The Presidential Young Investigator Award (PYI) was awarded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

of the

United States Federal Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...

. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator (NYI) Awards and Presidential Faculty Fellows Program (PFF) and subsequently the NSF CAREER Awards and the

PECASE The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

. Applicants could not directly apply for the award, but were nominated by others including their own institutions based on their previous record of scientific achievement. The award, a certificate from the White House signed by the President of the United States, included a minimum grant of $25,000 a year for five years from NSF to be used for any scientific research project the awardee wished to pursue, with the possibility of additional funding up to $100,000 annually if the PYI obtained matching funds from industry. Considered to be one of the highest honors granted by the National Science Foundation, the award program was criticized in 1990 as not being the best use of NSF funds in an era of tight budgets.

Recipients

PYI award recipients include: * Narendra Ahuja, computer science, 1984 * Alice Agogino, engineering, 1985 *

Paul Alivisatos Armand Paul Alivisatos (born November 12, 1959) is an American chemist who serves as the 14th president of the University of Chicago. He is a pioneer in nanomaterials development and an authority on the fabrication of nanocrystals and their use i ...

, chemistry, 1991 *

Peter B. Armentrout Peter B. Armentrout (born 1953) is a researcher in thermochemistry, kinetics, and dynamics of simple and complex chemical reactions. He is a Chemistry Professor at the University of Utah. Career Armentrout received his B.S. degree from Case W ...

, chemistry, 1984 *

David P. Anderson David Pope Anderson (born 1955) is an American research scientist at the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, and an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Houston. Anderson leads the SETI@hom ...

, computer science * Kenneth Balkus, chemistry, 1991 * Prithviraj Banerjee, computer systems architecture, 1987 * Paul F. Barbara, chemistry, 1984 *

Christoph Beckermann Christoph Beckermann is a University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Iowa. He also directs the Solidification Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering there. Education Bec ...

, mechanical engineering, 1989 *

Mary Beckman Mary Esther Beckman (born September 1953) is a Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the Ohio State University. Career Beckman received her PhD from Cornell University in 1984. She was a Postdoctoral member of the technical staff in "Linguistics a ...

, linguistics, 1988 *

Mladen Bestvina Mladen Bestvina (born 1959) is a Croatian-American mathematician working in the area of geometric group theory. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Utah. Biographical info Mladen Bestvina is a thr ...

, mathematics, 1988 *

Sanjay Banerjee Sanjay Banerjee is an American engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, director of Microelectronics Research Center, and director of the Southwest Academy of Nanoelectronics (SWAN) — one of three such centers in the United States funded b ...

, electrical engineering, 1988 *

Jonathan Block Jonathan may refer to: *Jonathan (name), a masculine given name Media * ''Jonathan'' (1970 film), a German film directed by Hans W. Geißendörfer * ''Jonathan'' (2016 film), a German film directed by Piotr J. Lewandowski * ''Jonathan'' (2018 ...

, mathematics, 1993 * Rogers Brubaker, sociology, 1994 * Robert Bryant, mathematics, 1984 * Stephen Z. D. Cheng, polymer science, 1991 *

Paul Alan Cox Paul Alan Cox is an American ethnobotanist whose scientific research focuses on discovering new medicines by studying patterns of wellness and illness among indigenous peoples. Cox was born in Salt Lake City in 1953. Education After receiving h ...

, evolutionary ecology and ethnobotany, 1985 *

Judith Curry Judith A. Curry (born c. 1953) is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, ...

, climate science, 1988 *

Supriyo Datta Supriyo Datta (born 1954) is an Indian born American researcher and author. A leading figure in the modeling and understanding of nano-scale electronic conduction, he has been called "one of the most original thinkers in the field of nanoscale ...

, electrical engineering, 1984 *

Rina Dechter Rina Dechter (born August 13, 1950) is a distinguished professor of computer science in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is on automated reasoning in artificial inte ...

, computer science, 1991 *

Chris Q. Doe Chris Q Doe (Born 1958) is a professor of Biology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Institute for Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. Doe did his PhD work with Corey Goodman at Stanford University, followe ...

, Biology, 1990 *

Bruce Donald Bruce Randall Donald (born 1958) is an American computer scientist and computational biologist. He is the James B. Duke Professor of Computer Science and Biochemistry at Duke University. He has made numerous contributions to several fields in Comp ...

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

, 1989 *

David L. Donoho David Leigh Donoho (born March 5, 1957) is an American statistician. He is a professor of statistics at Stanford University, where he is also the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the Humanities and Sciences. His work includes the develop ...

, statistics, 1985 *

Lin Fanghua Fanghua Lin (; born March 11, 1959), also written as Fang-Hua Lin, is a Chinese-born American mathematician. He is currently the Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He applies rigorous analy ...

, mathematics, 1989 *

Juli Feigon Juli Feigon is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has been a faculty member since 1985. She was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her research focuses o ...

, biochemistry, 1989 *

Eric Fossum Eric R. Fossum (born October 17, 1957) is an American physicist and engineer, which with the help of other JPL scientists, co-developed some features of the CMOS sensor, CMOS image sensor. He is currently a professor at Thayer School of Engineerin ...

, electrical engineering
1986
*

Jennifer Freyd Jennifer Joy Freyd (; born October 16, 1957, in Providence, Rhode Island) is an American researcher, author, educator, and speaker. Freyd is an extensively published scholar who is best known for her theories of betrayal trauma, DARVO, instit ...

, psychology *

Elaine Fuchs Elaine V. Fuchs is an American cell biologist famous for her work on the biology and molecular mechanisms of mammalian skin and skin diseases, who helped lead the modernization of dermatology. Fuchs pioneered reverse genetics approaches, which ...

, cell biology, 1984-1989 *

Gerald Fuller Gerald Gendall Fuller (born April 7, 1953) is a Canadian/American chemical engineer and Fletcher Jones II Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Fuller received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary ...

, chemical engineering *

Huajian Gao Huajian Gao (, born December 7, 1963) is a Chinese-American mechanician who is widely known for his contributions to the field of solid mechanics, particularly on the micro- and nanomechanics of thin films, hierarchically structured materials, ...

, materials science * Mark S. Ghiorso, geological sciences, 1985 *

Leslie Greengard Dr. Leslie F. Greengard is an American mathematician, physicist and computer scientist. He is co-inventor with Vladimir Rokhlin Jr. of the fast multipole method (FMM) in 1987, recognized as one of the top-ten algorithms of the 20th century. Gree ...

, advanced comp research program and computational mathematics, 1990
Mark Henderson
mechanical engineering, 1987 *

Bruce Hajek Bruce Edward Hajek is a Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Leonard C. and Mary Lou Hoeft Chair in Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champai ...

, 1984 *

John L. Hennessy John Leroy Hennessy (born September 22, 1952) is an American computer scientist, academician and businessman who serves as Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. as well as Atheros and served as t ...

, computer science, 1984 *

Jacqueline Hewitt Jacqueline Nina Hewitt (born September 4, 1958) is an American astrophysicist. She was the first person to discover an Einstein ring. She is a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Early life and education Hewitt was born in Washington, ...

, physics, 1991 *

David Hillis David Mark Hillis (born December 21, 1958 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is an American evolutionary biologist, and the Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is best known for his studies of molecular e ...

, evolutionary biology, 1987 * John M. Hollerbach, haptics and tactile perception, 1984 *

Kathleen Howell Kathleen Howell is an American scientist and aerospace engineer known for her contributions to dynamical systems theory applied to spacecraft trajectory design which led to the use of halo orbit in multiple NASA space missions. She is currently the ...

, astronomy, 1984 * Ellen Hildreth, computer vision, 1987 * Paul Hudak, computer science, 1985 *

Christopher R. Johnson Christopher Ray Johnson (born January 17, 1960, in Kansas City, Kansas) is an American computer scientist. He is a distinguished professor of computer science at the University of Utah, and founding director of the Scientific Computing and Imag ...

, computer graphics and visualization, 1994 * Nan Marie Jokerst, electrical engineering, 1990 *

Moshe Kam Moshe Kam (born October 3, 1955) is an American engineering educator presently serving as the dean of the Newark College of Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Until August 2014 he served as the Robert G. Quinn Professor and de ...

, electrical engineering, 1990 *

David B. Kaplan David B. Kaplan (born 1958) is an American physicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Washington, where he was director of the Institute for Nuclear Theory during the period 2006-2016 and is now a senior fellow. Research Kapl ...

, physics, 1990 *

Mehran Kardar Mehran Kardar ( fa, مهران کاردار; August 1957) is an Iranian born physicist and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute (USA). He received his ...

, physics, 1989 *

Karen Kavanagh Karen L. Kavanagh is a professor of physics at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, where she heads the Kavanagh Lab, a research lab working on semiconductor nanoscience. Education She obtained a BSc in Chemical-Physics ...

, physics, 1991 *

Susan Kidwell Susan M. Kidwell is an American paleontologist and geologist at the University of Chicago. Her research has focused on the relationships between fossil concentrations and sequence stratigraphy, experimental taphonomy, and the implications of the ...

, geology, 1986 *

Vijay Kumar (roboticist) Vijay Kumar (born 12 April 1962) is an Indian roboticist and UPS foundation professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science with secondary appointments in computer and information science and electrical and systems engineering at the ...

, 1991 *

Jacqueline Krim Jacqueline Krim is an American condensed matter physicist specializing in nanotribology, the study of film growth, friction, and wetting of nanoscale surfaces. She is a Distinguished University Professor of Physics at North Carolina State Univer ...

, materials research, 1986 *

James W. LaBelle James W. LaBelle is an American physicist. He received his B.S. from Stanford University in 1980, his M.S. from Cornell University in 1982 and his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1985. He is currently professor and former department chair in the Department ...

, physics, 1990 * Robert L. Last, plant biology, 1990 *

Edward A. Lee Edward Ashford Lee (born October 3, 1957 in Puerto Rico) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and author. He is Professor of the Graduate School and Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Electrical Engineeri ...

, electrical engineering, 1997 *

Kevin K. Lehmann Kevin K. Lehmann (born September 7, 1955, in Newark, New Jersey) is an American chemist and spectroscopist at the University of Virginia, best known for his work in the area of intramolecular and collisional dynamics, and for his advances in the me ...

, chemistry, 1985 *

Charles E. Leiserson Charles Eric Leiserson is a computer scientist, specializing in the theory of parallel computing and distributed computing, and particularly practical applications thereof. As part of this effort, he developed the Cilk multithreaded language. ...

, computer science, 1985 *

John H. Lienhard V John Henry Lienhard V (born 1961) is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on desalination, heat transfer, and thermodynamics. He has also written ...

, mechanical engineering, 1988 *

John Edwin Luecke John Edwin Luecke is an American mathematician who works in topology and knot theory. He got his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Texas at Austin and is now a professor in the department of mathematics at that institution. Work Luecke specia ...

, mathematics, 1992 *

Udi Manber Udi Manber ( he, אודי מנבר) is an Israeli computer scientist. He is one of the authors of agrep and GLIMPSE. After a career in engineering and management, he worked on medical research. Education He earned both his bachelor's degree in 1 ...

, computer science, 1985 *

Eric Mazur Eric Mazur (born November 14, 1954) is a physicist and educator at Harvard University, and an entrepreneur in technology start-ups for the educational and technology markets. Mazur's research is in experimental ultrafast optics, condensed matter p ...

, physics *

Mark McMenamin Mark A. S. McMenamin (born c. 1957) is an American paleontologist and professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College. He has contributed to the study of the Cambrian explosion and the Ediacaran biota. He is the author of several books, most ...

, geology, 1988 *

Eckart Meiburg Eckart Heinz Meiburg (born 1959) is a German-American professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Fulvio Melia Fulvio Melia (born 2 August 1956) is an Italian-American astrophysicist, cosmologist and author. He is professor of physics, astronomy and the applied math program at the University of Arizona and was a scientific editor of ''The Astrophysical J ...

, astrophysics, 1988 * Carolyn Meyers, chemical engineering *

Michael I. Miller Michael Ira Miller (born 1955) is an American-born biomedical engineer and data scientist, and the Bessie Darling Massey Professor and Director of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Biomedical Engineering. He worked with Ulf Grenander in ...

biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

Robert F. Murphy (computational biologist) Robert F. Murphy iand Director of thM.S. Program in Automated Scienceat Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his retirement in May 2021, he was the Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology as well as Professor of Biological Scien ...

, 1983 * Monica Olvera de la Cruz, Materials Physics, 1989 *

Jon Orloff Jonathan Harris Orloff (born 1942) is an American physicist, author and professor. Born in New York City, he is the eldest son of Monford Orloff and brother of pianist Carole Orloff and historian Chester Orloff. Orloff is known for his major fie ...

, physics, 1984 *

Randy Pausch Randolph Frederick Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch learn ...

, computer science *

Gregory A. Voth Gregory A. Voth (born January 22, 1959) is a theoretical chemist and Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He is also a professor of the James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysic ...

, Chemistry, 1991 * Joseph R. Pawlik, biological oceanography, 1991 *

Ken Perlin Kenneth H. Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, founding director of the Media Research Lab at NYU, director of the Future Reality Lab at NYU, and the Director of the Games for Learning Institute. He ...

, computer graphics, 1991 * Ronald T. Raines, chemical biology *

Lisa Randall Lisa Randall (born June 18, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist working in particle physics and cosmology. She is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University. Her research includes the funda ...

, theoretical physicist, 1992 *

Eric Sven Ristad The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

, artificial intelligence, 1992 *

Mark O. Robbins Mark Owen Robbins was an American condensed matter physicist who specialized in computational studies of friction, fracture and adhesion, with a particular focus on nanotribology, contact mechanics, and polymers. He was a professor in the depar ...

, Materials Research, 1985 *

Ares J. Rosakis Ares J. Rosakis, Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Caltech, California Institute of Technology. He was also the fifth Director of the GALCIT, Graduate Aerospace Laboratories, known as (G ...

, 1985 *

Karl Rubin Karl Cooper Rubin (born January 27, 1956) is an American mathematician at University of California, Irvine as Thorp Professor of Mathematics. Between 1997 and 2006, he was a professor at Stanford, and before that worked at Ohio State University b ...

, mathematics *

Rob A. Rutenbar Rob A. Rutenbar (born November 19, 1957) is an American academic noted for contributions to software tools that automate analog integrated circuit design, and custom hardware platforms for high-performance automatic speech recognition. He is Sen ...

, computer engineering, 1987 * Sunil Saigal, civil engineering, 1990 *

Peter Salovey Peter Salovey (; born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and current President of Yale University. He previously served as Yale's Provost, Dean of Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Yale College. Salovey i ...

, psychology *

Aziz Sancar Aziz Sancar (born 8September 1946) is a Turkish molecular biologist specializing in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and circadian clock. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich for t ...

, molecular biophysics, 1984 *

Robert Sapolsky Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In ad ...

, neuroendocrinology *

Terrence Sejnowski Terrence Joseph Sejnowski (born 13 August 1947) is the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he directs the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory and is the director of the Crick-Jacobs center for theoretical ...

, neuroscience, 1984 * Michael Steer, electrical engineering, 1986 * Joann Stock, earth science, 1990 * Howard A. Stone, chemical, bioengineering, environmental, and transport systems, 1989 *

Steven Strogatz Steven Henry Strogatz (), born August 13, 1959, is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his work on nonlinear systems, including contributions to the study o ...

, mathematics, 1990 *

Éva Tardos Éva Tardos (born 1 October 1957) is a Hungarian mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Tardos's research interest is algorithms. Her work focuses on the design and analysis of efficient ...

, algorithm analysis * Patricia Thiel, chemistry, 1985 *

Masaru Tomita is a Japanese molecular biologist and computer scientist, best known as the director of the E-Cell simulation environment software and/or the inventor of GLR parser algorithm.Tomita M. (1984).LR parsers for natural languages. COLING. 10th Intern ...

, 1988 * Mary K. Vernon, computer science, 1985 *

Jeffrey Vitter Jeffrey Scott Vitter is a U.S. computer scientist and academic administrator. Born in 1955 in New Orleans, Vitter has served in several senior higher education administration posts. He is a former chancellor of the University of Mississippi (O ...

, computer science, 1985 *

Margaret Werner-Washburne Margaret (Maggie) Werner-Washburne is a molecular biologist and Regents' Professor Emeritus of Biology. at the University of New Mexico. She was previously the president (2013–2015) of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and N ...

, molecular biology, 1990 *

Ellen D. Williams (scientist) Ellen D. Williams (born December 5, 1953) is an American scientist, best known for her research in surface properties and nanotechnology, for her engagement with technical issues in national security, as chief scientist of BP, and for governme ...

, materials research, 1984 *

Martin Yarmush Martin L. Yarmush (born October 8, 1952 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American scientist, physician, and engineer known for his work in biotechnology and bioengineering. After spending 4 years as a Principal Research Associate in Chemical Engineer ...

, biochemical engineering, 1988
Todd Yeates
biochemistry, 1991 *

Alex Zettl Alex Zettl is an American professor of experimental condensed-matter physics. His research involving the properties of novel materials has produced significant advances in the field. Biography Zettl received a B.A. degree from the University of ...

, physics, 1984 *

Steven Zimmerman Steven Charles Zimmerman is an American organic chemist who is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Early life and education He was born in Chicago in 1957, the second son of the organic ...

, chemistry *

Munther A. Dahleh Munther A. Dahleh (born 1962) is the William Coolidge Professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Dahleh is internatio ...

, 1991 * Yannis Ioannidis, 1991.

NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship

The NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship (PFF) program was launched by President George H.W. Bush to honor 30 young engineering and science professors. The awards were up to $100,000 per year for 5 years.

PFF recipients

David Culler David Ethan Culler (born November 12, 1959) is a computer scientist and former chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a principal investigator in the Software Defi ...

, Computer Science, 1992 * Theodore (Ted) Rappaport, Wireless Communications, 1992 * Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Electrical/Bioengineering, 1992 * Louise H. Kellogg, Geophysics, 1992

References

Federal government of the United States Science and technology awards {{Improve categories, date=January 2021

Recipients

NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship

PFF recipients

See also

References