2024 Kavli Prize Winners Announced in Science Fields

June 15, 2024

The 2024 Kavli Prize winners were announced, honoring great work in neuroscience, astrophysics, and nanoscience. Eight well-known scholars from well-known American colleges were recognized for their groundbreaking work in these areas.

Origins of The Prize

A Norwegian-American businessman and philanthropist named Fred Kavli created the Kavli Prize because he wanted to support scientific study that could make people’s lives better. After getting $340 million for his company Kavlico in 2000, Kavli started The Kavli Foundation. The foundation’s main goal is to advance science for the good of all people. It also works to help people understand and support experts and their work.

Significance and Structure of the Prize

The Kavli Prize is similar to the Nobel Prize in some ways, but it has a wider scope. It recognizes great scientific achievements without the time limits set by Alfred Nobel’s will. Winners get a medal, a scroll, and $1 million in each field every two years. The event is even more grand than the Nobel Prize ceremony, with a red carpet and including members of the Norwegian Royal Family.

2024 Kavli Prize Winners

ASTROPHYSICS: David Charbonneau and Sara Seager were given awards for their groundbreaking work in finding exoplanets and figuring out what their atmospheres are like. Their methods have made it easier to look for life in galaxies other than our own.
NANOSCIENCE: Robert Langer, Armand Paul Alivisatos, and Chad Mirkin were honored for making important contributions to nanotechnology. Langer’s work on nanoengineering materials for drug delivery systems, Alivisatos’s creation of quantum dots for bioimaging, and Mirkin’s work on sphere nucleic acids all show how nanoscience has changed medicine and technology.
NEUROSCIENCE: Nancy Kanwisher, Winrich Freiwald, and Doris Tsao made big steps toward understanding how facial recognition works in the brain. This gave scientists new information about how the brain works and how we think.

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