The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstanding work in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. Three prizes are awarded every second year. Each of the three Kavli Prizes consists of a gold medal, a scroll, and a cash award of US$1,000,000. The medal has a diameter of 70 millimetres (2.8 in), a thickness of 5 millimetres (0.20 in), and weighs 311 grams (11.0 oz).[1][2]

The Kavli Prize
The 2014 Astrophysics laureates shortly after being presented with their awards
Awarded foroutstanding contributions in Astrophysics, Nanoscience, and Neuroscience.
CountryNorway
Presented by
Reward(s)A gold medal, a scroll, and a monetary award of US$1,000,000
First awarded2008
Number of laureates21 prizes to 54 laureates (as of 2021)
Websitehttp://www.kavliprize.no

The first Kavli Prizes were awarded on 9 September 2008 in Oslo, presented by Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway.

Selection committees

edit

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters appoints three prize committees consisting of leading international scientists after receiving recommendations made from the following organisations:

Laureates

edit

Astrophysics

edit
Year Laureate Institution Country Citation
2008   Maarten Schmidt California Institute of Technology   "for their seminal contributions to understanding the nature of quasars"
  Donald Lynden-Bell Cambridge University  
2010 Jerry E. Nelson Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz   "for their contributions to the development of giant telescopes"
Raymond N. Wilson European Southern Observatory, Garching  
James Roger Angel Steward Observatory, University of Arizona  
2012   David C. Jewitt University of California Los Angeles     "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system"
  Jane X. Luu Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology    
  Michael E. Brown California Institute of Technology  
2014   Alan H. Guth Massachusetts Institute of Technology   "for pioneering the theory of cosmic inflation"
  Andrei D. Linde Stanford University    
  Alexei A. Starobinsky Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics  
2016   Ronald W.P. Drever California Institute of Technology   "for the direct detection of gravitational waves"[3]
  Kip S. Thorne California Institute of Technology  
  Rainer Weiss Massachusetts Institute of Technology    
2018   Ewine van Dishoeck Leiden University   "for her combined contributions to observational, theoretical, and laboratory astrochemistry, elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets"[4][5]
2020   Andrew Fabian University of Cambridge   "for his groundbreaking research in the field of observational X-ray astronomy, covering a wide range of topics from gas flows in clusters of galaxies to supermassive black holes at the heart of galaxies"[6]
2022   Roger Ulrich University of California, Los Angeles   "for their pioneering work and leadership in the development of helio- and asteroseismology"
  Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard Aarhus University  
  Conny Aerts KU Leuven  
2024   Sara Seager Massachusetts Institute of Technology     "for their ground-breaking work on the discovery and characterization of extra-solar planets and their atmospheres"
  David Charbonneau Harvard University    

Nanoscience

edit
Year Laureate Institution Country Citation
2008   Louis E. Brus Columbia University   "for their large impact in the development of the nanoscience field of the zero and one dimensional nanostructures in physics, chemistry and biology"
  Sumio Iijima Meijo University  
2010   Donald Eigler IBM Almaden Research Center   "for their development of unprecedented methods to control matter on the nanoscale"
  Nadrian C. Seeman New York University  
2012   Mildred S. Dresselhaus Massachusetts Institute of Technology   "for her pioneering contributions to the study of phonons, electron-phonon interactions, and thermal transport in nanostructures"
2014   Thomas W. Ebbesen University of Strasbourg     "for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging"
  Stefan W. Hell Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry  
  John B. Pendry Imperial College London  
2016   Gerd Binnig IBM Zurich Research Laboratory   "for the invention and realization of atomic force microscopy, a breakthrough in measurement technology and nanosculpting that continues to have a transformative impact on nanoscience and technology"[7]
  Christoph Gerber University of Basel  
Calvin Quate Stanford University  
2018   Emmanuelle Charpentier Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology     "for the invention of CRISPR-Cas9, a precise nanotool for editing DNA, causing a revolution in biology, agriculture, and medicine"[8][5]
  Jennifer Doudna University of California, Berkeley  
  Virginijus Šikšnys Vilnius University  
2020   Harald Rose Universität Ulm   "for sub-ångström resolution imaging and chemical analysis using electron beams"[9]
Maximilian Haider CEOS GmbH  
Knut Urban Forschungszentrum Jülich  
  Ondrej Krivanek Nion Co    
2022   Jacob Sagiv Weizmann Institute of Science   "for Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) on solid substrates; molecular coatings to control surface properties"
  Ralph Nuzzo University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign  
David Allara Pennsylvania State University  
  George M. Whitesides Harvard University  
2024   Robert S. Langer Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology   "for pioneering work integrating synthetic nanoscale materials with biological function for biomedical applications"
  Armand Paul Alivisatos University of Chicago  
  Chad A. Mirkin Northwestern University  

Neuroscience

edit
Year Laureate Institution Country Citation
2008   Sten Grillner Karolinska Institute   "for discoveries on the developmental and functional logic of neuronal circuits"
Thomas Jessell Columbia University    
  Pasko Rakic Yale University School of Medicine    
2010   Richard H. Scheller Genentech   "for discovering the molecular basis of neurotransmitter release"
  Thomas C. Südhof Stanford University School of Medicine  
  James E. Rothman Yale University  
2012   Cornelia Isabella Bargmann Rockefeller University   "for elucidating basic neuronal mechanisms underlying perception and decision"
Winfried Denk Max Planck Institute for Medical Research  
  Ann M. Graybiel Massachusetts Institute of Technology  
2014   Brenda Milner Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University   "for the discovery of specialized brain networks for memory and cognition"
  John O’Keefe University College London  
  Marcus E. Raichle Washington University in St. Louis  
2016   Eve Marder Brandeis University   "for the discovery of mechanisms that allow experience and neural activity to remodel brain function"[10]
Michael M. Merzenich University of California, San Francisco  
  Carla J. Shatz Stanford University  
2018   A. James Hudspeth Rockefeller University   "for their scientific discoveries of the molecular and neural mechanisms of hearing"[11][5]
  Robert Fettiplace University of Wisconsin–Madison    
  Christine Petit Collège de France  
2020   David Julius University of California, San Francisco   "for their transformative discovery of receptors for temperature and pressure".[12]
  Ardem Patapoutian Scripps Research and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator    
2022   Jean-Louis Mandel University of Strasbourg   "for pioneering the discovery of genes underlying a range of brain disorders"
Harry T. Orr University of Minnesota Medical School  
  Huda Zoghbi Baylor College of Medicine    
  Christopher A. Walsh Harvard Medical School  
2024   Nancy Kanwisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology   "for the discovery of a highly localized and specialized system for representation of faces in human and non-human primate neocortex"
Winrich Freiwald Rockefeller University    
  Doris Ying Tsao University of California, Berkeley  

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Yngvar Reichelt: «Kavlimedaljen», NNF-Nytt. Norsk numismatisk tidsskrift, nr. 3, 2010, s. 21–25.
  2. ^ The Kavli Foundation (n.d.). "Kavli Prize Medal". Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  3. ^ "2016 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics | www.kavliprize.org". www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  4. ^ "2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics | www.kavliprize.org". Kavil Prize. 31 May 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  5. ^ a b c "Jennifer Doudna shares 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience". Berkeley News. 31 May 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  6. ^ "2020 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics". www.kavliprize.org. 14 May 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  7. ^ "2016 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience | www.kavliprize.org". www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  8. ^ "2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience | www.kavliprize.org". www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  9. ^ 2020 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience". www.kavliprize.org. 14 May 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  10. ^ "2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience | www.kavliprize.org". www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  11. ^ "2018 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience | www.kavliprize.org". www.kavliprize.org. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  12. ^ 2020 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience". www.kavliprize.org. 14 May 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
edit