The Laboratory’s co-founders and first
director are among the Fermi Award winners.
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 achievement in the development, use, control, or production of energy (broadly defined to include the science and technology of nuclear, atomic, molecular, and particle interactions and their effects on mankind and the environment).
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 Fermi.
Fermi Award laureates include LLNL co-founders Ernest O. Lawrence and Edward Teller as well as other distinguished Laboratory scientists and leaders:
Seymour Sack (2003)
Citation: For his contributions to the national security of the United States in his work assuring the reliability of nuclear weapons and thus deterring war between the superpowers.
Herbert F. York (2000)
Citation: For his contributions to formulating and implementing arms control policy under four Presidents; for his founding direction of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and his leadership in Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense; and for his publications analyzing and explaining these complex issues with clarity and simplicity.
Harold Brown (1992)
Citation: For his outstanding contributions to national security; in technical leadership in the development of nuclear weapons, in leadership of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in its formative years, in leadership in formulating nuclear deterrence policy during the difficult Cold War period; and for excellent service and continued counsel to the government.
John S. Foster, Jr. (1992)
Citation: For his outstanding contributions to national security, in technical
leadership in the development of nuclear weapons, in leadership of Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in its formative years, in technical leadership
in the defense industry; and for excellent service and continued counsel
to the government.
Edward Teller (1962)
Citation: For contributions to chemical and nuclear physics, for leadership in research on thermonuclear reactions, and for his efforts to strengthen national security and to insure the peace.
Ernest O. Lawrence (1957)
Citation: For his invention and development of the cyclotron and for his many other contributions in nuclear physics and atomic energy.