Fermi Award
Fermi Award (in full, Enrico Fermi Award), a tax-free award normally made once or twice a year by the U.S. Department of Energy for outstanding achievement in the field of nuclear energy. The maximum amount set for the award is $100,000. It can be made to a person of any nationality. The first award was made in 1954 by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to Enrico Fermi, and after his death the award was named for him.
Of the later recipients, the following have biographies in this encyclopedia: Luis W. Alvarez (1987), Hans A. Bethe (1961), Otto Hahn (1966), Ernest O. Lawrence (1957), Lise Meitner (1966), J. Robert Oppenheimer (1963), Hyman G. Rickover (1964), Glenn T. Seaborg (1959), Edward Teller (1962), John von Neumann (1956), and Eugene P. Wigner (1958).