John Scott Medal
John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way.[1] Since 1919 the Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia[2] provide this award, recommended by an advisory committee.[3][4]
| John Scott Award | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Country | USA |
| Presented by | The Franklin Institute and the City Council of Philadelphia |
| First awarded | 1816 |
In 1822 the first awards were given to thirteen people by the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture[5] entrusted by the "Corporation of the city of Philadelphia".[6]
The druggist John Scott of Edinburgh organized a $4,000 fund which, after his death in 1815 was administered by a merchant until the first award, a copper medal and "an amount not to exceed twenty dollars", was given in 1822. (At the time, $20 could buy one ox or a 12-volume encyclopedia.) Several hundred recipients have since been selected by the City Council of Philadelphia, which decides from the annual list of nominees made by the Franklin Institute.
Most awards have been given for inventions in science and medicine. Famous recipients include Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, the Wright brothers, Guglielmo Marconi, Irving Langmuir, Alexander Fleming, William T. Bovie, Frederick G. Banting, Edgar Sharp McFadden, John Bardeen, Edwin Land, Luis W. Alvarez, Glenn Seaborg, Jonas Salk, Robert Burns Woodward, Humberto Fernandez Moran, James Black, Benoît Mandelbrot, Ralph L. Brinster, Richard E. Smalley, and Kary B. Mullis.
Recent winners
| Year | Winner | Area of Innovation |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Emily A. Carter | reverse combustion |
| Charles L. Kane | topological insulators | |
| Eugene Mele | topological insulators | |
| 2018 | James Edward Maceo West | foil electret microphone |
| Bjarne Stroustrup | c++ computer programming language | |
| 2017 | Ruzena Bajcsy | robotics and engineering science |
| Warren Ewens | population genetics research | |
| Masatoshi Nei | evolutionary theory | |
| 2016 | Emmanuelle Charpentier | CRISPR-Cas genome editing |
| Jennifer Doudna | ||
| Feng Zhang | ||
| Carl H. June | cancer immunology | |
| 2015 | Madeleine M. Joullié | synthetic chemistry |
| John P. Perdew | density functional theory | |
| 2014 | Susan Band Horwitz | cancer therapeutics |
| Leonard Hayflick | discovery of cellular senescence and innovations in microscopy | |
| Paul S. Moorhead | ||
| 2013[7] | P. Leslie Dutton | redox reactions in biochemistry |
| N. Scott Adzick | fetal surgery | |
| Robert L. Brent | environmental causes of birth defects | |
| 2012 | Paul J. Steinhardt | quasicrystals |
| John Q. Trojanowski | neurodegenerative diseases | |
| Virginia Man-Yee Lee | ||
| 2011 | David E. Kuhl | PET scans |
| Jenny Pickworth Glusker | crystallography | |
| 2010 | Christian J. Lambertsen | underwater diving equipment |
| William A. Eaton | protein aggregation and folding |
See also
- Carl Roman Abt, A past recipient (1889)
References
- "Sundry Trusts". Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2011. "...the John Scott Medal Fund, established in 1816...".
- "Board of Directors of City Trusts". Retrieved March 27, 2011.
- Garfield, E. "The John Scott Award". John Scott Award Advisory Committee. Retrieved March 21, 2011. Eugene Garfield is member of the Advisory Committee.
- "John Scott Medal Fund". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 55 (1422): 344. March 31, 1922. doi:10.1126/science.55.1422.344-a. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
- "Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture". Retrieved March 23, 2011.
- Benjamin Silliman (1830). "Miscellanies - Premiums for useful inventions". American Journal of Science and Arts. Hezekiah Howe. 18 (July): 382. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
- Vitez, Michael (21 November 2013). "3 Phila. medical men to be honored". Philadelphia Inquirer.
External links
- The award webpage
- The Franklin Institute: The John Scott Legacy Medal
- "The John Scott Award Recipients". Eugene Garfield at University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 28 September 2018. Medals awarded by The Franklin Institute between 1822 and 2017.