"Certain awards are annual, and some cycle differently--every two years, every five years," though all are given at the spring NAS meeting, says Mary Hofbauer Brown, NAS director of membership services. "This year we have a small crop--next year we'll have something like 16 or 17."
Of the recipients, Brown says, "of course, all are outstanding, or they would not be receiving awards from NAS and other groups." This year's winners' CVs contain a wide variety of other awards, fellowships, and prizes, including, in the case of Chemical Sciences Award winner Donald Cram, the Nobel Prize. Only two honorees are members of NAS--Cram and Public Welfare Medalist Philip Hauge Abelson, former editor of Science magazine.
Considered the academy's highest honor, the Public Welfare Medal is given annually to a member of the scientific community who has made a noteworthy contribution to science in general, and to the relationship between science ...
