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Through its board of trustees and prizes and awards committee, the Museum of Science presents the Bradford Washburn Award annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution toward public understanding and appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in our lives.
Established in 1964 with a trustee’s anonymous gift, the Bradford Washburn Award is the highest honor the Museum bestows. Brad Washburn was not only the visionary director of this great institution for 40 years, he was also an explorer, cartographer, photographer, and a passionate defender of the environment. The Washburn Award has been bestowed on individuals who embody Brad’s spirit of adventure and his ability to translate and interpret science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for the public.
The Museum presents each awardee with a reception, an honorarium, and an embossed golden medal that depicts a youth at the pinnacle of a mountain, eyes turned upward, seeking still a higher prize. It symbolizes the spirit of attainment, as well as the quest for perfection.
An American engineer, retired astronaut, and naval aviator.
Author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race
Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley
Founder of Khan Academy
Founding director and the chief strategist of Partners In Health
Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Inventor of the World Wide Web
Founder of Bloomberg LP & Bloomberg Philanthropies, 108th Mayor of New York City
Creator, curator, and chair of TED from 1984 through 2002
NASA Commander, Apollo 11 (received posthumously)
Co-hosts of Discovery Channel's MythBusters
Explorer, environmentalist, educator, oceanographer, and filmmaker
Surgeon, professor, author, New Yorker staff writer
Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times columnist
Frederick P. Rose Director, Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History; television host, NOVA scienceNOW
Author, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster
Inventor
Physicist
Television host, Scientific American Frontiers
Large-format filmmaker
Author
Author, television and radio producer and host
Cofounder and director, MIT Media Lab
ABC Medical Editor
Psychologist, author, science journalist
Evolutionary biologist, entomologist
Sea explorer, conservationist
Journalist, film producer
Writer, illustrator
First American woman in space
Former surgeon general of the United States
Director, Royal Geographical Society
No award presented
Teacher, researcher, aerospace engineer
Director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
First to break the sound barrier
Harvard professor of geology and curator of invertebrate paleontology, Museum of Comparative Zoology
Filmmaker
Student of prehistoric navigation
Artist, teacher, ornithologist
Paleoanthropologist
Science Editor, National Geographic Magazine
Science author
Author and professor of astronomy and space sciences, Cornell University
Science and science-fiction writer
Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health
Wildlife researcher, primatologist
Nature photographer
Professor of biology, Rockefeller University, New York
Science Editor, The New York Times
Senior CBS News correspondent
Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England
Professor of biology, Harvard University
Rear Admiral, USNR (Retired)
Publisher, Scientific American
Director, Institut Oceanographique et Musee, Monaco
President, National Geographic Society
