The Harold Berger Distinguished Lecture and Award
The Harold Berger Distinguished Lecture and Award, named in honor of the Honorable Harold Berger, is awarded biennially by the School of Engineering and Applied Science to a technological innovator who has made a lasting contribution to the quality of our lives. Special emphasis is given to the societal and economic significance of an advance.
2025 Harold Berger Distinguished Award: Moungi Bawendi
Penn Engineering is proud to announce the 2025 Recipient of the Harold Berger Award: Moungi Bawendi, Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry in the MIT Department of Chemistry.
Professor Moungi Bawendi received his A.B. in 1982 from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in 1988 from The University of Chicago. This was followed by two years of postdoctoral research at Bell Laboratories, working with Louis Brus, where he began his studies on nanomaterials. Bawendi joined the faculty at MIT in 1990, becoming Associate Professor in 1995 and Professor in 1996.
Professor Bawendi was one of the initial developers of the field of colloidal quantum dots. He has followed an interdisciplinary research program that has probed the science and technology of chemically synthesized nanostructures. His work has advanced both the fundamental studies of nanomaterials as well as their applications. His laboratory has demonstrated applications of nanomaterials for light emission, photodetection, spectral sensing, solar energy harvesting, and bio-imaging. His group has pioneered novel tools for the spectroscopy of single nanostructures as well as for in-vivo imaging.
Professor Bawendi is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Professor Bawendi is a co-laureate of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Past Recipients
2022: Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó – for their landmark research that set a foundation for the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.
2011: Steven Chu – for his distinguished scientific career and his stewardship in the search for alternative and renewable energy technologies.
2008: Thomas Cech – for his ground-breaking research on RNA and its transformational impact on biotechnology
2004: Dean Kamen – for his creative use of technology to advance health care and his unwavering championing of engineering education.
2002: J. Craig Venter – for his creative use of advanced technology and for his leadership role in the sequencing and analyzing of the human genome.
The Honorable Harold Berger (EE’ 48, L’ 51)
Judge Berger was Managing Partner of Berger and Montague, P.C., a Philadelphia-based law firm. He formerly served as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia and was past Chairman of the Federal Bar Association’s National Committee on the Federal and State Judiciary. He was the author of numerous law review articles, lectured extensively before bar associations and at universities and served as Chair of the International Conferences of Global Interdependence held at Princeton University. Judge Berger also served as Chair of the Aerospace Law Committees of the American, Federal and Inter-American Bar Associations and was elected to the International Academy of Astronautics in Paris in recognition of the importance and impact of his scholarly work.
As his biographies in Who’s Who In America and Who’s Who In American Law outlined, he was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Special Service Award of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges and a Special American Bar Association Presidential Program Award and Medal. Judge Berger was a permanent member of the Judicial Conference of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Long active in engineering and law alumni affairs at Penn, he also served as Chair of the Friends of Biddle Law Library.
Judge Berger passed away on August 26, 2023.