Call for Nominations: 2025 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award

February 22, 2024

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science invites nominations for the 2025 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, one of the longest running and most prestigious science and technology awards given by the U.S. government. The Lawrence Award was established in 1959 to honor the memory of the late Ernest Orlando Lawrence, who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cyclotron (a particle accelerator) and after whom two DOE national laboratories, one in Berkeley and the other in Livermore, California, are named. The Lawrence Award is presented by the Secretary of Energy to honor mid-career U.S. scientists and engineers for exceptional technical contributions and achievements in research and development supporting DOE’s mission and its programs to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States. The deadline to submit nominations is 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Thursday, May 9, 2024. To read nomination guidelines and submit a nomination, visit DOE’s Nomination & Selection Guidelines webpage.

Awards will be considered in each of the following nine categories: (1) Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences; (2) Biological and Environmental Sciences; (3) Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences; (4) Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences; (5) Energy Science and Innovation; (6) Fusion and Plasma Sciences; (7) High Energy Physics; (8) National Security and Nonproliferation; and (9) Nuclear Physics.

Nominations must include:

  • A statement summarizing the candidate’s achievements and connection to DOE support
  • Three to six letters of support
  • A curriculum vitae
  • A short bibliography

An independent panel of eminent experts will be convened by DOE to review nominations in each award category and inform award recommendation(s) submitted to the Secretary of Energy.

Final award selections are made by the Secretary of Energy. Each Lawrence Award category award winner receives a citation signed by the Secretary, a gold-plated medal bearing the likeness of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, and a $20,000 honorarium. In the event the award is given to more than one individual within an award category, the recipients share the honorarium equally.

For questions, please contact Kaitlyn (Katie) Schroeder-Spain, Lawrence Award Program Manager, at SCLawrence.Award@science.doe.gov.