The IRI Medal, established by the

Industrial Research Institute Innovation Research Interchange (IRI) is a division of the National Association of Manufacturers, a nonprofit association based in Washington, D. C., United States. IRI was founded as a private non-profit in 1938 and merged with the NAM in 2022. IR ...

(IRI) in 1946, recognizes and honors leaders of technology for their outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation which contribute broadly to the development of industry and to the benefit of society. One side of the medal depicts a scientist peering into a microscope as a symbol of the never-ending quest for innovation; a pegasus running in the background as a symbol of imagination; and clouds issuing from a retort revealing the practical results of humanity's ability to harness natural forces to meet its needs. The reverse side of the medal is an adaptation of the official seal of the Institute. This award is traditionally presented each spring at the IRI Annual Meeting alongside the

IRI Achievement Award The IRI Achievement Award, established by the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) in 1973, is awarded "to honor outstanding accomplishment in individual creativity and innovation that contributes broadly to the development of industry and to the be ...

List of recipients

* 1946:

Willis R. Whitney Willis Rodney Whitney (August 22, 1868 – January 9, 1958) was an American chemist and founder of the research laboratory of the General Electric Company. He is known as the "father of industrial research" in the United States for blending the w ...

(

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

) * 1947: Charles A. Thomas (

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in th ...

) * 1948:

Games Slayter Games Slayter (9 December 1896 – 15 October 1964) was a prolific U.S. engineer and inventor. He is best known for developing fiberglass, starting with a new method of producing glass wool in 1933. Biography Slayter was born in Argos, Ind ...

(

Owens Corning Owens Corning is an American company that develops and produces insulation, roofing, and fiberglass composites and related materials and products. It is the world's largest manufacturer of fiberglass composites. It was formed in 1935 as a partn ...

) * 1949:

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...

( Office of Scientific R&D) * 1950:

Frank B. Jewett Frank Baldwin Jewett (; September 5, 1879 – November 18, 1949) worked as an engineer for American Telegraph and Telephone where his work demonstrated transatlantic radio telephony using a vacuum-tube transmitter. He was also a physicist and ...

(

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

) * 1951: Randolph T. Major (

Merck Merck refers primarily to the German Merck family and three companies founded by the family, including: * the Merck Group, a German chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company founded in 1668 ** Merck Serono (known as EMD Serono in the Unite ...

) * 1952: Roy C. Newton (

Swift & Company JBS USA Holdings, Inc. is an American food processing company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational company JBS S.A. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company. JBS speci ...

) * 1953: Eger V. Murphree ( Standard Oil of N.J.) * 1954: Mervin J. Kelly (Bell Labs) * 1955:

Ernest H. Volwiler Ernest Henry Volwiler (August 22, 1893 – October 3, 1992) was an American chemist. He spent his career at Abbott Laboratories working his way from staff chemist to CEO. He was a pioneer in the field of anesthetic pharmacology, assisting in th ...

(

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

) * 1956: Victor Conquest (

Armour Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

) * 1957: Clifford F. Rassweiler (

Johns Manville Johns Manville is an American company based in Denver, Colorado, that manufactures insulation, roofing materials and engineered products. For much of the 20th century, the then-titled Johns-Manville Corporation was the global leader in the ma ...

) * 1958: Elmer W. Engstrom (

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

) * 1959: Frank K. Schoenfeld (

BFGoodrich BFGoodrich is an American tire company. Originally part of the industrial conglomerate Goodrich Corporation, it was acquired in 1990 (along with Uniroyal, then The Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company) by the French tire maker Michelin. BFGoodrich ...

) * 1960: Augustus B. Kinzel (

Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befor ...

) * 1961:

Max Tishler Max Tishler (October 30, 1906 – March 18, 1989) was president of Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories where he led the research teams that synthesized ascorbic acid, riboflavin, cortisone, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid, nicotinamide, ...

(Merck) * 1962: Chauncey G. Suits (General Electric) * 1963: James B. Fisk (Bell Labs) * 1964: Ray H. Boundy ( Dow Chemical) * 1965:

Edwin H. Land Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an Russian-American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a ...

(

Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...

) * 1966: Paul L. Salzberg (

DuPont Central Research In 1957, the research organization of the Chemicals Department of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company was renamed Central Research Department, beginning the history of the premier scientific organization within DuPont and one of the foremost indus ...

) * 1967: Emanuel R. Piore ( IBM) * 1968: John H. Dessauer (

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

) * 1969: Patrick E. Haggerty (

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

) * 1970: William O. Baker (Bell Labs) * 1971:

Henri G. Busignies Henri Gaston Busignies (29 December 1905 – 20 June 1981) was an electrical engineer who made major contributions to radar, radio communication, and radio navigation. He held 140 patents, many of them secret. Biography Busignies became intereste ...

( International Telephone & Telegraph) * 1972: Peter C. Goldmark (Goldmark Communications) * 1973: William E. Shoupp ( Westinghouse) * 1974: Robert W. Cairns (

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

) * 1975:

James Hillier James Hillier, (August 22, 1915 – January 15, 2007) was a Canadian-American scientist and inventor who designed and built, with Albert Prebus, the first successful high-resolution electron microscope in North America in 1938. Biography B ...

(RCA) * 1976: Hendrik B. G. Casimir ( N.V. Philips) * 1977: John J. Burns (

Hoffman-La Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX S ...

) * 1978: Malcolm E. Pruitt (Dow Chemical) * 1979: Arthur M. Bueche (General Electric) * 1980: Lewis H. Sarett (Merck) * 1981: William H. Armistead (Corning) * 1982: N. Bruce Hannay (Bell Labs) * 1983: Edward E. David Jr. ( Exxon R&E) * 1984: Harry W. Coover (

Eastman Chemical Eastman Chemical Company is an American company primarily involved in the chemical industry. Once a subsidiary of Kodak, today it is an independent global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of advanced materials, chemicals and ...

) * 1985:

Ralph E. Gomory Ralph Edward Gomory (born May 7, 1929) is an American applied mathematician and executive. Gomory worked at IBM as a researcher and later as an executive. During that time, his research led to the creation of new areas of applied mathematics. ...

(IBM) * 1986: George E. Pake (Xerox) * 1987: Ian M. Ross (Bell Labs) * 1988: Abraham B. Cohen (DuPont) * 1989: Roland W. Schmitt (General Electric) * 1990: Edward Scolnick (Merck) * 1991:

Mary L. Good Mary Lowe Good (June 20, 1931 – November 20, 2019) was an American inorganic chemist who worked academically, in industrial research and in government. Good contributed to the understanding of catalysts such as ruthenium which activate or speed ...

(

AlliedSignal AlliedSignal was an American aerospace, automotive and engineering company created through the 1985 merger of Allied Corp. and Signal Companies. It subsequently purchased Honeywell for $14.8 billion in 1999, and thereafter adopted the Honeywell n ...

) * 1992: John S. Mayo (Bell Labs) * 1993: George H. Heilmeier (

Bellcore iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

) * 1994: Walter L. Robb (General Electric) * 1995: John J. Wise (

Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...

) * 1996:

Robert A. Frosch Robert Alan Frosch FREng (May 22, 1928 – December 30, 2020) was an American scientist who was the fifth administrator of NASA. He was the administrator from 1977 to 1981 during the Carter administration. Biography Born in New York City, Fro ...

(General Motors) * 1997: Donald E. Elson (

Black & Decker Black+Decker Inc. is an American manufacturer of power tools, accessories, hardware, home improvement products, home appliances and fastening systems headquartered in Towson, Maryland, north of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where the company was o ...

) * 1998: Arno A. Penzias (Bell Labs/Lucent) * 1999:

John Seely Brown John Seely Brown (born 1940), also known as "JSB", is an American researcher who specializes in organizational studies with a particular bend towards the organizational implications of computer-supported activities. Brown served as Director of Xer ...

(Xerox) * 2000: Gordon F. Brunner (

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...

) * 2001: Philip Needleman (

Pharmacia Pharmacia was a pharmaceutical and biotechnological company in Sweden that merged with the American pharmaceutical company Upjohn in 1995. History Pharmacia company was founded in 1911 in Stockholm, Sweden by pharmacist Gustav Felix Grönfeldt ...

) * 2002: Charles W. Deneka (Corning) * 2003: Lewis S. Edelheit (General Electric) * 2004: John W. Miley (

Milliken & Company Milliken & Company is an American industrial manufacturer that has been in business since 1865. With corporate headquarters located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the company is active across a breadth of disciplines including specialty chemica ...

) * 2005: Paul M. Horn (IBM) * 2006: David O. Swain (

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

) * 2007: Nabil Y. Sakkab (Procter & Gamble) * 2008:

Ralph Snyderman Ralph Snyderman is a Chancellor Emeritus at Duke University, James B. Duke Professor of Medicine, and Executive Director of the Duke Center for Personalized Health Care. He served as chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medic ...

(

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

& Proventys, Inc.) * 2009:

Norman R. Augustine Norman (Norm) Ralph Augustine (born July 27, 1935) is a U.S. aerospace businessman who served as United States Under Secretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977. Augustine served as chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. He was chair ...

(

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

) * 2010: Nicholas M. Donofrio (IBM) * 2011:

Uma Chowdhry Uma Chowdhry is an American chemist whose career has been spent in research and management positions with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. She has specialized in the science of ceramic materials, including catalysts, proton conductors, ...

(DuPont) * 2012: F. Emil Jacobs, (

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

) * 2013: Robert S. Langer, (

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

), and

George M. Whitesides George McClelland Whitesides (born August 3, 1939) is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecu ...

, (

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

) * 2014:

Joseph DeSimone Joseph M. DeSimone (born May 16, 1964) is an American chemist, inventor, and entrepreneur who has co-founded companies based on his research, including the American 3D printing technology company, Carbon, of which he was CEO from 2014 until No ...

, ( UNC) * 2015: Subra Suresh (

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

) * 2016: Peter H. Diamandis (XPRIZE Foundation) and Vinton G. Cerf (Google) * 2017

Joi Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Ito has ...

(Director,

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

) and Henry Chesbrough * 2018:

Yann LeCun Yann André LeCun ( , ; originally spelled Le Cun; born 8 July 1960) is a French computer scientist working primarily in the fields of machine learning, computer vision, mobile robotics and computational neuroscience. He is the Silver Professor ...

* 2019:

Leroy Hood Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood (born October 10, 1938) is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Washington. Hood has developed ground-breaking scientific instrum ...

* 2020:

David Wineland David Jeffrey Wineland (born February 24, 1944) is an American Nobel-laureate physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physics laboratory. His work has included advances in optics, specifically laser-cooling trap ...

* 2021:

Demis Hassabis Demis Hassabis (born 27 July 1976) is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur. In his early career he was a video game AI programmer and designer, and an expert player of board games. He is the chief executive officer and ...

(CEO of DeepMind)IRI Medal 2018-2021
/ref>

References

{{reflist, refs=33
ExxonMobil's Dr. F. Emil Jacobs receives 2012 IRI Medal
l, Industrial Research Institute, May 10, 2012

External links

Industrial Research Institute, Inc. (IRI)

IRI Medal
Science and technology awards

List of recipients

See also

References

External links