The Enrico Fermi Award is a scientific award conferred by the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

. It is awarded to honor scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use or production of

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

. It was established in 1956 by the Atomic Energy Commission in memorial of Italian-American physicist

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...

and his work in the development of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

. The award has been administered through the Department of Energy since its establishment in 1977. The recipient of the award receives $100,000, a certificate signed by the President and the

Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when P ...

and a gold medal featuring the likeness of Enrico Fermi.

Winners

*1956 –

John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...

*1957 – Ernest O. Lawrence *1958 – Eugene P. Wigner *1959 – Glenn T. Seaborg *1961 – Hans A. Bethe *1962 –

Edward Teller Edward Teller (; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian and American Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of ...

*1963 –

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

*1964 – Hyman G. Rickover *1966 –

Lise Meitner Elise Lise Meitner ( ; ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. After completing her doctoral research in 1906, Meitner became the second woman ...

;

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and ...

; Fritz Strassmann *1968 – John A. Wheeler *1969 – Walter Zinn *1970 – Norris E. Bradbury *1971 – Shields Warren; Stafford L. Warren *1972 – Manson Benedict *1976 – William L. Russell *1978 – Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky; Harold M. Agnew *1980 – Rudolf E. Peierls; Alvin M. Weinberg *1981 – W. Bennett Lewis *1982 – Herbert L. Anderson; Seth Neddermeyer *1983 – Alexander Hollaender; John H. Lawrence *1984 – Robert R. Wilson; Georges Vendryes *1985 – Norman Rasmussen; Marshall Rosenbluth *1986 – Ernest Courant; M. Stanley Livingston *1987 – Luis Alvarez; Gerald F. Tape *1988 – Richard B. Setlow; Victor F. Weisskopf *1990 – George A. Cowan; Robley D. Evans *1992 – Harold Brown; John S. Foster, Jr.;

Leon M. Lederman Leon Max Lederman (July 15, 1922 – October 3, 2018) was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Pr ...

*1993 – Liane B. Russell;

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, math ...

*1995 – Ugo Fano; Martin D. Kamen *1996 – Mortimer M. Elkind; H. Rodney Withers; Richard L. Garwin *1998 – Maurice Goldhaber; Michael E. Phelps *2000 – Sheldon Datz; Sidney D. Drell; Herbert F. York *2003 – John N. Bahcall; Raymond Davis, Jr.; Seymour Sack *2005 – Arthur H. Rosenfeld *2009 – John B. Goodenough; Siegfried Hecker *2012 – Mildred Dresselhaus; Burton Richter *2013 –

Andrew Sessler Andrew Marienhoff Sessler (December 11, 1928 – April 17, 2014) was an American physicist, academic (University of California, Berkeley), former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1973–1980), humanitarian and former presiden ...

; Allen J. Bard *2014 – Claudio Pellegrini; Charles V. Shank *2023 – Darleane C. Hoffman; Gabor A. Somorjai *2024 – Héctor D. Abruña;

Paul Alivisatos Armand Paul Alivisatos (born November 12, 1959) is a Greek and American chemist and academic administrator who is the President of the University of Chicago, 14th president of the University of Chicago since September 2021. He is a pioneer in nan ...

; John H. Nuckolls

References

External links

* * Physics awards Engineering awards Awards established in 1956 Lifetime achievement awards 1956 establishments in the United States American science and technology awards

Award An award, sometimes called a distinction, is given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An award may be d ...

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Winners

See also

References

External links