Founders’ Medal

 

* nominations will next open in Spring 2026 for the 2026 ICMRBS Founders’ Medal, to be awarded at the XXXI ICMRBS Conference in Davos, Switzerland August 23-27, 2026.  Information adapted from past nomination procedures is listed below and will be updated when nominations are opened.  Please email Kevin.Gardner@icmrbs.org to be added to the mailing list for an announcement when that occurs *

The International Conference of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems (ICMRBS) was co-founded by Oleg Jardetzky, Mildred Cohn, and Robert Shulman in 1964. The conference has been organized biannually over the past half century, and currently attracts between 600 and 800 scientists to a multiday scientific forum held at different locations across the world.

In 2002, the ICMRBS Council established the Founders’ Medal to recognize exceptional contributions by young scientists to the development and/or progress of the field of magnetic resonance in biological systems.

Nominations are invited for this prestigious medal to be presented at the forthcoming XXXI ICMRBS meeting, which will be held in Davos, Switzerland, August 23-27, 2026. The award winner will receive the Founders’ Medal and $3,000 USD, and she/he will be invited to present a lecture at the above mentioned conference.

Previous Recipients

  • 2024 Rina Rosenzweig, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
  • 2022 Wei Qiang, Binghamton University, USA, and Markus Weingarth, Utrecht University, Netherlands
  • 2020 Paul Schanda, Institute of Structural Biology, Grenoble, France, and Nicholas Cox, Australian National University
  • 2018 Lynette Cigelski, Stanford University, USA, and Sebastian Hiller, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
  • 2016 Adam Lange, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
  • 2014 Christopher Jaroniec, Ohio State University, USA
  • 2012 Hashim Al-Hashimi, University of Michigan, USA
  • 2010 Mei Hong, Iowa State University, USA
  • 2008 Chad Rienstra, University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • 2006 Marc Baldus, Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany
  • 2005 Nico Tjandra, National Institutes of Health, USA
  • 2002 Lewis Kay, University of Toronto, Canada

Nomination Procedure

The candidate must be less than 12 years post-Ph.D. (plus 1 year for each child) at the time of the meeting at which the medal is conferred. The 2026 nomination procedure has not yet been opened; possible candidates and nominees should expect details to be posted here with a likely Spring 2026 deadline.

The nomination should include:

  • a nomination letter (less than 3 pages), describing the nominee’s exceptional contributions, and indicating the five most important publications of the nominee. note that self-nominations are not allowed;
  • the nominee’s CV (less than 3 pages);
  • the nominee’s publication list.

Additional information is available from the chair of the ICMRBS Founders Medal award committee, Prof. Mei Hong (meihong@mit.edu).