---
title: "Leo Szilard Lectureship Award"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard_Lectureship_Award"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:24:58.603863+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Leo Szilard Lectureship Award (originally called the Leo Szilard Award) is given annually by the American Physical Society (APS) for "outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society". It is given internationally in commemoration of physicist Leo Szilard.

"In the year's of Szilard's life and activity it became clearer than ever before how great the responsibility of scientists is to the society.  And, to a large extent, it is due to Szilard that this awareness began to spread in the scientific community." - Andrei Sakharov
It is often awarded to physicists early in their careers who are active in areas such as environmental issues, arms control, or science policy. As of 2015 the recipient is given $3,000 plus $2,000 travel expenses and is expected to lecture at an APS meeting and at educational or research laboratories, to promote awareness of their activities.


== Recipients ==
The award is given yearly and was first presented in 1974.

1974 David R. Inglis
1975 Bernard T. Feld
1976 Richard Garwin
1977 not awarded
1978 Matthew Meselson
1979 Sherwood Rowland
1980 Sidney Drell
1981 Henry Way Kendall, Hans Bethe
1982 Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky
1983 Andrei Sakharov
1984 Kosta Tsipis
1985 James B. Pollack, O. Brian Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, Richard P. Turco, Carl Sagan, John W. Birks, Paul J. Crutzen
1986 Arthur Rosenfeld
1987 Thomas B. Cochran
1988 Robert H. Williams
1989 Anthony Nero
1990 Theodore Postol
1991 John H. Gibbons
1992 Kurt Gottfried
1993 Ray Kidder, Roy Woodruff
1994 Herbert York
1995 Evgeny Velikhov, Roald Sagdeev
1996 David Hafemeister
1997 Thomas L. Neff
1998 David Baird Goldstein, Howard Geller
1999 John Alexander Simpson
2000 Jeremiah David Sullivan
2001 John Harte
2002 Henry C. Kelly
2003 Robert H. Socolow
2004 Marc Ross
2005 David K. Barton, Roger Falcone, Daniel Kleppner, Frederick K. Lamb, Ming K. Lau, Harvey L. Lynch, David Moncton, David Montague, David E. Mosher, William Priedhorsky, Maury Tigner, David R. Vaughan
2006 Paul G. Richards
2007 James E. Hansen
2008 Anatoli Diyakov, Pavel Podvig
2009 Raymond Jeanloz
2010 Frank von Hippel
2011 John F. Ahearne
2012 Siegfried Hecker
2013 Geoffrey West
2014 M. V. Ramana, Ramamurti Rajaraman
2015 Ashok Gadgil
2016 Joel Primack
2017 James Timbie
2018 Edwin Stuart Lyman
2019 Zia Mian
2020 France A. Córdova
2021 Steve Fetter
2022 Michael E. Mann
2023 Laura Grego


== See also ==
David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics
List of physics awards


== References ==