News Release
President Clinton To Honor Recipients Of Nation's Highest Technology & Science Awards
Grant and Award Announcement
Attached is a media advisory from the White House
Ofice of Science and Technology Policy. Behind
the advisory are short narratives on all 14 winners.
There are longer profiles of individuals available
on request.
The best stories may be Harold Johnston, whose
predictions on the azone layer stand alone...Darleane
Hoffman, discover of Plutonium 244, the only
person to discover significant quantities of a
new chemical element in nature in the last 60
years...and a group of four, including Johnston,
who had World War Two military experiences that
changed their lives professionally.
The short summaries include contacts at awardee
institutions. Bill Noxon 703-306-1070,
wnoxon@nsf.gov
Media Advisory
PRESIDENT CLINTON TO HONOR RECIPIENTS
OF NATION'S HIGHEST TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE AWARDS
President Clinton will present the nation's most
prestigious technology and science honors, the
National Medal of Technology and the National
Medal of Science, to fourteen outstanding
scientists, inventors and business leaders from
around the country. The innovations and
discoveries of this year's laureates have led to
revolutionary achievements in areas such as: the
understanding of the human genetic code;
development of the Internet; improved cancer
diagnosis and treatment; and enhanced motion
picture sound.
Past recipients of the National Medal of
Technology include Bill Gates of Microsoft,
Gordon Moore of Intel, and the world's largest and
most comprehensive health care company, Johnson &
Johnson.
Past recipients of the National Medal of Science
include Eugene M. Shoemaker, co-discoverer of the
Shoemaker-Levy comet; economist Milton Friedman;
and C. Kumar N. Patel, who invented the carbon
dioxide laser, which helped revolutionize such
fields as medical surgery.
WHAT: President Clinton to Honor 1997 National
Medal of Technology and National Medal of Science
laureates.
WHO: National Medal of Technology Laureates -
Norman R. Augustine (Lockheed Martin Corp.); Ray
M. Dolby (Dolby Laboratories); Robert S. Ledley
(Georgetown Univ. Medical Cntr.); and the team of
Vinton G. Cerf (MCI) and Robert E. Kahn
(Corporation for National Research Initiatives).
National Medal of Science Laureates - William K.
Estes and Shing-Tung Yau (Harvard University);
Darleane C. Hoffman and Harold S. Johnston (Univ.
of California-Berkeley); Marshall N. Rosenbluth
(Univ. of California-San Diego); posthumously to
Martin Schwarzschild (Princeton University);
James D. Watson (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,
NY); Robert A. Weinberg (Massachusetts Institute
of Technology); and George W. Wetherill (Carnegie
Institution, DC).
(For more information on the 1997 medalists, see
the attached list.)
WHERE: Old Executive Office Building (OEOB),
Rm. 450 (Immediately following the ceremony,
interviews with the 1997 laureates will be
conducted in OEOB Rm. 476.)
WHEN: Tuesday, December 16, 1997 at 11:30 a.m.
CONTACT: Cheryl Mendonsa, Department of Commerce,
202-482-8321 Bill Noxon, National Science
Foundation, 703-306-1070 Jeff Smith, OSTP,
202-456-6047
###
1997 National Medal of Technology Recipients
Norman R. Augustine, Chairman of Lockheed Martin
Corporation in Bethesda, MD, for visionary
leadership in maintaining the United States'
preeminence in the aerospace industry and for
identifying and championing solutions to the many
challenges in civil and defense systems. He has
pioneered numerous technological innovations that
have helped make America's fighting forces the
best equipped in the world. (Contacts: Cheryl
Mendonsa, Dept. of Commerce, 202-482-8321 and
Charles Manor, Lockheed Martin Corp., 301-897-6258.)
Ray M. Dolby, Chairman of the Board, Dolby
Laboratories, Inc. in San Francisco, CA, for
inventing technologies that have dramatically
improved sound recording and reproduction,
fostering their adoption worldwide, and maintaining
a vision that has kept the world listening. From
the cassettes we enjoy in our car stereos to the
latest digital sound in movie theaters, the world
hears music and sound better because of Ray Dolby
and the company he founded, Dolby Laboratories,
Inc. (Contacts: Cheryl Mendonsa, Dept. of
Commerce, 202-482-8321 and Joe Hull, Dolby
Laboratories, Inc., 415-558-0200.)
Robert S. Ledley, Director of Medical Computing
and Biophysics and Professor of Radiology,
Physiology, and Biophysics at the Georgetown
University Medical Center in Washington, DC, for
pioneering contributions to biomedical computing
and engineering, including inventing the
whole-body CT scanner, and for his role in
developing automated chromosome analysis for
prenatal diagnosis of birth defects. He has
applied emerging computer technology to meet the
rapidly evolving needs of biomedicine.
(Contacts: Cheryl Mendonsa, Dept. of Commerce,
202-482-8321 and Nancy Whelan, Georgetown
University Medical Center, 202-687-4704.)
Team Award jointly to Vinton Gray Cerf, Senior
Vice President of Data Architecture at MCI in
Reston, VA, and Robert E. Kahn, President of the
Corporation for National Research Initiatives in
Reston, VA, for creating and sustaining the
development of Internet protocols and continuing
to provide leadership in the emerging industry of
internetworking. They had the vision to realize
the tremendous potential of computers communicating
and the know-how and perseverance to enable the
creation of the network of networks known today
as the Internet. (Contacts: Cheryl Mendonsa,
Dept. of Commerce, 202-482-8321, Debbie Caplan,
MCI, 610-257-7974, and Alice Portale, Corporation
for National Research Initiatives, 703-620-8990.)
1997 National Medal of Science Recipients
William K. Estes, Professor Emeritus of Psychology
at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, for
fundamental theories of cognition and learning
that transformed the field of experimental
psychology and led to the development of
quantitative cognitive science. His pioneering
methods of quantitative modeling and an insistence
on rigor and precision established the standard
for modern psychological science.
(Contacts: Bill Noxon, National Science Foundation,
703-306-1070 and Susan Green, Harvard University,
617-495-1585.)
Darleane C. Hoffman, Professor of the Graduate
School at University of California-Berkeley, for
her discovery of plutonium in nature and for her
numerous contributions to our understanding of
radioactive decay, notably of heavy nuclei. She
is an internationally recognized leader in nuclear
chemistry, particularly the topics of nuclear
fission, properties of actinide elements, and
reactions of heavy ions. (Contacts: Bill Noxon,
National Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and
Jeffrey Kahn, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, 510-486-4019.)
Harold S. Johnston, Professor Emeritus of
Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley,
for understanding the chemistry of nitrogen
compounds and their role and reactions in the
earth's stratosphere and in urban areas. His
chemical and environmental research, along with
his commitment to science in the service of
society have resulted in pivotal contributions to
the understanding and conservation of the earth's
atmosphere. (Contacts: Bill Noxon, National
Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and Bob Sanders,
University of California-Berkeley, 510-643-6998.)
Marshall N. Rosenbluth, Professor of Physics at
the University of California in San Diego, for
his fundamental contributions to plasma physics,
his leadership in the quest to develop controlled
thermonuclear fusion, and his wide-ranging
technical contributions to national security. His
theoretical studies of the behavior of plasmas and
their instabilities provided a significant
foundation for the design and development of
prototype devices for fusion power.
(Contacts: Bill Noxon, National Science Foundation,
703-306-1070 and Warren Froelich, University of
California-San Diego, 619-534-8564.)
Martin Schwarzschild, Higgins Professor of
Astronomy Emeritus (deceased)at Princeton
University in Princeton, NJ, for his seminal
contributions to the theory of the evolution of
stars and his creative insights into the dynamics
of galaxies. His research forms the basis of much
of contemporary astrophysics, and the many students
he trained are among today's leaders in the
field. (Contacts: Bill Noxon, National Science
Foundation, 703-306-1070 and Justin Harmon,
Princeton University, 609-258-5729.)
James D. Watson, President of the Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, for
five decades of scientific and intellectual
leadership in molecular biology, starting with
his co-discovery of the double-helix structure of
DNA. He was a forceful advocate for the Human
Genome Project and shaped that effort as the
founding Director of the National Center for
Human Genome Research. (Contacts: Bill Noxon,
National Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and
Wendy Goldstein, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,
516-367-6842.)
Robert A. Weinberg, Member of Whitehead Institute
for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge, MA, for crucial discoveries that
clarified the genetic basis of human cancers.
His work has influenced virtually all major
aspects of our current understanding of the
origins of cancer, from mutations affecting
certain cellular genes, to the development of
diagnostic tests for such mutations, to the
description of the combination of events that
produce cancer. (Contacts: Bill Noxon, National
Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and Seema Kumar
or Eve Nichols, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 617-258-6153.)
George W. Wetherill, Staff Member of the
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington,
DC, for his fundamental contributions to
measuring astronomical time scales and
understanding how earth-like planets may be
created in evolving solar systems. His pioneering
achievements include developing precise
radiometric techniques for dating the age of
meteorites and creating conceptual models and
computer algorithms for the accretion of a few
solid, terrestrial planets by collision with
smaller neighbors. (Contacts: Bill Noxon,
National Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and Pat
Craig, Carnegie Institution of Washington,
202-939-1120.)
Shing-Tung Yau, Professor of Mathematics at
Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, for profound
contributions to mathematics that have had great
impact on fields as diverse as topology, algebraic
geometry, general relativity, and string theory.
His work insightfully combines two different
mathematical approaches and has resulted in the
solution of several longstanding and important
problems in mathematics. (Contacts: Bill Noxon,
National Science Foundation, 703-306-1070 and
Susan Green, Harvard University, 617-495-1585.)