Award

The 2021 Samson – Prime Minister’s prize for innovation in alternative energy and smart mobility for transportation
The $1 million prize is the largest monetary prize awarded in the field of alternative energy and smart mobility.

The Eric and Sheila Samson Prize, totaling one million US dollars, is the world’s largest monetary prize awarded in the field of alternative fuels and smart mobility, and is awarded yearly to scientists who have made critical advancements towards achieving this goal. The Ministry of Science & Technology is leading, every year, the rigorous selection process of the winners. The winners are selected from a long list of worthy candidates recommended for the prize by university presidents and CEOs in industry, from Israel and from around the world. The winners are selected by a committee of international experts who submit their recommendation to a board of trustees.

2021 Winners

The Prize for Groundbreaking Research in The
Areas of Smart Mobility

PROF. JAMES LIAO
Academia Sinica, Taiwan
President of Academia Sinica

Prof. Avner Rothschild
Technion- Israel Institute of Technology ISRAEL Professors Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering

prof. Gideon Grader
Technion- Israel Institute of Technology ISRAEL Professors Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering

The Prize for
researcher recruitment

Dr. Yair Carmon
Tel Aviv University, Israel
Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Dr. Yaniv Romano
Stanford University, USA
Postdoctoral fellow, Statistics

Dr. Ido Hadar
Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois) USA,
Postdoctoral Scholar Department of Chemistry

Dr. Mor Nitzan
Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Prof. Omri Weinstein
Currently at Columbia University. Assistant Professor, Computer Science

2019 Winners

(The Prize for Groundbreaking Research in The Areas of Fuel Alternatives and Smart Mobility)

Prof. Emanuel Peled
Professor Emeritus, School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University

Prof. Sang Yup Lee
Distinguished Professor and Dean, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

2019 WINNERS

(THE RESEARCHER RECRUITMENT PRIZE)

Prof. Leonard J. Schulman
Professor of Computer Science, Caltech

Tali Dekel
Senior Research Scientist, Google, Cambridge MA

2018 WINNERS

Doron Aurbach
Chemistry Department, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Dr. Lars Peter Lindfors
Senior Vice President, Technology, Neste

2017 WINNERS

Prof. Jens Nielsen
Systems and Synthetic Biology, Chalmers University of Technology

Prof. Jean-Marie Tarascon
Professor of Chemistry at the Collège de France

2016 WINNERS

Prof. Gregory Stephanopoulos
Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, MIT, USA

Prof. Mercouri Kanatzidis
Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University, USA

2015 WINNERS

Prof. John B Goodenough
Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering

Prof. Jay D Keasling
University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

2014 WINNERS

Prof. Thomas Meyer
The University of North Carolina, USA

Prof. Sang Yup Lee
Distinguished Professor and Dean, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

2013 WINNERS

Prof. George A. Olah
University of Southern California, USA

Prof. G.K. Surya Prakash
University of Southern California, USA