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 maser and the laser. One man, Samuel Pierpont Langley, has won both the Rumford Prize and the related Rumford Medal (the European equivalent of the Rumford Prize), both in 1886. The most recent award was given in 2021 to Charles L. Bennett for his contributions to cosmology. The prize has 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: American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Past Prizes

YearNameLocationRationale 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 (John. A Ball, Alan H. Barrett, Bernard F. Burke, Joseph C. Carter, Patricia P. Crowther, James M. Moran Jr., Alan E. E. Rogers)

Canadian Group (Norman W. Broten, R. M. Chisholm, John A. Galt, Herbert P. Gush, Thomas H. Legg, Jack L. Locke, Charles W. McLeish, Roger S. Richards, Jui Lin Yen)

NRAO–Cornell Group (Claude C. Bare, Barry G. Clark, Marshall H. Cohen, David L. Jauncey, Kenneth I. Kellermann)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ball, Barrett, Burke, Carter, Crowther, Moran, Rogers) National Research Council (Canada) (Broten, Legg, Locke, McLeish, Richards); Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (Galt); University of Toronto (Yen); Queen's University (Chisolm); University of British Columbia (Gush)

National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Bare, Clark, Kellerman); Cornell University (Cohen, Jauncey) "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 LaboratoryFor their contributions to the field of laser technology2018Max-Planck Institute of Biophysics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanford University Humboldt University of Berlin University of Oxford University of WürzburgFor "their extraordinary contributions related to the invention and refinement of optogenetics." 2021 Baltimore, Maryland For his contributions to the field of cosmology

Rumford Prize

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