Five Princetonians Honored With National Medals of Science

Five researchers with Princeton ties were among the 14 awarded the 2025 National Medal of Science: Professor Bonnie Bassler; emeritus faculty Larry Bartels and Ingrid Daubechies; and alumni John Dabiri ’01 and Cynthia Dwork ’79. They were honored on Jan. 3 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Bassler, who chairs Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology and has been on the faculty since 1994, was recognized “for paving the way to develop novel therapies to combat bacteria,” according to the award citation. Best known for her research on cell-to-cell communication in bacteria, she has been recognized with a long list of honors, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2022), membership in the National Academy of Sciences (2006), and a MacArthur fellowship (2002).

In a University release, Bassler described the Medal of Science presentation. “Most moving and memorable to me were the speeches at the ceremony,” she said. “They were not about a scientist being the best in a field, or the first to make a revolutionary finding, but rather, about the importance of the recipients’ research and mentorship of the next generations of scientists to democracy and to the vitality of and possibilities for the nation now and going forward.”

Bartels, who was cited “for thought leadership that promotes democracy around the world,” spent 20 years on the Princeton faculty as a professor of politics and international affairs before transferring to emeritus status in 2012. Since then, he has taught at Vanderbilt University, where his recent publications include a study of partisan polarization in the American electorate.

Daubechies was recognized “for pioneering discoveries in the development of wavelets,” which in turn has improved the processing of digital images and information. (A 2021 New York Times profile called her “the godmother of the digital image.”) She served on the Princeton mathematics faculty from 1994 until 2011, when she transferred to emeritus status, and has since held a faculty appointment at Duke University.

Dabiri, a Caltech professor, was awarded “for outstanding achievements in aeronautical and biological engineering,” including work inspired by natural movements, such as the ones fish and jellyfish use to propel themselves. His research has been applied to make wind turbines generate energy more efficiently.

Dwork, a professor of computer science at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, was recognized “for visionary contributions to the field of computer science and secure public key cryptography.” Before her current work in academia, she spent more than 30 years as a researcher for IBM and Microsoft.