Each year the Blavatnik National Awards honor young scientists across the United States involved in life sciences, physical science and engineering, and chemistry. One nominee from each category is named a Blavatnik Laureate and awarded $250,000 in unrestricted funds.
Since 2007 the Blavatnik Family Foundation has been funding the Blavatnik awards, granting 45 winners with funding for their various studies and/or projects. Established by billionaire industrial investor Leonard Blavatnik, three young scientists each year are acknowledged for their tireless efforts in their specific field. On July 28, the three winners for 2014 were announced and will be conferred during a formal ceremony on September 15 in New York City.
This year neurologist Rachel Wilson, physicist Marin Soljačić, and chemist Adam Cohen will each receive the first place prize of $250,000 in unrestricted funds. Ms. Wilson is a professor of neurobiology at Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is being awarded for her research on sensory processing and neural circuitry in fruit flies. Soljačić is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is being honored for his studies in wireless power transfer. And finally, Adam Cohen is a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Physics at Harvard University and is being acknowledged for his breakthroughs in cellular imaging that enable the observation of neural activity in real-time at single-cell resolution.
Each winner is under the age of 42 and competed against 322 nominees from 164 universities across the nation. The finalist pool was narrowed down to 30 scientists, from which members of the Judging Panel selected Wilson, Soljačić, and Cohen as the winners. The panel is comprised of 27 National Academy of Sciences members, 11 National Medal of Science recipients, seven Nobel Laureates, and six past Blavatnik Award winners.
"Our goal is to recognize and celebrate exceptional young scientists-to make them examples of what the next generation of young scientists should strive to achieve," reads the Blavatnik Awards mission statement by Leonard Blavatnik. "The Blavatnik Family Foundation is providing critical support to seed innovative work in science and technology that will address society's most pressing global problems."
The New York Academy of Sciences enumerates the entire breakdown of the 2014 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists in this news release.
