The Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, named for its first recipient,
Lewis Thomas, is an annual literary prize awarded by
The Rockefeller University to scientists or physicians deemed to have accomplished a significant literary achievement; it recognizes "scientists as poets." Originally called the Lewis Thomas Prize for the Scientist as Poet, the award was first given in 1993. Recipients' writings bridge the gap between the laboratory and the wider world, in the spirit of Lewis Thomas' collection of essays ''The Lives of a Cell''.
The prize-giving ceremony is usually in the form of a lecture; winners receive a medal, a citation, and a cash award.
Subsequent recipients of the prize, awarded first for the year 1993 to Thomas, have been:
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François Jacob
François Jacob (; 17 June 1920 – 19 April 2013) was a French biologist who, together with Jacques Monod, originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells occurs through regulation of transcription. He shared the 1965 Nobel ...
(for 1994)
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Abraham Pais (for 1995)
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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 ...
(for 1996)
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Max Perutz (for 1997)
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Ernst Mayr (for 1998)
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Steven Weinberg (for 1999)
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E. O. Wilson (for 2000)
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Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurology, neurologist, Natural history, naturalist, historian of science, and writer.
Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford ...
(for 2001)
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Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American scientist, historian, and author. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Genius Grant, and he has written hundreds of scientific and popular articles and books. His best known is '' Guns, G ...
(for 2002)
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Richard Fortey (for 2003)
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Jean-Pierre Changeux (for 2004)
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Thomas Eisner (for 2005)
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Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...
(for 2006)
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James D. Watson (for 2007)
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Robert Sapolsky (for 2008)
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Martin Rees (for 2009)
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Kay Redfield Jamison (2012)
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Frances Ashcroft (2013)
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Atul Gawande (2014)
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Ian Stewart and
Steven Strogatz (2015)
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Sean B Carroll (2016)
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Sylvia Earle (2017)
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Kip Thorne (2018)
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Siddhartha Mukherjee
Siddhartha Mukherjee ( Bengali: সিদ্ধার্থ মুখার্জী; born 21 July 1970) is an Indian-American physician, biologist, and author. He is best known for his 2010 book, '' The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of ...
(2019)
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Richard Prum (2021)
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Jennifer L. Eberhardt (2022)
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Suzanne Simard (2023)
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Carlo Rovelli (2024)
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Stanislas Dehaene (2025)
Videos of Lewis Thomas Prize lectures
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012-2022: https://www.rockefeller.edu/lewis-thomas-prize/recipients/
References
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American literary awards
Awards established in 1993
Science writing awards