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TAMEST is pleased to announce Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies as the recipients of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Distinguished Service Award.
TAMEST is recognizing Lyda Hill and her team for empowering and enabling groundbreaking research in science and nature that profoundly impacts society. Lyda Hill, a successful businesswoman and world-renowned philanthropist, believes science can solve many of the world’s most challenging issues and has chosen to donate all of her estate to philanthropy and scientific research.
Aligned with this mission, Lyda Hill is committed to advancing science and public health research in Texas, as demonstrated through her philanthropic investments in the American Cancer Society’s HPV Cancer Free Texas campaign, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, UT Southwestern Medical Center and many others. Lyda and Lyda Hill Philanthropies also proudly support scientific research and public health efforts outside of Texas. A recent notable example has been her support of Dr. David Baker’s protein design research at the University of Washington, which earned him the 2024 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
"TAMEST is proud to present Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies with the Kay Bailey Hutchison Distinguished Service Award for their long-standing support of innovation and research in Texas," said TAMEST Board President Brendan Lee, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM), Baylor College of Medicine. "We share their conviction that 'Science is the Answer' to the great challenges and questions of our time, and Lyda Hill and her team are incredibly deserving recipients of this honor and recognition.”
In 2023, Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies launched a crucial new prize for scientific research in Texas, the Hill Prizes, and chose TAMEST to administer the prize program. The prizes recognize and advance top Texas innovators and researchers whose work could significantly impact science and society. The first year of the prizes saw $2.5 million in funding from Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies to propel high-risk, high-reward ideas that demonstrated very significant potential for real-world impact in five areas: Medicine, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences and Technology Innovation.
The success of the program’s first year led Lyda Hill to commit over $10 million in additional funding to continue the prize program for the next three years, including the addition of a new prize in the category of Public Health, resulting in six prizes per year of $500,000 each. In addition, Lyda Hill committed to fund at least $1 million in discretionary research funding to be allocated by Lyda Hill Philanthropies on an ad hoc basis to highly ranked applicants, thus far including investigators at Baylor College of Medicine, Southern Methodist University and UT Southwestern Medical Center.
“Lyda Hill and her team are building a robust base for science in Texas, and I applaud their creative approach to accelerating innovation," said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, TAMEST Honorary Chair, Former United States Senator, Former United States Ambassador to NATO. "The Hill Prizes are significant, and Lyda is taking huge steps to ensure deserving research is being funded in our state. Research is the seed that produces growth in the economy, so rewarding the best science in Texas keeps the creativity in Texas. I am so pleased to honor this critical and generous support of Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies.”
Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies have been supporters of Pegasus Park in Dallas, a 26-acre campus of life science labs, offices and development space that enables startups, nonprofits and academics to collaborate and thrive. Included in the campus are innovative departments of multiple North Texas higher education institutions and the first institutional-quality lab space in the region, which has helped strengthen North Texas’ role as a globally recognized center for life science innovation. In 2023, a consortium of Texas science, business and healthcare leaders came together to attract the new federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop its Customer Experience Hub, one of three ARPA-H hubs in the nation, to Pegasus Park.
"We are honored to support the advancement of powerful, game-changing scientific ideas that will improve communities and lives," said Lyda Hill, Founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies. "We are thrilled to accept the Kay Bailey Hutchison Distinguished Service Award from TAMEST and look forward to further collaborations."
TAMEST will officially present the award to Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies at the opening reception of the TAMEST 2025 Annual Conference: Transformational Breakthroughs in Irving, Texas, on the evening of Tuesday, February 4, 2025.
“Our team is honored to be recognized by TAMEST with the Kay Bailey Hutchison Distinguished Service Award,” said Nicole Small, CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies. “Working with TAMEST to create the Hill Prizes has allowed us to support critical research that will transform our society, and we look forward to the advancements made in healthcare.”
TAMEST established the Kay Bailey Hutchison Distinguished Service Award in 2013 to recognize individuals and organizations that have demonstrated outstanding leadership in furthering TAMEST's mission to bring together the state's brightest minds in medicine, engineering, science and technology to foster collaboration and to advance research, innovation and business in Texas.
The award is named after the TAMEST Honorary Chair, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She received the inaugural award for her vision and commitment to advancing scientific research, technology innovation and educational achievement.
Lyda Hill and Lyda Hill Philanthropies are the ninth recipients of the award. Past recipients include The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (2024); Dr. John L. Junkins and the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, Texas A&M University (2022); The Office of the President, The University of Texas at Austin (2020); Exxon Mobil Corporation (2017); Larry Faulkner and Kenneth Jastrow (2016); Peter O’Donnell Jr. (2014); The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison (2013).
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