Climate Change Awards – William Happer

2015 Winner of the Frederick Seitz Memorial Award

William Happer, Ph.D. is a physicist who has specialized in the interaction of atoms and nuclei with radiation. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett professor of physics (emeritus) at Princeton University and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group, where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics and invented the sodium guide star to eliminate astronomical imaging blurring due to atmospheric turbulence. He was director of the Office of Energy Research at the U.S. Department of Energy from 1991 to 1993.

Happer has been an active and influential writer and speaker on the global warming issue. He is a fellow at the American Physical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he’s a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Philosophical Society. He received an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship in 1966, an Alexander von Humboldt award in 1976, the Herbert P. Broida Prize in 1997, the Davisson-Germer Prize, and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award in 2000.

It is with great pleasure the Science and Environmental Policy Project presented Dr. Will Happer with the 2015 Frederick Seitz Memorial Award.

The Frederick Seitz Memorial Award was created to recognize the unsung heroes of the climate wars. It rewards scholars for having the courage to “swim against the tide” of conventional thinking despite the financial and professional disincentives. It seeks to make up, in some small way, for the denial of recognition, promotions, and honors by a politicized and increasingly bureaucratized academy. The award is presented every year to an individual who has a strong sense of commitment to truth and integrity in science.

The Award recipient is selected by a nominating committee created by Dr. Fred Singer to honor his late friend and to recognize the accomplishments of his fellow scientists. Dr. William Happer, professor of physics at Princeton University, and Dr. Willie H. Soon, an astrophysicist, have agreed to serve on the committee. Dr. Singer is personally contributing and soliciting contributions to be used to provide a stipend or financial award to accompany the award.

Dr. Frederick Seitz epitomized the courage, independence of thought, and commitment to truth and integrity in science that all scientists should aspire to. He made major scientific contributions in his field of specialty, solid state physics, but also devoted much of his life to serving as an ambassador and advocate for science. Among his many titles, he was president of Rockefeller University (1968-1978), president of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1962–1969), president of the American Physical Society, founder of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and chairman of the Science and Environmental Policy Project.