Each year, AAAS salutes scientists, engineers, public servants, and journalists for their outstanding contributions to scientific progress and the public’s understanding of science.

AAAS Philip Hauge Ableson Prize
Leon M. Lederman was honored for his outstanding scientific scholarship, his leadership and advocacy of international collaborations in science, and his commitment to the improvement of science and mathematics education at the local, state, and national levels. Lederman, an internationally renowned high-energy physicist, is director emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Award for International Scientific Cooperation
Kenneth Bridbord was honored for his decisive impact in training researchers worldwide for productive and collaborative public health research, and significantly expanding training and collaborative research on AIDS. Bridbord is director of the Division of International Training and Research at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.

AAAS Mentor Award
Lisa A. Pruitt was recognized for her exceptional mentoring, community activism, and efforts to diversify the talent pool in materials and bioengineering. Pruitt is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

AAAS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement
Evelyn L. Hu was recognized for her extraordinary mentoring and for opening the doors for women and other underrepresented students and faculty in electrical and computer engineering. Hu is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of QUEST, a NSF-funded Science and Technology Center.

William E. Spicer was recognized for his efforts to build students’ confidence in themselves and for his dedication to the advancement of minorities and women in electrical engineering, applied physics, physics, and materials science. Spicer has earned degrees from the College of William and Mary, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Missouri at Columbia.

AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology
Vaclav Smil was honored for providing the public with important resources to understand complex and pressing global issues. Smil is a distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy).

AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award
Howard K. Schachman was honored for his advocacy of scientific freedom and the responsible conduct of research. Schachman has been on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley since 1948. He has served as a special advisor to the director of the National Institutes of Health and has acted as the NIH ombudsman in the Basic Sciences.

AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize
Gerald M. Rubin and Susan E. Celniker, representing the Drosophila Genome Center, University of California, Berkeley, and J. Craig Venter and Mark D. Adams, representing Celera Genomics, were recognized for the review entitled “The Genome Sequence of Drosophila melanogaster,” published on March 24, 2000, in Science. They are honored for the collaborative effort by academic and industry researchers to understand the organization of the hereditary material at the finest structural level.

AAS Science Journalism Awards
This national science writing competition represents the pinnacle of achievement for individual science print and broadcast journalists. Sponsored by The Whitaker Foundation, the awards were presented in five categories:

Large Newspapers: Rick Weiss and Deborah Nelson, The Washington Post

Small Newspapers: James B. Erickson, The Arizona Daily Star

Magazine: Mark Schoofs, The Village Voice

Television: Richard Hudson, Eliene Augenbraun, Ira Flatow, and Gino Del Guercio, Twin Cities Public Television / PBS

Radio: Moira K. Rankin and David Barrett Wilson, Soundprint Media Center, Inc.