Rumford Prize
Founded in 1796, the Rumford Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. The prize recognizes contributions by scientists to the fields of heat and light. These terms are widely interpreted; awards range from discoveries in thermodynamics to improvements in the construction of steam boilers.
The award was created through the endowment of US$5,000 to the Academy by Benjamin Thompson, who held the title "Count Rumford of the United Kingdom," in 1796. The terms state that the award be given to "authors of discoverie's in any part of the Continent of America, or in any of the American islands." Although it was founded in 1796, the first prize was not given until 1839, as the academy could not find anyone who, in their judgement, deserved the award. The academy found the terms of the prize to be too restrictive, and in 1832 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts allowed the Academy to change some of the provisions; mainly, the award was to be given annually instead of biennially, and the Academy was allowed to award the prize as it saw fit, whereas before it had to give it yearly. The first award was given to Robert Hare, for his invention of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, in 1839. Twenty-three years elapsed before the award was given a second time, to John Ericsson.
The prize is awarded whenever the academy recognizes a significant achievement in either of the two fields. Awardees receive a gold-and-silver medal. Previous prizewinners include Thomas Alva Edison, for his investigations in electric lighting; Enrico Fermi, for his studies of radiation theory and nuclear energy; and Charles H. Townes, for his development of the laser. One man, Samuel Pierpont Langley, has won both the Rumford Prize and the related Rumford Medal, both in 1886. The most recent award was given in 2019 to Ernst Bamberg, Ed Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, Gero Miesenböck, and Georg Nagel. Previously, the award had been given to researchers outside of the United States only twice—once to John Stanley Plaskett, from British Columbia, and once to a group of Canadian scientists "for their work in the field of long-baseline interferometry."
List of recipients
Source:| Year | Name | Location | Rationale |
| 1839 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Inventor of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe | |
| 1862 | New York, New York | His work improved the field of heat management, but the award was specifically for his invention of the caloric engine of 1858. | |
| 1865 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Heat management. He was awarded especially for his contributions towards a "cannon of large caliber, and great strength and endurance". | |
| 1866 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Improved refracting telescopes | |
| 1869 | Providence, Rhode Island | For improving the steam engine | |
| 1871 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Towards his concern for safer steam boilers | |
| 1873 | New York, New York | For improving the "processes and methods" of astronomical photography | |
| 1875 | New York, New York | For his work towards apprehending radiant energy | |
| 1880 | New Haven, Connecticut | Founded the field of chemical thermodynamics | |
| 1883 | Baltimore, Maryland | For his research in light and heat | |
| 1886 | Allegheny, Philadelphia | For his work towards the understanding of radiant energy | |
| 1888 | Cleveland, Ohio | Measured the velocity of light, and contribution towards the motion of the luminiferous ether, and absolute determination of the wavelengths of light | |
| 1891 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For his work on stellar photometry and stellar spectra | |
| 1895 | Orange, New Jersey | For his investigations in electric lighting | |
| 1898 | Allegheny, Pennsylvania | For the applications of the spectroscope, and especially his investigations of nebulae and the physical contents of Saturn's rings | |
| 1899 | Cleveland, Ohio | For the development of the electric arc lamp | |
| 1900 | Providence, Rhode Island | For his heat research | |
| 1901 | Lynn, Massachusetts | For his work in welding and lighting | |
| 1902 | Chicago, Illinois | For his investigations in solar and stellar physics and for the invention of the spectro-heliograph | |
| 1904 | New York, New York | For his research on radiation, radiation pressure, stellar heat, and the infrared spectrum | |
| 1907 | Niagara Falls, New York | For the application of the electric furnace to the production of carborundum and graphite | |
| 1909 | Baltimore, Maryland | For light-related discoveries, including the optical properties of sodium and other metallic vapors | |
| 1910 | New York, New York | For his improvements to the steam turbine | |
| 1911 | Boston, Massachusetts | For his work in thermometry, and the development of new fixed points on the scale. | |
| 1912 | Woodcliff-on-Hudson, New Jersey | For his inventions in color photography and photoengraving | |
| 1913 | Urbana, Illinois | For the development of the selenium photometer and its application to scientific problems | |
| 1914 | Schenectady, New York | For his invention of ductile tungsten | |
| 1915 | Washington, D.C. | For his research in solar radiation | |
| 1917 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For his high-pressure thermodynamic breakthroughs | |
| 1918 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Awarded for his research on short-wave and long-wave wavelengths | |
| 1920 | Schenectady, New York | "For his research in thermionic and allied phenomena" | |
| 1925 | Princeton, New Jersey | Awarded for his research in solar radiation | |
| 1926 | Chicago, Illinois | Awarded for his research in Roentgen rays | |
| 1928 | Ithaca, New York | "For his research in spectrophotometry" | |
| 1930 | Victoria, British Columbia | For his astronomical spectrographic research | |
| 1931 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | He was awarded the medal for thermionics and spectroscopic research. | |
| 1933 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For his work with the luminosity of stars and galaxies | |
| 1937 | Washington, D.C. | For his improvements in the measurement of heat and light | |
| 1939 | Belmont, Massachusetts | "For pioneering improvements in spectroscopics" | |
| 1941 | Princeton, New Jersey | Awarded for the creation of the iconoscope and other related devices | |
| 1943 | Rochester, New York | For his contributions to photography | |
| 1945 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For his inventions related to the application of polarized light | |
| 1947 | Princeton, New Jersey | For his research in bioluminescence | |
| 1949 | Pasadena, California | For his work on the identification of nebulium and for other outstanding works | |
| 1951 | Montclair, New Jersey | For his research in the field of optics | |
| 1953 | Chicago, Illinois | For his investigations in electromagnetic radiation and nuclear energy | |
| 1953 | Stanford, California | Awarded for studying the hydrogen spectrum | |
| 1953 | New Haven, Connecticut | For his investigations in thermodynamics related to transportation | |
| 1955 | Chicago, Illinois | For his studies in the investigation of photosynthesis | |
| 1957 | Williams Bay, Wisconsin | For his investigations of the radiative energy balance in stars | |
| 1959 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For identifying the biochemical basis of vision | |
| 1961 | New York, New York | "For his development of the laser" | |
| 1963 | Ithaca, New York | For pioneering studies in stellar nucleosynthesis | |
| 1965 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For the invention of the Collins Helium Cryostat and other pioneering work | |
| 1965 | Baltimore, Maryland | For his work on the molecular origin of bioluminescence | |
| 1967 | Princeton, New Jersey | "For his contributions to microwave radiometry and to the understanding of atomic structure" | |
| 1967 | Stanford, California | For his contributions to the study of photosynthesis | |
| 1968 | Pasadena, California | For his work deducing the spectra of quasi-stellar objects | |
| 1971 | MIT Group ---- Canadian Group ---- NRAO–Cornell Group | Massachusetts Institute of Technology ----National Research Council ; Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory ; University of Toronto ; Queen's University ; University of British Columbia ---- National Radio Astronomy Observatory ; Cornell University | "For their work in the field of long-baseline interferometry." The Rumford Committee sponsored a symposium on recent developments in the field to mark the unusual circumstances of the 1971 award; it was reported in the January 14, 1972 issue of Science. |
| 1973 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For pioneering the importance of symmetry in polyatomic molecules and for his active work in the field of microwave spectroscopy | |
| 1976 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | For discovering the origins of cosmic radiation | |
| 1980 | Urbana, Illinois | For researching the theory of, and working on the application of, fluorescence | |
| 1980 | ---- | Stony Brook, New York ---- Columbus, Ohio | "For development of a generalized gauge invariant field theory" |
| 1985 | ---- ---- ---- | Seattle, Washington ---- Cambridge, Massachusetts ---- New Haven, Connecticut ---- Cambridge, Massachusetts | Awarded for his work in the field of atomic spectroscopy |
| 1986 | ---- ---- | Pasadena, California ---- Tucson, Arizona ---- Pasadena, California | For his work in developing infrared astronomy |
| 1992 | ---- ---- | Chicago, Illinois ---- Chicago, Illinois ---- San Diego, California | Awarded for working towards the understanding of photosynthesis |
| 1996 | Greenbelt, Maryland | For his research related to the cosmic microwave background | |
| 2008 | ---- ---- ---- | Stanford University ---- Nuclear Threat Initiative ---- Stanford University ---- Stanford University | For their efforts to reduce the global threat of nuclear weapons |
| 2015 | ---- | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences ---- Alcatel-Lucent Bell Laboratory | For their contributions to the field of laser technology |
| 2019 | ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- | Max-Planck Institute of Biophysics ----Massachusetts Institute of Technology ----Stanford University ----Humboldt University of Berlin ----University of Oxford ----University of Würzburg | For "their extraordinary contributions related to the invention and refinement of optogenetics." |