For pioneering research in disturbance and landscape ecology and in modeling of land-use change with its implications for global changes, which have influenced environmental decision making on a worldwide scale.
For internationally recognized contributions in distributed and cluster computing, including the development of the Parallel Virtual Machine and the Message Passing Interface standard now widely used in science to solve computational problems in biology, physics, chemistry, and materials science.
For forefront studies of the fundamental science of actinide elements, through mendelevium, which employ novel experimental techniques, make systematic comparisons, and emphasize the role of the elements' electronic configurations.
For contributions to advanced control systems for nuclear reactor, including development of control-system and plant protection technologies that permit automated start-up and operation; and to analysis techniques that have led to better understanding of reactor dynamics.
For contributions to understanding plasma turbulence and the nonlinear properties of magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, especially their role in explaining the behavior of magnetically confined plasmas, and for development of new magnetic confinement concepts that overcome these limitations.
For theoretical research on the electronic and vibronic structures and optical properties of defects in ionic crystals, and for work at the forefront of the rapidly developing field of laser annealing of semiconductors, leading to advances in the photovoltaic conversion of solar energy.