AAAS Announces 2025 Award Winners

AAAS Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science

Brian Greene, professor and director of Columbia University's Center for Theoretical Physics, is the recipient of the AAAS Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science.

The award, which recognizes scientists and engineers who demonstrate excellence in their contribution to public engagement with science, was established in 1987. Since 2019, it has been endowed by quantum physicist Mani L. Bhaumik, whose support of the award has placed renewed emphasis on recognizing meaningful dialogue and exchange between the recipient and various publics.

Greene is well-known in the scientific world for his groundbreaking co-discovery of mirror symmetry and spatial topology change, two key breakthroughs of superstring theory. As a communicator, his reach is much broader. In fact, The Washington Post has called him "the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today."

His 1999 book "The Elegant Universe," which brought string theory to broad audiences, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a 2003 PBS documentary of the same name. His books, which also include "The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality," have sold a total of more than 2 million copies worldwide and have spent a combined 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

New forms and adaptations are a hallmark of Greene's public engagement work: His novella, "Icarus at the Edge of Time," received an orchestral adaptation that premiered at Lincoln Center, while his stage work Light Falls, about Einstein's discovery of general relativity, was broadcast on PBS.

Greene, who is the chairman and co-founder of the World Science Festival, has also reached audiences through his popular TED Talks and numerous media appearances.

AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science

Barrak Alahmad, a research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is the recipient of the 2025 AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science. The award recognizes early-career scientists and engineers - those who are within seven years of completing their terminal degree - who demonstrate excellence in their activities that engage the public with science.

After earning his medical degree and practicing as a doctor in his native Kuwait, Alahmad noticed the negative health impacts of Kuwait's hot climate on the country's population of migrant workers. His patients inspired him to research the effects of extreme environment on population health in Kuwait. Alahmad pursued a master's of public health and a Ph.D. in population health sciences, the latter of which he completed at Harvard in 2022. Alahmad's research found that otherwise young and healthy individuals - who had minimal access to health care - were particularly vulnerable to dust storms and extreme temperatures.

His multifaceted public engagement work around these impacts has communicated his findings to both those affected and to the public with the goal of building consensus on the issue and changing policy to improve outcomes for affected individuals. Among his tactics to share his findings and move the needle have included hosting stakeholder workshops, testifying before the United Kingdom's Parliament as a health expert, and making numerous appearances in print, online and broadcast media.

AAAS David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy

Daniel Whittle, Valerie Miller and Eduardo Boné-Móronfrom the Environmental Defense Fund are the recipients of the AAAS David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy for their work fostering environmental and scientific cooperation between the United States and Cuba.

The award recognizes an individual or a small group working together in the scientific, engineering or foreign affairs communities making an outstanding contribution to furthering science diplomacy. First established in 1992 as the International Scientific Cooperation Award, AAAS renamed its Award for Science Diplomacy in 2021 for David and Betty Hamburg, who championed science diplomacy throughout their careers in science and medicine as a means of advancing science, human rights, peace and cooperation. 

The Environmental Defense Fund's connections with Cuba date back 23 years, when Whittle and two other EDF scientists attended a marine sciences conference in Havana to connect with Cuban officials and experts to inform efforts to stop overfishing and protect essential fish habitats in the southeastern United States. From this initial visit has grown a robust partnership.

The work of Whittle, Miller and Boné-Móronhas yielded opportunities for connection and dialogue between Cuban and U.S. scientists and officials, including many opportunities for officials to interact informally years before the U.S. and Cuba normalized diplomatic relations. In 2007, EDF co-founded the Tri-National Initiative on Marine Science and Conservation, fostering dialogue and joint research among government, academia, and NGOs. Following the BP oil spill in 2010, EDF was an intermediary for the exchange of information between governments and helped facilitate talks that resulted in a 2017 bilateral agreement.

Their work has also produced joint scientific research, including dozens of peer-reviewed articles, and seen significant conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems and sustainable fisheries, with the Cuban government implementing the region's most ambitious network of marine protected areas, conserving about 25 percent of coastal waters.

Whittle, a co-founder of EDF's Cuba program, directed it until 2020 and now supervises EDF's Caribbean initiatives while continuing his role on government relations. Miller, who joined EDF in 2012, focused on facilitating cross-border efforts on shark conservation, contributing to Cuba's first National Plan of Action on sharks. She became Cuba program director in 2020. Boné-Móronjoined EDF as a program manager in 2016 and plays a leading role in developing learning networks, international exchanges, communication plans and scientific expeditions.

AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility

EnciehErfani is the recipient of the AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, which honors individuals or organizations whose exemplary actions - sometimes taken at significant personal cost -have served to foster and protect those ideals.

Erfani was an assistant professor of physics whose research focused on cosmology in her native Iran, but following the death of activist Mahsa Amini and ensuing peaceful "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests, she resigned her faculty position at her Iranian institution in solidarity with protestors. Erfani, who was abroad in Mexico as a visiting researcher at the time, is now in exile as a result of the act, and her family members in Iran have been threatened by Iranian security forces.

Well before her resignation, Erfani had been an advocate for at-risk students and scholars. In 2018, she organized the first physics workshop at Kabul University, which led to the establishment of a scholarship to enable Afghan students to pursue master's degrees in Iran. In 2021, Dr. Erfani collaborated with the "Science in Exile" initiative to support at-risk and displaced scholars.

After her resignation, she has continued her advocacy by co-founding the International Community of Iranian Academics and compiled a report containing the latest statistics on students killed, detained and imprisoned in Iran.

As of 2025, Erfani has joined the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada.

AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award

Juan F. Arratia, former director and principal investigator of the Model Institutions for Excellence project for the National Science Foundation at Universidad Metropolitanain Puerto Rico, is the recipient of the AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award.

The Lifetime Mentor Award honors an individual with more than 25 years of experience who has mentored significant numbers of underrepresented students: women of all backgrounds, men from minority groups underrepresented in STEM (African American, Native American and Hispanic) and people with disabilities. Winners also must have demonstrated scholarship, activism and community-building on behalf of underrepresented groups in STEM.

As director and PI of the Model Institutions for Excellence project between 1998 and 2010, Arratia oversaw an initiative that transformed UMET - a university where the majority of students receive federal assistance and are first-generation college students - into a leading teaching-research institution that prepares students for careers and further study in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

To achieve the goals of recruiting and increasing the number of Hispanic students in STEM fields and increasing STEM major retention, the multifaceted initiative has offered scholarship funding, research opportunities in collaboration with universities in Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland, support for students intending to pursue graduate school, an annual research symposium and a pre-college program.

Following the implementation of the program, the number of Hispanic students that are enrolling as STEM majors at UMET nearly doubled during Arratia's tenure, and more than 720 students have completed research internships since 1998.

AAAS Mentor Award

LaShanSimpson Hendrix, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, is the recipient of the AAAS Mentor Award.

The Mentor Award honors an individual who has mentored significant numbers of underrepresented students: women of all backgrounds, men from underrepresented minority groups (African American, Native American and Hispanic) and people with disabilities. Winners also must have demonstrated scholarship, activism and community-building on behalf of underrepresented groups in STEM.

Hendrix earns the award for her work in guiding the way for many of her students to become biomedical scientists and engineers. As an associate professor first at Mississippi State University and then at the University of Cincinnati, Hendrix has mentored a dozen students who have gone on to complete masters and Ph.D. programs. She has also informally guided and supported hundreds of additional students in her efforts to make higher education and scientific research available to first-generation students of all backgrounds.

Students who offered letters of recommendations for her award praised Hendrix's warmth as a mentor. They noted how she has encouraged her mentees to apply for prestigious positions and has demystified the path to graduate school and research, teaching many of her mentees research skills they still use daily. She has kept in contact with her mentees beyond graduation - according to her mentees, Hendrix is truly a lifelong mentor.

AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize

A team of researchers has won the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for their work that has identified a new organelle within single-celled algae that converts nitrogen gas into ammonia.

The AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, supported by The Fodor Family Trust, was established in 1923 and is awarded annually to the author or authors of an outstanding paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of Science. Recipients of the award, the oldest awarded by AAAS, collectively receive $25,000.

"Nitrogen-fixing organelle in a marine alga" was published in Science on April 12, 2024. Corresponding authors are Tyler Coale of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Valentina Loconte of B24, Diamond Light Source; and Jonathan Zehr of UC Santa Cruz. Along with senior author Carolyn Larabell of University of California, San Francisco and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the team and their collaborators represent UC Santa Cruz, Diamond Light Source, UC San Francisco, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Taiwan Ocean University and Kochi University.

The conversion of nitrogen gas into ammonia helps the algae survive in the nutrient-poor ocean. The cellular structure is derived from another microbe that the algae has incorporated. The researchers' discovery fundamentally expands our understanding of cell biology by providing insight into the evolution of organelles, a process that was pivotal in the evolution of complex life and has likely only occurred a handful of times in biology.