Learn more :: Article Archives :: 3 Win Awards

3 at Los Alamos Lab win awards
by Sue Vorenberg, September 23, 2004

Three Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have won coveted annual awards that many consider a prelude to the Nobel Prize.

The E.O. Lawrence Awards are given to U.S. university and government researchers by the Department of Energy to recognize exceptional contributions in the very loosely defined field of atomic science and engineering. Several winners have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes since the awards were established in 1959.

"It's an extremely prestigious award," said Jim Fallin, a Los Alamos spokesman. "This clearly demonstrates how Los Alamos is a leader in national scientific research. It points to the genius of the scientists at this institution. We couldn't be prouder."

Awards are given in the areas of life sciences, physics, national security, chemistry, materials research, environmental sciences and nuclear technology.

The Los Alamos scientists - who all have the distinguished rank of Laboratory Fellows - won the life sciences, national security and environmental science categories. They are:

Bette Korber , who won the life sciences award for studies of genetic characteristics of the HIV virus and for developing the Los Alamos HIV database, a research backbone for scientists globally working on the HIV problem.

Fred Mortensen , who won the national security category for technical contributions in nuclear weapons design and his work certifying the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Greg Swift , who won the environmental science award for inventing technologies that use sound as a means to separate particles. The science could lead to new, less expensive ways of refining oil, separating medical isotopes and recycling nuclear materials in work done at the national labs.

Other award winners include three scientists from the University of California, which operates Los Alamos National Laboratory, and one from the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory.

"We are all enriched by the contributions these researchers have made, ranging from engines with no moving parts to better ways to see the stars," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "These awards, and the research for which they are given, show that DOE could easily be called the Department of Science and Energy."

The awards are named after Ernest O. Lawrence, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1939 for the invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that gave birth to the science of high-energy physics.

Winners get a gold medal, a citation and $50,000 at a Washington, D.C., awards ceremony Nov. 8.

Originally published by the Albuquerque Tribune.

Learn more :: Article Archives :: 3 Win Awards