The Alan T. Waterman Award, named after

Alan Tower Waterman Alan Tower Waterman (June 4, 1892 – November 30, 1967) was an American physicist. Biography Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, he grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts. His father was a professor of physics at Smith College. Alan also bec ...

, is the United States's highest honorary award for scientists no older than 40, or no more than 10 years past receipt of their Ph.D. It is awarded on a yearly basis by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

. In addition to the medal, the awardee receives a grant of $1,000,000 to be used at the institution of their choice over a period of five years for advanced scientific research.

History of the Award

The United States Congress established the annual award in August 1975 to mark the 25th Anniversary of the National Science Foundation and to honor its first director, Alan T. Waterman. The annual award recognizes an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the National Science Foundation.

Eligibility and nomination process

Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Prior to the 2018 competition, candidates must have been 35 years of age or younger or not more than 7 years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. degree by December 31 of the year in which they are nominated. As of the 2018 competition, these requirements were changed to 40 years of age or 10 years post-PhD. Candidates should have demonstrated exceptional individual achievements in scientific or engineering research of sufficient quality to place them at the forefront of their peers. Criteria include originality, innovation, and significant impact on the field. Potential candidates must be nominated and require four letters of reference, but none can be submitted from the nominee’s home institution. Solicitation announcements are sent to universities and colleges, scientific, engineering and other professional societies and organizations, and members of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

and the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

Award process and committee composition

Candidates are reviewed by the Alan T. Waterman Award committee, which is made up of 12 members, 8 rotators and 4 members ''ex officio''. The current ''ex officio'' members are

Ralph Cicerone Ralph John Cicerone (May 2, 1943 – November 5, 2016) was an American atmospheric scientist and administrator. From 1998 to 2005, he was the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine. From 2005 to 2016, he was the president of the Nati ...

, President of the

Subra Suresh Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

, Director of the

Steven C. Beering Steven Claus Beering (August 20, 1932 – April 3, 2020) served as president of Purdue University from 1983 to 2000. Previously, he was dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine for nine years. During his leadership, Purdue's main campus ...

, Chairman of the

National Science Board The National Science Board (NSB) of the United States establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the framework of applicable national policies set forth by the President of the United States, president and the United ...

, and

Charles M. Vest Charles "Chuck" Marstiller Vest (September 9, 1941 – December 12, 2013) was an American mechanical engineer and academic administrator. He served as president of the National Academy of Engineering from 2007 to 2013, the 15th president of the ...

, President of the

. After review of the nominees, the committee recommends the most outstanding candidate(s) to the Director of the National Science Foundation and the

, which then makes the final determination.

List of recipients

;2024 : Muyinatu A. Lediju Bell : Katrina G. Claw : Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio ;2023 : Natalie S. King : Asegun Henry : William Anderegg ; 2022 :

Jessica Tierney Jessica E. Tierney (born 1982) is an American paleoclimatologist who has worked with geochemical proxies such as marine sediments, mud, and TEX86, to study past climate in East Africa. Her papers have been cited more than 2,500 times; her most c ...

: Daniel B. Larremore : Lara Thompson ; 2021 : Nicholas Carnes ; 2021 :

Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981) is an American mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University who was the first woman to qualify for the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her PhD in 2009 at Princeton ...

; 2020 :

Emily Balskus Emily P. Balskus is an American chemical biologist, enzymologist, microbiologist, and biochemist born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1980. She has been on the faculty of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department of Harvard University since 2011 and ...

; 2020 :

John Dabiri John Oluseun Dabiri is a Nigerian-American engineer and professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he holds joint appointments in aerospace and mechanical engineering.

; 2019 :

Jennifer Dionne Jennifer (Jen) Dionne is an American scientist and pioneer of nanophotonics. She is currently full professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University and by courtesy, of radiology, and also a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. ...

; 2019 : Mark Braverman ; 2018 :

Kristina Olson Kristina Reiss Olson is a psychologist and a professor at Princeton University. She is known for her research on the development of social categories, transgender youth, and variation in human gender development. Olson was recipient of the 201 ...

; 2017 :

Baratunde A. Cola Baratunde A. Cola (born March 17, 1981) is a scientist and engineer specializing in carbon nanotube technology. Education Cola was born in Detroit, Michigan but was raised and schooled in Pensacola, Florida. He attended Vanderbilt University w ...

; 2017 : John V. Pardon ; 2016 :

Mircea Dincă Mircea Dincă (born 1980) is a Romanian Americans, Romanian-American inorganic chemist. He is the Andrew Stewart 1886 Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University. At Princeton, Dincă leads a research group that focuses on the synthesis of fu ...

; 2015 :

Andrea Alù Andrea Alù (born September 27, 1978) is an Italian American scientist and engineer, currently Einstein Professor of Physics at The City University of New York Graduate Center. He is known for his contributions to the fields of optics, photonics, ...

; 2014 :

Feng Zhang Feng Zhang (; born October 22, 1981) is a Chinese-born American biochemist. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the Departments of Brain and Co ...

; 2013 :

Mung Chiang Mung Chiang (; born February 2, 1977) is a Chinese-American electrical engineer and academic administrator who has been serving as the current and 13th president of Purdue University since January 2023. He is the youngest president of a top-50 ...

; 2012 :

Scott Aaronson Scott Joel Aaronson (born May 21, 1981) is an American Theoretical computer science, theoretical computer scientist and Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary areas of research are ...

; 2012 : Robert Wood ; 2011 : ;2010 :

Subhash Khot Subhash Khot (born 10 June 1978 in Ichalkaranji) is an Indian-American mathematician and theoretical computer scientist who is the Julius Silver Professor of Computer Science in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York Uni ...

;2009 :

David Charbonneau David Brian Charbonneau is a professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. His research focuses on the development of novel techniques for the detection and characterization of Exoplanet, exoplanets orbiting nearby, Sun-like stars. Early life ...

;2008 :

Terence Tao Terence Chi-Shen Tao (; born 17 July 1975) is an Australian-American mathematician, Fields medalist, and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the James and Carol Collins Chair in the Co ...

;2007 :

Peidong Yang Peidong Yang (simplified Chinese: 杨培东; traditional Chinese: 楊培東; pinyin: ''Yáng Peídōng''; born 1971) is a Chinese-American chemist, material scientist, and businessman. He is the S.K. and Angela Chan Distinguished Professor of Ene ...

;2006 : Emmanuel Candes ;2005 :

Dalton Conley Dalton Clark Conley (born 1969) is an American sociologist. Conley is a professor at Princeton University and has written eight books, including a memoir and a sociology textbook. Education Conley attended Stuyvesant High School. He graduated ...

;2004 :

Kristi Anseth Kristi S. Anseth (born 1969) is the Tisone Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, an Associate Professor of Surgery, and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her main research ...

;2003 :

Angelika Amon Angelika Amon (January 10, 1967 – October 29, 2020) was an Austrian American molecular and cell biologist, and the Kathleen and Curtis Marble Professor in Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massa ...

;2002 :

Erich Jarvis Erich Jarvis is an American professor at Rockefeller University. He is the head of a team of researchers who study the neurobiology of vocal learning, a critical behavioral substrate for spoken language. By studying animals including songbirds, ...

;2001 : Vahid Tarokh ;2000 : Jennifer A. Doudna ;1999 :

Chaitan Khosla Chaitan Khosla is an Indian-born American biochemist who is the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Stanford University. He earned his B.Tech. in chemical engineering from Indian Institute ...

;1998 : Christopher C. Cummins ;1997 :

Eric Allin Cornell Eric Allin Cornell (born December 19, 1961) is an American physicist who, along with Carl E. Wieman, was able to synthesize the first Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995. For their efforts, Cornell, Wieman, and Wolfgang Ketterle shared the Nobel ...

;1996 : Robert M. Waymouth ;1995 : Matthew P.A. Fisher ;1994 :

Gang Tian Tian Gang (; born November 24, 1958) is a Chinese mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at Peking University and Higgins Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He is known for contributions to the mathematical fields of Kähler g ...

;1993 : ;1992 : Shrinivas R. Kulkarni ;1991 :

Herbert Edelsbrunner Herbert Edelsbrunner (born March 14, 1958) is a computer scientist working in the field of computational geometry, the Arts & Science Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at Duke University, Professor at the Institute of Science and Tec ...

;1990 : Mark E. Davis ;1989 :

Richard H. Scheller Richard H. Scheller (born 30 October 1953) is the former chief science officer and head of therapeutics at 23andMe and the former executive vice president of research and early development at Genentech. He was a professor at Stanford University f ...

;1988 : Peter Schultz ;1987 :

Lawrence H. Summers Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist who served as United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as the director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as president ...

;1986 :

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist known for his contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a professor emeritus in the sc ...

;1985 : Jacqueline Barton ;1984 :

Harvey Friedman Harvey Friedman may refer to: * Harvey Friedman (mathematician) Harvey Friedman (born 23 September 1948)Handbook of Philosophical Logic, , p. 38 is an American mathematical logician at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He has worked on ...

;1983 : Corey S. Goodman (de) ;1982 :

Richard Axel Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won h ...

;1981 :

W. Clark Still William Clark Still (born 1946) is an American organic chemistry, organic chemist. As a distinguished professor at Columbia University, Clark Still made significant contributions to the field of organic chemistry, particularly in the areas of na ...

;1980 : Roy Schwitters ;1979 :

William Thurston William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. Thurst ...

;1978 :

Richard A. Muller Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944) is an American physicist and emeritus professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In early 2010, Mu ...

;1977 : J. William Schopf ;1976 :

Charles Fefferman Charles Louis Fefferman (born April 18, 1949) is an American mathematician at Princeton University, where he is currently the Herbert E. Jones, Jr. '43 University Professor of Mathematics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978 for his contribu ...

History of the Award

Eligibility and nomination process

Award process and committee composition

List of recipients

References

External links