1994 John P. McGovern Science and Society Award,
1997 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement
Physicist Philip Morrison, Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), was the 1994 McGovern Award recipient. Morrision earned his B.S. in physics from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley, under the supervision of Robert Oppenheimer. He has been on the physics faculties at the University of Illinois at Urbana and Cornell University, as well as M.I.T. During World War II, he served four years with the Manhattan Project, taking part in the test of the first atomic bomb. Since then, he has written and spoken widely against nuclear war and the arms race. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In peacetime, Morrision concentrated on nuclear theory until the mid-1950s, when he gradually turned to high-energy astrophysics and to his current interests in radio sources and cosmic neutrinos. In 1959, he and Giuseppe Cocconi first recognized the potential of microwaves in the search for interstellar communications. To promote a wider public understanding of science, Morrision has gone into classrooms at all levels, written textbooks, reviewed books on science and technology for Scientific American and participated in film and television projects.
Philip Morrison died on April 22, 2005.