WASHINGTON, DC -- Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today named eight winners of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award. The Lawrence Award honors scientists and engineers at mid-career for exceptional contributions in research and development that support the Department of Energy and its mission to advance the national, economic and energy security of the United States. The award consists of a gold medal, a citation and an honorarium of $50,000.

"These brilliant scientists and their varied and important research inspire us," Secretary Bodman said. "Their work reminds us of the importance of continued investment in science and the need for increased emphasis on basic research and math and science education programs."

The Lawrence Award was established in 1959 to honor the memory of the late Dr. Lawrence who invented the cyclotron (a particle accelerator) and after whom two major Energy Department laboratories at Berkeley and Livermore, California, are named. The Lawrence Awards, given in seven categories, will be presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The winners are:

• Paul Alivisatos, University of California at Berkeley and E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Moungi Bawendi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, jointly, for the Materials Research category (the winners of this joint award will share the honorarium);

• Malcolm J. Andrews, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the National Security category;

• Arup K. Chakraborty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the Life Sciences category;

• My Hang V. Huynh, Los Alamos National Laboratory, for the Chemistry category;

• Marc Kamionkowski, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, for the Physics category;

• John Zachara, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, for the Environmental Sci
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