At a ceremony at the White House earlier today, President Obama honored recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation—the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on our nation’s most accomplished innovators and inventors.

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was created by statute in 1980 and is administered for the White House by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The award recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the nation’s technological workforce. A distinguished independent committee representing the private and public sectors submits recommendations to the President.

“Science and technology are fundamental to solving some of our Nation’s biggest challenges,” President Obama said. “The knowledge produced by these Americans today will carry our country’s legacy of innovation forward and continue to help countless others around the world. Their work is a testament to American ingenuity.”

“From pioneering innovations in microelectronics to breakthroughs in medical technology and DNA sequencing, today’s new laureates not only reimagined the world we live in, they paved the way for other creative thinkers to build on their accomplishments through a basic compact--the U.S. patent--enshrined in our Constitution and fundamental to our nation’s economic leadership in the 21^st century,” said Michelle Lee, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO.

The new recipients and their citations are listed below. Learn more about the 2013 and 2014 laureates.

National Medal of Technology and Innovation

• Dr. Joseph DeSimone, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Carbon3D, Chapel Hill, NC
  • For pioneering innovations in material science that led to the development of technologies in diverse fields from manufacturing to medicine; and for innovative and inclusive leadership in higher education and entrepreneurship.
• Dr. Robert Fischell, University of Maryland at College Park, MD
  
  • For invention of novel medical devices used in the treatment of many illnesses thereby improving the health and saving the lives of millions of patients around the world.
• Dr. Arthur Gossard, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
  
  • For innovation, development, and application of artificially structured quantum materials critical to ultrahigh performance semiconductor device technology used in today’s digital infrastructure.
• Dr. Nancy Ho, Green Tech America, Inc. and Purdue University, IN
  
  • For the development of a yeast-based technology that is able to co-ferment sugars extracted from plants to produce ethanol, and for optimizing this technology for large-scale and cost-effective production of renewable biofuels and industrial chemicals.
• Dr. Chenming Hu, University of California, Berkeley, CA
  
  • For pioneering innovations in microelectronics including reliability technologies, the first industry-standard model for circuit design, and the first 3-dimensional transistors, which radically advanced semiconductor technology.
• Dr. Mark Humayun, University of Southern California, CA
  
  • For the invention, development, and application of bioelectronics in medicine, including a retinal prosthesis for restoring vision to the blind, thereby significantly improving patients’ quality of life.
• Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, University of Connecticut, CT
  
  • For seminal work in the engineering of musculoskeletal tissues, especially for revolutionary achievements in the design of bone matrices and ligament regeneration; and for extraordinary work in promoting diversity and excellence in science.
• Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, 4catalyzer Corporation and Yale School of Medicine, CT
  
  • For pioneering inventions and commercialization of next generation DNA sequencing technologies, making access to genomic information easier, faster, and more cost-effective for researchers around the world.