---
title: "Presidential Young Investigator Award"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Young_Investigator_Award"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:10:39.540671+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Presidential Young Investigator Award (PYI) was awarded by the National Science Foundation of the United States Federal Government. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator (NYI) Awards and Presidential Faculty Fellows (PFF) program. In 1995, the NSF Young Investigator program was subsumed into the NSF CAREER Awards program, and in 1996, the Presidential Faculty Fellows program was replaced by the PECASE program.
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.
Frances Arnold, winner of this award in 1989, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.


== Recipients ==
PYI award recipients include:

Ahsan Kareem, Structural Engineering, 1984
Narendra Ahuja, computer science, 1984
Alice Agogino, engineering, 1985
Judith Curry, meteorological science, 1988
Paul Alivisatos, chemistry, 1991
Peter B. Armentrout, chemistry, 1984
David P. Anderson, computer science
Frances Arnold, 1989
Kenneth Balkus, chemistry, 1991
Prithviraj Banerjee, computer systems architecture, 1987
Paul F. Barbara, chemistry, 1984
Christoph Beckermann, mechanical engineering, 1989
Mary Beckman, linguistics, 1988
Mladen Bestvina, mathematics, 1988
Sanjay Banerjee, electrical engineering, 1988
Robert Bryant, mathematics, 1984
Stephen Z. D. Cheng, polymer science, 1991
Paul Alan Cox, evolutionary ecology and ethnobotany, 1985
Judith Curry, climate science, 1988
Supriyo Datta, electrical engineering, 1984
Rina Dechter, computer science, 1991
Chris Q. Doe, biology, 1990
Bruce Donald, computational biology, 1989
David L. Donoho, statistics, 1985
Lin Fanghua, mathematics, 1989
Juli Feigon, biochemistry, 1989
Eric Fossum, electrical engineering, 1986
Jennifer Freyd, psychology
Elaine Fuchs, cell biology, 1984
Gerald Fuller, chemical engineering
Huajian Gao, materials science
Mark S. Ghiorso, geological sciences, 1985
Leslie Greengard, advanced comp research program and computational mathematics, 1990
Bruce Hajek, 1984
John L. Hennessy, computer science, 1984
Jacqueline Hewitt, physics, 1991
David Hillis, evolutionary biology, 1987
John M. Hollerbach, haptics and tactile perception, 1984
Kathleen Howell, astronomy, 1984
Ellen Hildreth, computer vision, 1987
Paul Hudak, computer science, 1985
Nan Marie Jokerst, electrical engineering, 1990
Moshe Kam, electrical engineering, 1990
David B. Kaplan, physics, 1990
Mehran Kardar, physics, 1989
Karen Kavanagh, physics, 1991
Susan Kidwell, geology, 1986
Sangtae Kim, chemical engineering, 1985
Vijay Kumar (roboticist), 1991
Jacqueline Krim, materials research, 1986
James W. LaBelle, physics, 1990
Robert L. Last, plant biology, 1990
Edward A. Lee, electrical engineering, 1997
Kevin K. Lehmann, chemistry, 1985
Charles E. Leiserson, computer science, 1985
Marc Levoy, 1991
Nathan Lewis, analytical and surface chemistry, 1988
Kenneth Libbrecht, solar astrophysics, 1987
John H. Lienhard V, mechanical engineering, 1988
Udi Manber, computer science, 1985
Eric Mazur, physics
Mark McMenamin, geology, 1988
Eckart Meiburg, mechanical engineering, 1990
Fulvio Melia, astrophysics, 1988
Carolyn Meyers, chemical engineering
Michael I. Miller, biomedical engineering
Robert F. Murphy (computational biologist), 1983
Monica Olvera de la Cruz, materials physics, 1989
Jon Orloff, physics, 1984
Randy Pausch, computer science
Gregory A. Voth, chemistry, 1991
Joseph R. Pawlik, biological oceanography, 1991
Ken Perlin, computer graphics, 1991
Ronald T. Raines, chemical biology
Mark O. Robbins, materials research, 1985
Ares J. Rosakis, 1985
Karl Rubin, mathematics
Rob A. Rutenbar, computer engineering, 1987
Sunil Saigal, civil engineering, 1990
Peter Salovey, psychology, 1990
Aziz Sancar, molecular biophysics, 1984
Robert Sapolsky, neuroendocrinology
Terrence Sejnowski, neuroscience, 1984
Michael Steer, electrical engineering, 1986
Joann Stock, earth science, 1990
Howard A. Stone, chemical, bioengineering, environmental, and transport systems, 1989
Steven Strogatz, mathematics, 1990
Éva Tardos, algorithm analysis
Patricia Thiel, chemistry, 1985
Masaru Tomita, computational biology, 1988
Kerry Vahala, materials research, 1988
Mary K. Vernon, computer science, 1985
Jeffrey Vitter, computer science, 1985
Margaret Werner-Washburne, molecular biology, 1990
Ellen D. Williams (scientist), materials research, 1984
Martin Yarmush, biochemical engineering, 1988
Todd Yeates, biochemistry, 1991
Alex Zettl, physics, 1984
Steven Zimmerman, chemistry
Munther A. Dahleh, 1991
Mamidala Ramulu, mechanical engineering, 1991
Jose A. Ventura, industrial engineering, 1990
Avideh Zakhor, electrical engineering, 1990


== NSF Young Investigator Program ==
In 1991, the NSF renamed the Presidential Young Investigator Program as the NSF Young Investigator Program, to reflect more accurately the level of prestige of the award—the term "Presidential" should be reserved for awards more prestigious.


== NSF Young Investigator recipients ==
Jonathan Block, mathematics, 1993
Rogers Brubaker, sociology, 1994
Alyssa A. Goodman, astronomy, 1994
Christopher R. Johnson, computer graphics and visualization, 1994
John Edwin Luecke, mathematics, 1992
Lisa Randall, theoretical physicist, 1992
Eric Sven Ristad, artificial intelligence, 1992
Cynthia F. Moss, 1992


== 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 ==
Here are some recipients of the Presidential Faculty Fellowship.

David Culler, Computer Science, 1992
Lance Fortnow, Computer Science, 1992
Theodore (Ted) Rappaport, Wireless Communications, 1992
Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Electrical/Bioengineering, 1992
Louise H. Kellogg, Geophysics, 1992
Jerry L. Prince, Biology, 1993
Thomas E. Anderson, Computer Science, 1994
Gregory Chirikjian, Mechanical Engineering, 1994
Andrew Granville, Mathematics, 1994
Leslie Kaelbling, Computer Science, 1994
Jennifer A. Lewis, Materials Science, 1994
Alan Willner, Electrical Engineering, 1994
Ken Goldberg, Computer Sciences/Robotics, 1995
Christopher R. Johnson, Computer Sciences, 1995


== See also ==
PECASE


== References ==