Well, thank you Jim, and I’ll repeat the obvious, that this is really a great day when we have a chance to recognize some of the terrific scientists and engineers who really form the basis of what we do here at the Department of Energy. The Lawrence Awards are for mid-career scientists – and I understand the technical definition of a mid-career scientist as someone within 20 years of his or her highest degree. And I must say, so A, we expect at least another 20 years out of you but B, it is refreshing to see so many in our audience today clearly at less than 20 years. And I suspect, therefore, we can say it’s great to have the families of our awardees here to join in this very, very happy occasion.
You know, one of my fellow New Englanders, Emerson, said that history is biography. But I think science is also biography because science is the people who do it, and thousands of scientists are working hard at any given time – many thousands – at any given time, many of whom do not get a special recognition or a $20,000 check, but who are absolutely critically part of science as a cumulative enterprise.
But then, of course, we have those who make special contributions and do get some recognition. And of course, we have six of those here today who have indeed really moved the ball forward for us in a very important way.
You know, the Department of Energy has, as you can tell from the work that our awardees have done, has a big diversity of missions. The Department is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences and is responsible for a major part of the science infrastructure used by tens of thousands of scientists in the country. We also have responsibilities in clean energy, in climate, and we have responsibilities in nuclear security, both the deterrent and limiting the risks from nuclear materials globally.
As part of that mission, tomorrow, is the first anniversary of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, and this is – we certainly view climate risk mitigation as one of the very most important tasks that we must contribute to and that all of us must address. Clearly, work that we see here today in the energy sphere will be very, very important for that clean energy future.
It’s also the month anniversary, that is June 2014, of another very important policy proposal made by the President in Berlin, looking at all of the integrated questions around nuclear security. And again, we see here on the stage some of our mid-career major, major contributors to that nuclear security mission.
So the Department of Energy – in those missions, and also in our fourth major mission area, which is environmental remediation – all of these are inherently science and technology challenges. We are a science and technology agency, so whether it’s in our labs or collaborators in our universities, again, these are the people who ultimately must be leaders in providing solutions to those major, major challenges.
We’ve already heard about some of their work. Just in repeating a little bit, Margaret Wooldridge, work in advanced power and propulsion systems, which will be very important for energy efficiency, without which we cannot meet our climate goals. Steve Meyers, we heard about, advancing the stage of seismic monitoring, very important for nuclear security, as Anne mentioned. But I also was informed that he has a strong loyalty to the Chicago Cubs. As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I’d just advise you wait, it will come and meanwhile you’re solving our nuclear security problems.
John Sarrao, someone I’ve had the pleasure of working with at Los Alamos, again, in material sciences, with direct contributions to national security. John Wagner, as was mentioned by Pete Lyons, a leader in our spent nuclear fuel effort, and this is absolutely central to our enabling a future for nuclear power as a major continuing low-carbon source as we address climate change.
Adam Arkin for his work, as was said, in synthetic and systems biology, clearly critical for understanding cellular processes but something which he certainly knows and some in this audience know, but many don’t know that this builds upon the Department of Energy as actually the leader in establishing the human genome project. Not so well known. In fact, Los Alamos being a key node for that – for that activity. So again, the Department really has a very, very far, enormous reach in many areas of science. And I might just add that, as an aside, that not only –we had the start of the genome project and we have major contributors continuing in this general area in systems biology, but also we are now in a discussion with NIH, initiated by NIH, as to how this Department, with its skillset, can help with the BRAIN Initiative, largely based upon our enormous capacity in terms of computational power, modeling and sensors.
And finally Siegfried Glenzer, as you heard, a leader, an innovator in high energy density science, looking at matter in extreme conditions. So again, just – it’s a little bit of a repeat, but maybe in a little bit more of the context of the Department of Energy. And as you can see, their hard work and creativity and dedication really makes a huge difference to what this department is all about.
The awards are named for Ernest Lawrence, widely understood as one of the great figures in 20th century science. This year, 2014, is the 75th anniversary of his Nobel Prize, awarded for developing the cyclotron. Again, a good example of kind of core science infrastructure that we continue to advance and its results in nuclear physics. And of course, his name remains attached to a couple of our laboratories. He really was, in many ways, a founder of our national laboratory system.
So this really all comes together in terms of the history of science in this country, the contributions the Department of Energy has made and will make and our reliance upon leaders in our – in our science enterprise.
So that’s really what I wanted to say, and I think we can now move forward to celebrating the winners with their citations. Thank you.