2011.
