# Golden Goose Award

The Golden Goose Award is a United States award in recognition of scientists whose federally funded basic research has led to innovations or inventions with significant impact on humanity or society. Created by Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee in 2012, recipients receive the award in a ceremony during the fall each year on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.

## Background

Between 1975 and 1988, William Proxmire, a Democratic United States Senator for Wisconsin awarded the tongue-in-cheek Golden Fleece Awards to public officials for spending public money in ways he considered irresponsible or wasteful. These awards were often given to scientists working on seemingly obscure federally funded scientific studies causing ridicule and scrutiny of the usefulness of such research.
The Golden Goose Awards were established over two decades later in order to highlight the value of federally-funded basic research. With the Golden Goose Award, Cooper wanted to reverse the image created by Proxmire's award by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact. The award has bipartisan support in Congress, sponsored by multiple organizations and legislators.

## Awardees

| Year | Award Title | Project | Awardees |
| 2012 | Coralline Ceramics | Bone Grafts from Coral | Jon Weber, Eugene White, Rodney White, Della Roy |
| 2012 | Green Fluorescent Protein | Medical Advances from Jellyfish | Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, Roger Tsien |
| 2012 | The Maser | The Maser | Charles Townes |
| 2013 | Diabetes Medication | Diabetes Medication Developed from Gila Monster Venom | John Eng |
| 2013 | Thermus aquaticus | Thermus aquaticus | Thomas D. Brock, Hudson Freeze |
| 2013 | Market Design | Market Design | Alvin E. Roth, David Gale, Lloyd Shapley |
| 2014 | Black Holes and Supercomputing | Black Holes and Supercomputing | Larry Smarr |
| 2014 | Auction Design | Auction Design | Preston McAfee, Paul Milgrom, Robert Wilson |
| 2014 | Rat and Infant Massage | Rat Massage Research Helps Premature Babies Thrive | Tiffany Field, Gary Evoniuk, Cynthia Kuhn, Saul Schanberg |
| 2015 | Trick or Treat: The Marshmallow Test | The Marshmallow Test | Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, Philip Peake |
| 2015 | Out of Sight: Neuroplasticity and Vision | Ocular Dominance Columns | Torsten Wiesel, David Hubel |
| 2015 | Of Maps and Men | Hypsographic Demography | Joel E. Cohen, Christopher Small |
| 2016 | A Tale of Two Studies: The Adolescent Health Story | The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health | Peter Bearman, Barbara Entwisle, Kathleen Mullan Harris, Ronald Rindfuss, Richard Udry |
| 2016 | The Sex Life of the Screw Worm Fly | The Sex Life of the Screw Worm Fly | Edward F. Knipling, Raymond C. Bushland |
| 2016 | The Honey Bee Algorithm | The Honey Bee Algorithm | John J. Bartholdi III, Sunil Nakrani, Thomas Dyer Seeley, Craig A. Tovey, John Hagood Vande Vate |
| 2017 | The Sea Soy Solution | The Sea Soy Solution | Kaichang Li |
| 2017 | The Silence of the Frogs | The Silence of the Frogs | Joyce Longcore, Elaine Lamirande, Don Nichols, Allan Pessier |
| 2017 | Fuzzy Logic, Clear Impact | Fuzzy Logic, Clear Impact | Lotfi A. Zadeh |
| 2018 | The Goose Gland: Discoveries in Immunology | The Goose Gland: Discoveries in Immunology | Bruce Glick |
| 2018 | Chickens, Cells and Cytokines | Chickens, Cells and Cytokines | Stanley Cohen |
| 2018 | Implicit Bias, Explicit Science | Implicit Bias, Explicit Science | Mahzarin Banaji, Anthony Greenwald, Brian Nosek |
| 2019 | The Blood of the Horseshoe Crab | The Blood of the Horseshoe Crab | Jack Levin, Frederik Bang |
| 2019 | Advancing Autoimmunity | Advancing Autoimmunity | Noel Rose, Ernest Witebsky |
| 2019 | The Frog Skin that saved 50 Million Lives | The Frog Skin that saved 50 Million Lives | David B. Sachar |
| 2020 | A Llama Named Winter | A Llama Named Winter | Jason McLellan, Daniel Wrapp |
| 2020 | The Human Immunome: Small Moves Become a Movement | The Human Immunome: Small Moves Become a Movement | James E. Crowe |
| 2020 | A Spike in Momentum | A Spike in Momentum | Kizzmekia Corbett, Barney Graham, Emmie de Wit, and Vincent Munster |
| 2021 | Making MRNA | mRNA therapeutics | Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman |
| 2021 | The Fast and the Curious | How the critical functions of internet-connected vehicles can be compromised by remote attackers | Stephen Checkoway, Tadayoshi Kohno, Karl Koscher, Stefan Savage |
| 2021 | The Secrets of SERMs | Research on drugs for breast cancer treatment, in particular tamoxifen | V. Craig Jordan |

## Founding organizations

Some of the twelve founding organizations for this award are the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (A۰P۰L۰U), the Breakthrough Institute, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), and The Science Coalition (TSC)