The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White House, following recommendations from participating agencies, confers the awards annually. To be eligible for a Presidential Award, an individual must be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident. Some of the winning scientists and engineers receive up to a five-year research grant.
History
In February 1996, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) was commissioned by President Bill Clinton to create an award program that would honor and support the achievements of young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers in the fields of science and technology. The stated aim of the award is to help maintain the leadership position of the United States in science.
Originally, 60 recipients received the PECASE award per year. In 2008, the number of awardees was increased to 100 annually. The 2002 PECASE awards were not announced until May 2004 due to bureaucratic delays within the Bush administration. The 2013 PECASE awards were announced in February 2016 after a 2-year delay.
The Trump administration announced the 2015, 2016, and 2017 awardees in 2019 with the awards presented by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Agencies
The agencies participating in the PECASE Awards program are: Department of Agriculture Department of Commerce Department of Defense Department of Energy Department of Education Department of Health and Human Services: National Institutes of Health Department of the Interior: United States Geological Survey Department of Transportation Department of Veterans Affairs Environmental Protection Agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Science Foundation Smithsonian Institution United States Intelligence Community
Recipients
1996
Following the creation of PECASE in February 1996, President Bill Clinton announced 60 recipients on December 16 of that year:
Department of Agriculture
Pina Fratamico, Agricultural Research Service
Barbara Gartner, Oregon State University
Kenton Rodgers, North Dakota State University
Department of Commerce
Eric Cornell, NIST Physics Laboratory
John Daniel, NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories
Roland Pozo, NIST Computing and Applied Mathematics Laboratory
David Stensrud, NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories
Department of Defense
Andrea Bertozzi, Duke University
Nesbitt Hagood, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Gail Kineke, University of South Carolina
Paul Laibinis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Venkatakrishnan Selvamanickam, Intermagnetics General Corporation
Peter Sercel, University of Oregon
Department of Energy
Shenda M. Baker, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Richard A. Cairncross, Sandia National Laboratories
Christine Hartmann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
John P. Hill, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Philip M. Jardine, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Michael Smith, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Department of Veterans Affairs
Melissa Clark, VA Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee and Vanderbilt University
Joseph Cubells, VA Medical Center, West Haven, Connecticut and Yale University
Environmental Protection Agency
David Barnes, University of Arkansas
Keith Grasman, Wright State University
Qing-Huo Liu, New Mexico State University
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Dora Angelaki, University of Mississippi Medical Center
Christopher Chyba, Princeton University
Andrea Donnellan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Heidi Sosik, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Ellen Stofan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Kimberly Weaver, Johns Hopkins University
National Institutes of Health
10 awardees: Allison Doupe, University of California, San Francisco Ali Hemmati-Brivanlou, Rockefeller University Paul Khavari, Stanford University Aron Lukacher, Emory University Deirdre Meldrum, University of Washington Lee Ann Niswander, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute for Cancer Research David Self, Yale University Morgan Sheng, Massachusetts General Hospital Mark Walter, University of Alabama, Birmingham Keith Woerpel, University of California, Irvine