Sidney Drell, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and deputy director emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is one of five recipients of the Heinz Family Foundation's $250,000 Heinz Awards for his efforts to limit "the threat of nuclear annihilation while assuring our nation's adequate defense."
Drell is a noted Bay Area physicist, arms control advocate and veteran consultant on scientific and intelligence matters to the U.S. government.
He is the co author of The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons with James E. Goodby (Hoover Press, 2003) and co-editor of The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons, with Hoover senior fellow Abraham Sofaer and George D. Wilson (Hoover Press, 1999).
Since 1994, the Heinz Awards have been presented annually by the Heinz Family Foundation of Pittsburgh.
"Over the past 40 years, Dr. Drell has advised numerous administrations and congressional panels, impacting countless national defense decisions and, ultimately, making the world a safer place," a statement from the foundation said.
"He fixed bugs in the nation's first photoreconnaissance satellite, led studies that provided a scientific basis for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and has worked on many technical issues related to U.S. national security as a member of Jason, a prestigious advisory panel of academic scientists," the statement noted.
This year's recipients included the sculptor Mark di Suvero of New York City, forest ecologist Jerry Franklin of Seattle, mental health expert Joseph Rogers of Philadelphia, and scientist-educator Mildred Dresselhaus of Cambridge, Mass.
The foundation's "Chairman's Medal" was awarded this year to San Francisco philanthropist Richard Goldman. In 1990, Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda, started the Goldman Environmental Prize, which has been dubbed the "Green Nobel Prize."
The full release on the award may be viewed at: http://www.heinzawards.net/articleDetail.asp?articleID=181
