Nomination & Selection Guidelines

The 2014 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award Nomination Guidelines

The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award is bestowed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy to mid-career scientists and engineers in recognition of exceptional scientific, technical, and/or engineering achievements related to the broad missions of the U.S. Department of Energy and its programs. The Lawrence Award is administered by the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The objectives of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Awards are:

To encourage excellence in energy science and technology;

To inspire people to dedicate their lives and talents to scientific and technological effort, through the examples of Ernest O. Lawrence and the Lawrence Award laureates; and

To highlight for the general public the accomplishments of the U.S. scientific and technological communities associated with the U.S. Department of Energy.

Guidelines

Nominations for the Lawrence Award are solicited annually in each of the following eight categories:

Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences

Biological and Environmental Sciences

Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences

Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences

Energy Science and Innovation

Fusion and Plasma Sciences

High Energy and Nuclear Physics

National Security and Nonproliferation

The nomination materials will be peer reviewed by panels representing each of the above eight categories. If worthy candidates are identified in the peer review, a selection recommendation will be forwarded to the Secretary of Energy. The final selection of any awardees is made at the discretion of the Secretary of Energy.
Eligibility for the Lawrence Award requires that all recipients:

Be in the middle of their careers, defined as within 20 years of earning their highest degree*;

Be citizens of the United States;

Be recognized for achievement in research principally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy; and

Be assessed primarily on the scientific impact and technical significance of their work relative to its discipline and/or related mission. (Business management and stewardship acumen, while valued, is not a significant qualification factor used when evaluating a nominee’s worthiness.)

* Eligibility for the 2014 Lawrence Award requires a nominee to have had their highest earned degree conferred in 1994, or later.

Each Lawrence Award category award laureate receives:

A citation signed by the Secretary of Energy;

A gold-plated medal bearing the likeness of Ernest O. Lawrence; and

A $20,000 honorarium.

The award shall ordinarily be bestowed to one person, but may be shared if (i) the nominees sharing the award worked on the identical accomplishment and, (ii) the nominees sharing the award contributed equally to the accomplishment. If there are co-winners within a category, its honorarium is shared equally.

Nomination

Nomination is made by a letter of justification, a statement explaining the nominee’s connection to DOE support, a separate bibliography comprising no more than five significant publications related to the achievement*, a curriculum vitae, at least three and no more than six letters of support, and a suggested citation. While the prize shall ordinarily be awarded to one person, it but may be shared if (i) the nominees sharing the award worked on the identical accomplishment and, (ii) the nominees sharing the award contributed equally to the accomplishment. Shared nominations must be indicated and justified at the time of submission.

Past nominations are active through three review cycles, provided that the nominee continues to fulfill all eligibility requirements (including the mid-career requirement). Active nominations may be updated when the solicitation is open. If the nominee has not been selected after the third review cycle, a new nomination may be submitted, providing that the nominee remains eligible. A new user account is required for each award cycle (year), to either create a new nomination, or to update a prior cycle active nomination. For either case, please establish an account, and follow the guidance provided on the nomination system web pages (http://www.orau.gov/lawrence/).

Submission of all nomination materials, including letters of support, in PDF format, is made online at http://www.orau.gov/lawrence/. The online nomination system will request input or uploading of all required nomination materials, which include:

A letter of justification.

Identifying the award category of the nominee (Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences; Biological and Environmental Sciences; Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences; Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences; Energy Science and Innovation; Fusion and Plasma Sciences; High Energy and Nuclear Physics; or National Security and Nonproliferation).

Please note that an individual’s nomination is limited to a single category.

A statement explaining the nominee’s connection to DOE support.

Curriculum vitae.

A bibliography of no more than five significant publications* related to the achievement.

At least three and not more than six letters of support from individuals familiar with the work.

A suggested citation, thirty-five words or less, summarizing and highlighting the nominee’s achievement. The citation should make clear the specific reason for making this award to the nominee. The award citation may be based on this summary.

*Please omit any secondary publications and non-archival materials from the nominee’s bibliography and do not include complete articles as part of the nomination.

Nomination Deadline

All nomination materials and support letters for the 2014 E. O. Lawrence Award must be received by July 31, 2014, 5:00 PM, ET. No materials will be accepted after the submission deadline has passed.

Lawrence Award Category Descriptions

The Lawrence Award category descriptions are intended to help guide the nominator when submitting a nomination. Please submit nominations to the category deemed most appropriate, noting that this choice is made at the sole discretion of the nominator(s). Please note that an individual’s nomination is limited to a single category and that eligibility for the award requires that the research achievement justifying a nomination must be shown to have been principally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments advancing the foundations for fundamental understanding and control, at the level of atoms and electrons, of chemical transformations and energy flow in systems relevant to the missions of the Department of Energy. Advancement in these areas helps provide a basis for the development of new processes for the generation, storage, and use of energy and for mitigation of the environmental impacts of energy use. Appropriate research accomplishments broadly recognized under this award category include the interactions of atoms, molecules, and ions with photons and electrons; the making and breaking of chemical bonds in the gas phase, in solutions, at interfaces, and on surfaces; and understanding the energy transfer processes within and between molecules. Hence appropriate topical nominations may include, but are not limited to, atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) sciences; chemical physics; radiation chemistry; organic and inorganic photochemistry including solar photochemistry; photo-induced electron and energy transfer; photoelectrochemistry; molecular assemblies for artificial photosynthesis; surface and interfacial chemistry; organometallic chemistry; mechanisms of heterogeneous, homogeneous, and bio- catalysis; analytical, imaging, and separation science; heavy element chemistry; areas of nanoscience; theory, modeling, and computational simulations of chemical properties and reactivity; and aspects of chemical engineering sciences; etc..

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Biological and Environmental Sciences

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments advancing fundamental research and technology development to achieve a predictive, systems-level understanding of complex biological systems to advance DOE missions in energy, climate, and environment. Breakthroughs in genome-enabled biology; discoveries in the physical, chemical and biological drivers of climate change; in the geophysical, geochemical, hydrological, and biological determinants of environmental sustainability and stewardship to understand and predict the complex interactions of energy development with climate; in detecting, measuring, quantifying, and predicting climate change, carbon, and water cycles; and in transformational science to understand and minimize the environmental footprint of the Department’s missions, are all encouraged in this category. The topical research areas are widespread, and include bioenergy; cellulosic biofuels; carbon capture; cycling and biosequestration; biogeochemistry; green chemistries; global warming; physical biosciences, use of genomics and systems biology to understand plants and microbes; geochemical processes including aqueous solution chemistry, mineral-fluid interactions, and isotopic distributions and migration in natural systems; geophysical research to understand the subsurface physical properties of fluids, rocks, minerals, and wave propagation physics in complex media and the fluid dynamics of complex fluids through porous and fractured subsurface rock units; geochemical processes including aqueous solution chemistry, mineral-fluid interactions, and isotopic distributions and migration in natural systems; as well as combining experimental and computational tools from the physical sciences with biochemistry and molecular biology; etc.. It also recognizes research achievement advancing predictive, systems-level understanding of the fundamental science associated with climate change, ecosystem response to climate change, and contaminant fate and transport in the subsurface associated with DOE’s environmental challenges. This could include research accomplishments ranging from molecular to field scale studies, or involve the use of advanced computer models and multidisciplinary experimentation, all to resolve the greatest uncertainties in climate change, improve the world’s most powerful climate models, understand carbon cycling in terrestrial systems, and provide the science to inform environmental remediation strategies.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments advancing the development of breakthrough mathematics, computer science, and underlying technologies required to extract information, knowledge, and insight from data. These investments support development of theoretical, algorithmic, mathematical, and computational tools to build solid foundations for computer, information, and knowledge sciences. Advances in these areas underpin the ability to computationally model theoretical concepts, simulate physical systems and phenomena, and define the state-of-the-art in understanding how knowledge is most effectively represented, organized, retrieved, and utilized. Ultimately such tools will help enable new scientific and technological discovery linking across length and time scales, serve to robustly join experiment with theory and simulation, and provide pathways towards multi-scale, predictive understanding required to advance many missions of DOE supported research and development. Appropriate topical nominations may include, but are not limited to, data intensive computing including programming paradigms, advanced architectures, visualization tools, software, codes, and algorithms to extract information from data and provide scientific insight; inference and prediction of large-scale, complex systems including data assimilation, uncertainty quantification, statistics, and machine learning; quantum information techniques and technology for computation and simulation including the design and implementation of quantum information processing architectures, devising and analyzing new quantum algorithms, or researching fundamental aspects of quantum computing and quantum communication; next-generation networking to support diverse types of distributed computational activities and to facilitate world-wide scientific collaboration; and computing in extreme environments including exascale computing and the associated issues of computing at scale, such as fault tolerance, resilience, system design, programming environments, methodologies for performance analysis and prediction, communications, storage, efficiency, and retrieval as well as highly complex system interactions that challenge computational capability in extreme environments.

Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments to probe, understand, and control the interactions of phonons, photons, electrons, and ions with condensed matter as a means to understand and control energy flow in materials over multiple time and length scales. It also recognizes research advancing fundamental atomistic understanding of macroscopic behavior to make materials perform better through innovative design, synthesis, and processing. DOE mission areas impacted through basic science achievement in these areas include the discovery, development, and implementation of materials that improve the efficiency, economy, environmental acceptability, and safety in energy generation, conversion, transmission, and utilization. Nominations may come from the condensed matter physics, materials sciences, or related engineering communities, and includes relevant areas of nanoscience. This award category includes, but is not limited to, topics in condensed matter and materials sciences focused on the control and discovery of materials properties made through exploration of co-operative and correlation effects leading to emergent behavior, new particles, new phases of matter, or unexpected phenomena. It also includes fundamental research in the design, synthesis, and discovery of materials and material constructs with novel functionalities, performance, and properties, the development of innovative materials synthesis and processing methods, nanoscale synthesis, organization of nanostructures into macroscopic structures, solid state chemistry, polymers and polymer composites, solid state catalysts, and synthesis and processing science including biomimetic and bioinspired routes to functional materials and complex structures. Other areas where accomplishments are recognized in this award category involve basic research activities in scattering and instrumentation sciences, which encompass materials exploration and characterization using advanced electron, ion, neutron, and x-ray scattering capabilities to reveal atomic, electronic, and magnetic excitations and structures. Accomplishments leading to fundamental understanding relating structures and excitations to the physical properties of materials at their characteristic time and length scales are encouraged. Related topical research areas include, but are not limited to, studies to advance predictive understanding of condensed matter and materials through investigation of the properties of formed phases or structures, determination of reactivity, examination of fundamental mechanisms of damage, probing atomistic response from equilibrium or under extreme conditions, etc..

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Energy Science and Innovation

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s investments in “use inspired” scientific research to develop new understanding, methodologies, and materials required to advance, promote, and enable energy innovation. In general, research achievements in this category should be identifiable with innovation that transcends any narrowly defined technological application. Moreover, the discoveries underpinning nominations in this category must also demonstrate scientific leadership, will often be disruptive so as to anticipate and mitigate technological surprise, and likely be a result of high risk – high reward investment. Nominations may come from a variety of scientific and engineering research disciplines, with broad topical examples including, but not limited to, use inspired research discovery in renewable resources; biofuels; combustion and reacting flows; transportation efficiency and emissions; areas of nanoscience; high temperature superconductivity; electrical energy storage; solar fuels; photovoltaics; photonics; solid-state lighting; carbon capture and sequestration; carbon neutral fuel cycles; fuel cells; fission and fusion technology; radiation damage resistant materials; advanced nuclear fuel cycles including Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS); nuclear reactor modeling and simulation; etc..

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Fusion and Plasma Sciences

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments to expand the fundamental understanding of matter at very high temperatures and densities and to build the scientific foundations needed to develop a fusion energy source. These foundations are provided through fundamental research exploring the nature of fusion plasmas and the means for confining plasma to yield energy, and includes developing the scientific basis and computational tools to predict the behavior of magnetically confined plasmas; using the advances in tokamak research to enhance the initiation of the burning plasma; exploring innovative confinement options that offer the potential of more attractive fusion energy sources in the long term; developing the cutting edge technologies that enable fusion facilities to achieve their scientific goals; and carrying out research on innovative materials to enable the future generations of fission and fusion reactors, as well as to establish the economic feasibility and environmental quality of fusion energy. Achievements related to the study of plasmas under a wide range of temperature and density conditions, to the development of advanced diagnostics to make detailed measurements of plasma properties, and to the creation of theoretical/computational models to resolve the essential physics, can also support nominations in this category. This category also includes research achievements that explore basic issues in plasma science, including low-energy density plasmas; magnetic fields in plasma; micro-plasma behavior; atomic processes in plasma; plasma astrophysics; laser-produced plasma and high-energy-density laboratory plasmas (HEDLP) including non-weapons physics aspects of inertial confinement fusion and related research to develop laboratory capabilities to create and measure extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, and radiation - including thermonuclear burn; warm dense matter; ultra-cold plasma; complex and single-component plasma; nonlinear plasma dynamics; and plasma effects in solids; as well as developing the scientific basis and computational tools to predict the behavior of confined and astrophysical plasmas.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

High Energy and Nuclear Physics

Under this broad award category, there are three subcategories that include High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Accelerator Research and Development:

High Energy Physics – In this subcategory, nominations based upon transformative scientific discovery advancing understanding of how the universe works at its most fundamental level by discovering the elementary constituents of matter and energy, probing the interactions between them, and exploring the basic nature of space and time, are encouraged. The Department’s primary research investments in these areas focus on powerful accelerators to create new particles, reveal their interactions, and investigate fundamental forces; the use of intense particle beams and highly sensitive detectors to pursue alternate pathways to investigate fundamental forces and particle interactions by studying events that occur rarely in nature; and applying ground and space-based experiments and telescopes to make measurements that offer new insight and information about the nature of dark matter and dark energy to understand fundamental particle properties and discover new phenomena that probe the Standard Model and new physics beyond it. This subcategory recognizes transformative achievements in these areas, and appropriate nomination submissions here may include, but are not limited to, fundamental particles and their interactions using proton-(anti)proton collisions at the highest possible energies as well as high intensity electron-positron collisions; studies of the properties of neutrinos produced by accelerators and nuclear reactors; studies of rare processes using high intensity proton beams on fixed targets; searches for proton decay; measurements of dark energy properties; studies of primordial antimatter; and detection of the particles constituting dark matter.This subcategory also seeks to recognize research achievements that provide the vision and mathematical framework advancing understanding and extending the knowledge of particles, forces, space-time, and the universe. Such topics include, but are not limited to, phenomenological and theoretical studies that support experimental research, both in understanding the data and in finding new directions for experimental exploration; developments of analytical and numerical computational techniques for related studies; and discovery of theoretical frameworks for understanding fundamental particles and forces at the deepest level possible.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Nuclear Physics – This subcategory recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments advancing discovery, exploration, and understanding of all forms of nuclear matter. This award subcategory encourages nominations supported by transformative discovery in experimental and theoretical research to create, detect, and describe the different forms and complexities of nuclear matter that can exist, or are no longer found naturally, in the universe. Appropriate topical submissions include, but are not limited to, nominations based upon investigations of the high temperature frontier of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) to recreate and characterize new predicted forms of matter and phenomena that might occur in extremely hot, dense nuclear matter and which have not existed since the Big Bang. This subcategory also includes nominations based upon discovery in the low temperature frontier of QCD to understand how the properties of existing matter arise from the properties of QCD, as well as accomplishments in the frontiers of nuclear structure, fundamental symmetry, and the properties of neutrinos including their masses. Additional appropriate topics include those related to nuclear astrophysics, such as nuclear and astrophysics at extremes including the properties of nuclei far from stability; gamma-ray bursts; supernovae explosions; black holes; neutron stars; the radiation environments surrounding these objects; and the nuclear reactions that occur within these environments to form the observed elements. Nominations based upon accomplishments in nuclear theory that support the interpretation of data and that advance new ideas and hypotheses that have impacted experimental investigations are also encouraged.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Accelerator Research and Development – Nomination submissions based upon transformative research achievements related to advancing the next generation of accelerators, detectors, and computing technologies supporting world-leading research in the physics of photon (x-ray), heavy-ion, neutron, electron, proton and particle beams and accelerators, as well as fundamental advances in particle detection, are encouraged in this subcategory. Topics in accelerator science include, but are not limited to, experimental and analytic and computational modeling techniques advancing the science underpinning photon (x-ray), heavy-ion, neutron, electron, proton, and particle beam development and implementation; novel acceleration concepts; muon colliders and neutrino factories; the science of compact and high gradient accelerating cavities; high-brightness beam sources; intense rare isotope beams; and cutting-edge beam diagnostic techniques; etc..

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

National Security and Nonproliferation

This award category recognizes transformative accomplishments related to the Department’s research investments supporting portions of its National Security and Nonproliferation missions:

National Security - This subcategory recognizes transformative scientific achievement and discovery that primarily underpins the stockpile stewardship mission, and its goal to achieve a fundamental first-principles understanding of nuclear performance beyond empirical models presently used to maintain tested stockpile weapons. Nominations are encouraged based upon transformative research in relevant topics leading to predictive understanding regarding the properties of materials under extreme conditions including the static and dynamic (i.e., shock-compressed) properties of materials under conditions of high-pressure, high-temperature, high-strain, and high-strain-rate to reveal their thermodynamic properties (equation-of-state, high-pressure phase diagram, pressure-induced phase transformation, etc.) or to reveal their mechanical constitutive properties (plasticity and strength, failure, fracture, etc.). This category also recognizes achievements in topics that include, but are limited to, weapons physics related work in laser-produced plasma and high-energy-density laboratory plasmas (HEDLP) including inertial confinement fusion, and development of laboratory capabilities to create and measure extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, and radiation - including thermonuclear burn; weapons physics relevant hydrodynamic experiments, theory, and simulation; development of novel advanced diagnostics and measurement techniques to observe relevant physical phenomena at appropriate length and time scales; and the development and experimental validation of physics-based multi-scale models to understand the dynamic response of materials. Nominations based upon stockpile stewardship related basic research discoveries in actinide or high-explosives sciences are also encouraged. This category also includes weapons relevant low-energy nuclear scientific discovery leading to greater accuracy in the knowledge of low energy cross sections of stable and unstable nuclei and corresponding reaction rates for neutron-, gamma- and ion-induced reactions for both simulation and radiochemistry diagnosis; development of advanced simulations and measurement techniques leading to improved radiation and particle detection (energy and spatial resolution) methods; physics of the fission process, including division of mass and charge as a function of excitation, production of energy, and the reaction properties of prompt fission products; investigations of particle production and techniques advancing high-energy proton radiography and x-ray radiography; and development of experimental diagnostic techniques for laser or pulsed power implosion systems.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Nonproliferation - This subcategory recognizes transformative scientific achievement and discovery in areas related to deterring and detecting illicit use of weapons-usable nuclear and radiological materials and equipment. Nominations based upon discovery leading to improvements in nuclear detection and characterization, nuclear detonation detection, and advancing the technical base for national and homeland security agencies to meet their nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and counterterrorism objectives, are encouraged. The topical areas are widespread, and include, but are not limited to, predictive capabilities derived through advances in fundamental understanding of the evolution and alteration of forensic or isotopic signatures; new or improved detection approaches enabling analysis of physical and chemical signatures more rapidly and with better precision and accuracy; transformative advances to detect post-nuclear detonation; the discovery and identification of new signatures of nuclear materials production and use; understanding and measuring variations intended to mask materials diversion; new techniques for multidimensional imaging of nuclear material; new approaches for explosive device detection; and new modalities to acquire, analyze, and apply ubiquitous sensing data.

Nominations based upon relevant experimental, theoretical, and computational research and discoveries are all encouraged.

Lawrence Award Assessment Criteria, Merit Review, and Selection

The Lawrence Award was established in 1959 by the Atomic Energy Commission and President Dwight D. Eisenhower in honor of the 1939 Nobel Laureate in physics. In this tradition, the Lawrence Awards continue to honor U.S. scientists and engineers at mid-career for exceptional contributions in research and development supporting the Department of Energy and its mission to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States. Nominees must be U.S. citizens in mid-career and show promise for continued exceptional achievement.

Assessment Criteria

The award is given for an outstanding contribution of an exceptionally creative or innovative character. Such achievements (i) must demonstrate significant innovation and discovery; (ii) must be identifiable as transformative; (iii) must hold prominent scientific or technical leadership; and (iv) must be distinguishable from an evolutionary collection of steady, long-term, career-integrated contributions. The nominees will be assessed on the scientific impact and/or technical significance of their work relative to its discipline and/or related mission*, using the following criteria:

1) Scientific and/or technical merit and impact of the discovery or innovation:
Consider, for example, the influence that the achievement has had on the direction, progress, and thinking in relevant scientific and technological fields of research and/or mission area. Is the achievement transformative and how has it generated and fostered new valuable results or helped to solve an outstanding critical problem; how does the scientific/technical innovation and originality rank with respect to its field; does it provide leadership and broad benefit; and what impact has the discovery had on DOE mission areas and how is it identifiable with the DOE and its components?

2) Performance metrics supporting the significance and quality of the nominee’s achievement:
Consider, for example, the impact, quantity, and quality of the body of cited work, patents, or widespread application that directly resulted from the nominee’s achievement. Has the achievement been recognized by peers through other notable awards received by the nominee or others working in the same or related discipline?

*Business management and stewardship acumen, while valued, is not a significant assessment factor used when evaluating a nominee’s worthiness.

Merit Review

To be considered, a nominee must meet all eligibility criteria and have a nomination package comprising all required materials. To assess eligibility, and prior to the comprehensive merit evaluation, an initial review of all nomination packages will be conducted by the Office of Science, Lawrence Award Program Manager (or designee). Only those nominees meeting all requirements will be advanced for merit review. The nomination materials uploaded and received through the electronic submission process will provide the sole basis for the review.

The merit review will comprise a thorough, consistent, and objective examination of all eligible applicants. Based solely upon the assessment criteria and nomination materials, the merit reviewers, selected by Federal Officials, evaluate and document each nominee’s strengths and weaknesses. They also provide their overall assessment in the form of a rank ordering of all nominees. All evaluators must be independent of the nominees, free of conflict(s) of interest, comply with all applicable DOE rules or directives concerning the use of outside evaluators, and shall be established leaders in the topical communities relevant to the award. Additionally, reviewers remain anonymous, make nonbinding recommendations, do not make consensus nominee rankings, and are not empanelled as a Federal Advisory Committee. Nomination and review materials shall remain confidential and each nominee will be evaluated by no fewer than three reviewers. The reviewers must utilize PeerNet® to document their findings and when making their evaluations. If worthy candidate(s) are identified in the peer review, then a selection recommendation based upon these findings will be forwarded from the Lawrence Award Program Manager (or designee) to the Secretary of Energy. The final selection of any awardees is made at the discretion of the Secretary of Energy.

Selection

Federal Officials will review the nomination packages and the reviewer’s final evaluations, analyze each reviewer’s independent evaluation of, and recommendation regarding, all eligible nominees. Using this analysis, Federal Officials will prepare a Selection Statement identifying those nominees, if any, being recommended for the award. The Selection Statement will document the rationale supporting the recommendations The final selection of any awardees is made at the discretion of the Secretary of Energy. DOE employees must comply with regulations governing conduct of employees codified in 10 CFR Part 1010 and Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch at 5 CFR Part 2635.

Preparation of Nomination Materials

The nomination materials should convey a clear and concise message of worthiness (in the context of the assessment criteria) to the review committee. Make certain that the factual content of the materials can readily be used to conduct a clear, uniform, objective and unbiased review. It is required to clearly identify the nominee’s connection to DOE support. The submitted nomination materials will provide the sole basis for the reviews. Please note that detailed contact information for the authors selected to submit supporting letters is required when making the nomination application. While the prize shall ordinarily be awarded to one person, it may be shared when all the recipients have contributed equally to the same accomplishment. Shared nominations must be indicated during the nomination process. Justification for a shared nomination should be made clear for such instances.

Justification Letter

In the nomination justification letter, please make clear, as concretely as possible, the major achievements that the candidate has produced and what their subsequent impact has been, especially in the context of the assessment criteria. Please outline the candidate's major scientific and technological and describe where and how they have provided leadership and impact that is related to the DOE and its components. Since the submission of letters is made using the online system, the specific addressee used may be generic, and is left to the discretion of the author.

Supporting Letters

In the context of the assessment criteria, the supporting letters should expand upon, provide additional detail or add perspective to the justification letter, as appropriate. Please substantiate and reinforce the nomination justification letter’s statements regarding the major scientific and technological achievements, and describe where and how they have provided leadership and impact that is related to the DOE and its components. Briefly identifying how you know the nominee and their work is also beneficial. Since the submission of letters is made using the online system, the specific addressee used may be generic, and is left to the discretion of the author.

Citation

The 35-word citation should make clear the specific reason for making this award to the nominee. The award citation may be based on this statement.