# John Scott Medal

John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way. Since 1919 the Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia provide this award, recommended by an advisory committee.
In 1822 the first awards were given to thirteen people by the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture entrusted by the "Corporation of the city of Philadelphia".
The druggist John Scott of Edinburgh organized a $4,000 fund which, after his death in 1815 was administered by a merchant until the first award, a copper medal and "an amount not to exceed twenty dollars", was given in 1822. (At the time, $20 could buy one ox or a 12-volume encyclopedia.) Several hundred recipients have since been selected by the City Council of Philadelphia, which decides from the annual list of nominees made by the Franklin Institute.

## Notable recipients

Most awards have been given for inventions in science and medicine. Notable recipients include:
* Luis W. Alvarez
* Frederick G. Banting
* John Bardeen
* James Black
* William T. Bovie
* Ralph L. Brinster
* Marie Curie
* William Duane
* Thomas Edison
* Alexander Fleming
* Peter Koch
* Irving Langmuir
* Edwin Land
* Christian J. Lambertsen
* Luther D. Lovekin
* Benoît Mandelbrot
* Guglielmo Marconi
* Edgar Sharp McFadden
* Humberto Fernandez Moran
* Kary B. Mullis
* Jonas Salk
* Glenn Seaborg
* Richard E. Smalley
* Nikola Tesla
* Wright brothers
* Robert Burns Woodward
* David Gestetner

## Recent winners

| Year | Winner | Area of Innovation |
| 2023 | Michael E. Mann | scientific understanding of historic climate change |
| 2023 | Robert H. Socolow | pioneering new concepts and creating new fields in energy and the environment |
| 2022 | Gary Beauchamp | translational research on taste, smell, and flavor |
| 2022 | Nancy Bonini | use of Drosophila to gain insight into degenerative diseases of the brain |
| 2022 | Barry Arkles | Silicon-based science for medical devices and polymeric materials |
| 2021 | Katalin Kariko | stable mRNA enabling gene-induced immune response |
| 2021 | Drew Weissman | mRNA approach to enable-induced response within the human body |
| 2020 | Jean Bennett | Gene therapies for curing retinal degeneration |
| 2020 | William DeGrado | development of antimicrobial peptides |
| 2020 | Michael Klein | algorithms for computational simulation of biological systems |
| 2019 | Emily A. Carter | reverse combustion |
| 2019 | Charles L. Kane | topological insulators |
| 2019 | Eugene Mele | topological insulators |
| 2018 | James West | foil electret microphone |
| 2018 | Bjarne Stroustrup | c++ computer programming language |
| 2017 | Ruzena Bajcsy | robotics and engineering science |
| 2017 | Warren Ewens | population genetics research |
| 2017 | Masatoshi Nei | evolutionary theory |
| 2016 | Emmanuelle Charpentier | CRISPR-Cas genome editing |
| 2016 | Jennifer Doudna | CRISPR-Cas genome editing |
| 2016 | Feng Zhang | CRISPR-Cas genome editing |
| 2016 | Carl H. June | cancer immunology |
| 2015 | Madeleine M. Joullié | synthetic chemistry |
| 2015 | John P. Perdew | density functional theory |
| 2014 | Susan Band Horwitz | cancer therapeutics |
| 2014 | Leonard Hayflick | discovery of cellular senescence and innovations in microscopy |
| 2014 | Paul S. Moorhead | discovery of cellular senescence and innovations in microscopy |
| 2013 | P. Leslie Dutton | redox reactions in biochemistry |
| 2013 | N. Scott Adzick | fetal surgery |
| 2013 | Robert L. Brent | environmental causes of birth defects |
| 2012 | Paul J. Steinhardt | quasicrystals |
| 2012 | John Q. Trojanowski | neurodegenerative diseases |
| 2012 | Virginia Man-Yee Lee | neurodegenerative diseases |
| 2011 | David E. Kuhl | PET scans |
| 2011 | Jenny Pickworth Glusker | crystallography |
| 2010 | Christian J. Lambertsen | underwater diving equipment |
| 2010 | William A. Eaton | protein aggregation and folding |