- Claire Fraser (2021)
- Steven Chu (2020)
- Margaret A. Hamburg (2019)
- Susan Hockfield (2018)
- Barbara A. Schaal (2017)
- Geraldine Richmond (2016)
- Gerald Fink (2015)
- Phillip A. Sharp (2014)
- William H. Press (2013)
- Nina V. Fedoroff (2012)
- Alice S. Huang (2011)
- Peter Agre (2010)
- James J. McCarthy (2009)
- David Baltimore (2008)
- John P. Holdren (2007)
- Gilbert S. Omenn (2006)
- Shirley Ann Jackson (2005)
- Mary Ellen Avery (2004)
- Floyd E. Bloom (2003)
- Peter H. Raven (2002)
- Mary L. Good (2001)
- Stephen Jay Gould (2000)
- M. R. C. Greenwood (1999)
- Mildred S. Dresselhaus (1998)
- Jane Lubchenco (1997)
- Rita R. Colwell (1996)
- Francisco J. Ayala (1995)
- Eloise E. Clark (1994)
- F. Sherwood Rowland (1993)
- Leon M. Lederman (1992)
- Donald N. Langenberg (1991)
- Richard C. Atkinson (1990)
- Walter E. Massey (1989)
- Sheila Evans Widnall (1988)
- Lawrence Bogorad (1987)
- Gerard Piel (1986)
- David A. Hamburg (1985)
- Anna Jane Harrison (1984)
- E. Margaret Burbidge (1983)
- D. Allan Bromley (1982)
- Frederick Mosteller (1981)
- Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1980)
- Edward E. David Jr. (1979)
- Emilio Quincy Daddario (1978)
- Emilio Quincy Daddario (1977)
- William David McElroy (1976)
- Margaret Mead (1975)
- Roger Revelle (1974)
- Leonard M. Rieser (1973)
- Glenn Theodore Seaborg (1972)
- Mina Rees (1971)
- Athelstan Spilhaus (1970)
- Hiram Bentley Glass (1969)
- Walter Orr Roberts (1968)
- Don Krasher Price (1967)
- Alfred Sherwood Romer (1966)
- Henry Eyring (1965)
- Laurence McKinley Gould (1964)
- Alan Tower Waterman (1963)
- Paul M. Gross (1962)
- Thomas Park (1961)
- Chauncey Depew Leake (1960)
- Paul Ernest Klopsteg (1959)
- Wallace Reed Brode (1958)
- Laurence H. Snyder (1957)
- Paul Bigelow Sears (1956)
- George Wells Beadle (1955)
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- Edward Uhler Condon (1953)
- Detlev Wulf Bronk (1952)
- Kirtley Fletcher Mather (1951)
- Roger Adams (1950)
- Elvin Charles Stakman (1949)
- Edmund Ware Sinnott (1948)
- Harlow Shapley (1947)
- Charles Franklin Kettering (1946)
- James Bryant Conant (1946)
- Anton Julius Carlson (1944)
- Isaiah Bowman (1943)
- Arthur Holly Compton (1942)
- Irving Langmuir (1941)
- Albert Francis Blakeslee (1940)
- Walter Bradford Cannon (1939)
- Wesley Clair Mitchell (1938)
- George David Birkhoff (1937)
- Edwin Grant Conklin (1936)
- Karl Taylor Compton (1935)
- Edward Lee Thorndike (1934)
- Henry Norris Russell (1933)
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- Franz Boas (1931)
- Thomas Hunt Morgan (1930)
- Robert Andrews Millikan (1929)
- Henry Fairfield Osborn (1928)
- Arthur Amos Noyes (1927)
- Liberty Hyde Bailey (1926)
- Michael I. Pupin (1925)
- James McKeen Cattell (1924)
- Charles Doolittle Walcott (1923)
- James Playfair McMurrich (1922)
- Eliakim H. Moore (1921)
- Leland O. Howard (1920)
- Simon Flexner (1919)
- John Merle Coulter (1918)
- Theodore William Richards (1917)
- Charles Richard Van Hise (1916)
- William Wallace Campbell (1915)
- Charles William Eliot (1914)
- Edmund Beecher Wilson (1913)
- Edward Charles Pickering (1912)
- Charles Edwin Bessey (1911)
- Albert Abraham Michelson (1910)
- David Starr Jordan (1909)
- Thomas C. Chamberlin (1908)
- Edward L. Nichols (1907)
- William Henry Welch (1906)
- Calvin Milton Woodward (1905)
- William Gilson Farlow (1904)
- Carroll Davidson Wright (1903)
- Asaph Hall (1902)
- Ira Remsen (1902)
- Charles S. Minot (1901)
- R. S. Woodward (1900)
- Edward Francis Orton (1899)
- Marcus Benjamin (1899)
- Grove Karl Gilbert (1899)
- Frederic Ward Putnam (1898)
- William John McGee (acting; 1897)
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- Edward Drinker Cope (1896)
- Theodore Gill (1896)
- Edward Williams Morley (1895)
- Daniel Garrison Brinton (1894)
- William Harkness (1893)
- Joseph LeConte (1892)
- Albert Benjamin Prescott (1891)
- George L. Goodale (1890)
- Thomas Corwin Mendenhall (1889)
- John Wesley Powell (1888)
- Samuel Pierpont Langley (1887)
- Edward Sylvester Morse (1886)
- Hubert Anson Newton (1885)
- John Peter Lesley (1884)
- Charles Augustus Young (1883)
- John William Dawson (1882)
- George Jarvis Brush (1881)
- Lewis Henry Morgan (1880)
- George Frederick Barker (1879)
- Othniel Charles Marsh (1878)
- Simon Newcomb (1877)
- William Barton Rogers (1876)
- Julius Erasmus Hilgard (1875)
- John Lawrence LeConte (1874)
- Joseph Lovering (1873)
- John Lawrence Smith (1872)
- Asa Gray (1871)
- William Chauvenet (1870)
- Thomas Sterry Hunt (1870)
- John Wells Foster (1869)
- Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1868)
- John Strong Newberry (1867)
- Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard (1866)
- Isaac Lea (1860)
- Stephen Alexander (1859)
- Jeffries Wyman (1858)
- Jacob Whitman Bailey (1857)
- Alexis Caswell (1857)
- James Hall (1856)
- John Torrey (1855)
- James Dwight Dana (1854)
- Benjamin Peirce (1852)
- Louis Agassiz (1851)
- Alexander Dallas Bache (1850)
- Joseph Henry (1849)
- William C. Redfield (1848)