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Since 1886, the National Academy of Sciences has honored outstanding achievement in the physical, biological, and social sciences through its awards program.
Announcements
- 2020 National Academy of Sciences' Awards: Now Closed!
The nomination period for the 2020 NAS Awards is now closed. Award recipients will be announced mid-January 2020.
- Joshua Tenenbaum is Named MacArthur Fellow!
Previous Troland Research Award recipient, Joshua Tenenbaum, was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow for combining computational models with behavioral experiments to shed light on human learning, reasoning, and perception, and exploring how to bring artificial intelligence closer to the capabilities of human thinking. Read more about his research here.
- New Documentary Highlighting James P. Allison
NAS Member and previous Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal recipient, James P. Allison, is focus of the new documentary Jim Allison: Breakthrough highlighting his breakthroughs in immunotherapy! Watch the trailer here.
- Jennifer Doudna to Receive Nierenberg Prize
NAS Member, and previous NAS Award in Chemical Sciences recipient, Jennifer Doudna is to receive Scripps Oceanography's Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest in the Public Interest on October 7.
Featured Award
The NAS Public Welfare Medal is the Academy's most prestigious award and is presented annually to honor extraordinary use of science for the public good. Over the past 100 years the NAS Public Welfare Medal has continued to recognize those individuals who have worked tirelessly to promote science for the benefit of humanity. Previous recipients of the medal include Alan Alda, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill and Melinda Gates, Ismail Serageldin, Eugenie C. Scott, Neal Lane, Norman Borlaug, William T. Golden, Maxine F. Singer, C. Everett Koop, and Carl Sagan.
Agricultural scientist, policymaker, and visionary leader Agnes Matilda Kalibata recieved the 2019 Public Welfare Medal for her work to drive Africa’s agricultural transformation through modern science and effective policy, helping to lift more than a million Rwandans out of poverty and scaling impacts for millions more African farmers.
Since 2014, Kalibata has been president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an African-led organization founded by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that works with public and private partners to promote rapid, inclusive, sustainable agricultural growth and food security by giving farmers access to locally adapted and high-yielding seeds, encouraging judicious use of fertilizer, promoting policy reforms, and increasing access to structured markets to improve the livelihoods of farming households. Prior to joining AGRA, Kalibata spent six years as Rwanda’s minister of agriculture and animal resources, implementing a science-based approach to agriculture that greatly increased efficiency and productivity and transformed Rwanda to a largely food-secure nation. Read more about Kalibata's work»
