“The contributions made by these researchers to advance the national, economic and energy security of the United States are wide-ranging and meaningful,” Secretary Chu said.  “I congratulate the winners and look forward to their discoveries still to come.”

The Lawrence Award was established in 1959 to honor the memory of Dr. Ernest Orlando Lawrence who invented the cyclotron (a particle accelerator), and after whom two major Energy Department laboratories in Berkeley and Livermore, California are named.

The 2009 E.O. Lawrence Award winners are:

Sunney Xie, Harvard University – Chemistry
Sunny Xie will be honored for his innovations in nonlinear Raman microscopy and highly sensitive vibrational imaging, his scientific leadership in establishing the field of single-molecule biophysical chemistry, and his seminal work in enzyme dynamics and live cell gene expression. Xie is in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.

Joan F. Brennecke, University of Notre Dame – Environmental Science and Technology
Joan Brennecke will be honored for her seminal work advancing fundamental understanding in supercritical fluids and ionic liquids, and her scientific and technological leadership in discovering new environmentally-benign, green chemistries.

Wim Leemans, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – High Energy and Nuclear Physics
Wim Leemans will be honored for his breakthrough work in developing the laser plasma wakefield accelerator from concept to demonstration, and his scientific leadership exploring its promise and unprecedented possibilities ranging from hyperspectral light sources to high energy colliders.

Zhi-Xun Shen, SLAC National Accelerator National Laboratory and Stanford University – Materials Research
Zhi-Xun Shen will be honored for his ground breaking discoveries and pioneering use of high resolution angle-resolved photoemission to advance understanding of strongly correlated electron systems including high-transition temperature superconductors and other complex oxides.

Omar Hurricane, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – National Security and Nonproliferation
Omar Hurricane will be honored for his scientific leadership to advance understanding in a long-standing nuclear weapons physics anomaly and his contribution to nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship

William Dorland, University of Maryland – Nuclear Technology
William Dorland will be honored for his scientific leadership in the development of comprehensive supercomputer simulations of plasma turbulence, and his specific predictions, insights, and improved understanding of turbulent transport in magnetically-confined plasma experiments.

Read more information about the E.O. Lawrence Award.