President Clinton today named nine of the nation's most renowned scientific researchers to receive the National Medal of Science, citing them for "their creativity, resolve, and a restless spirit of innovation to ensure continued U.S. leadership across the frontiers of scientific knowledge."
The individuals awarded the nation's highest scientific honor have had wide-ranging impact on social policy, cancer research, materials science, and greatly extended knowledge of our Earth and the solar systems. Their theoretical achievements also led to many practical applications.
"These are superstars in their respective fields," Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), said. "They've contributed a lifetime of stunning discoveries. We can only recognize them once with a science medal, but we applaud them daily for their continual contributions to humankind, to the reservoir of scientific knowledge and for the impact they have on the students they mentor and educate along the way."
William Julius Wilson, a professor of social policy at Harvard University's JFK School of Government, is one of this year's awardees. He is noted for influencing a generation of social scientists through his studies and published works in urban poverty and its causes.
Bruce N. Ames, University of California, Berkeley, and Janet D. Rowley, University of Chicago, have had a major impact on cancer-related studies -- Ames for work on cancer and aging, Rowley for her research in chromosome abnormalities that opened new areas of study in different types of leukemia.
John W. Cahn, a fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., is considered the nation's intellectual leader in materials science.
Eli Ruckenstein, a Romanian-born professor of engineering and
applied science at the State University of New York in Buffalo, has many pioneering achievements in most
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Contact: Bill Noxon
wnoxon@nsf.gov
703-306-1070
National Science Foundation
8-Dec-1998