The Enrico Fermi Award is a Presidential award, one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology awards given by the U.S. Government. It recognizes scientists of international stature for their lifetimes of exceptional scientific, technical, engineering, and/or management achievements related to the development, use, control, or production of energy (broadly interpreted as encompassing all basic and applied research, science, and technology supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and its programs).
President Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy
Commission honored Enrico Fermi with a special award for
his lifetime of accomplishments in physics and, in particular,
for the development of atomic energy on November 16, 1954,
12 days before the Italian-born naturalized American citizen
died of cancer at the age of 53. The Enrico Fermi Presidential
Award was established in 1956 as a memorial to the 1938
Nobel Laureate in physics, who achieved the first nuclear
chain reaction-and thereby
initiated the atomic age-on
December 2, 1942 in a squash court under the stands of the
University of Chicago's football stadium. The first Fermi
Award recipients included physicists John von Neumann, Ernest
0. Lawrence, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller.
The Enrico Fermi Award is given to encourage
excellence in energy science and technology; to show appreciation
to scientists, engineers, and science policymakers who have
given unstintingly over their lifetimes to benefit mankind
through energy science and technology; and to inspire people
of all ages through the example of Enrico Fermi, whose achievements
opened new scientific and technological realms, and the
Fermi Award laureates, who continued in his tradition. The
Fermi Award is administered by Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
A Fermi Award winner receives a citation
signed by the President of the United States and the Secretary
of Energy, a gold medal bearing the likeness of Enrico Fermi,
and a $375,000 honorarium. In the event the Award is given
to more than one individual in the same year, the recipients
share the honorarium.
