Overview

The URA Honorary Engineering Award is one of the honorary awards conferred annually by the Universities Research Association (URA). This award recognizes exceptional and outstanding contributions to the advancement of all fields of engineering. The work for which the award is made must be conducted by an engineer at Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab technical staff, scientists, and engineers.  The awardee has shown outstanding character and leadership and has accomplished meaningful work for Fermilab and Society.

The URA Engineering Award is presented at the Fermilab Users and Affiliates Meeting in June 2025. Awardee receives $10,000 from URA and present their work at the Meeting.

Team nominations are welcome, assuming all team members meet the eligibility requirements listed below. Team awardees will receive the $10,000 award distributed equally amongst team members.

Eligibility

All engineer staff and researchers at Fermilab or URA member institutions who have completed an engineering degree (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.) are eligible. The work for which the award is made must directly benefit a Fermilab experiment, project, or program or be performed in conjunction with Fermilab staff. The work may be experimental, theoretical, or contribute to instrumentation, computing, technology, or innovation.

Nomination

1. Name and title of the nominator. Self-nominations are welcome.
2. Nominee’s CV, including invited talks and publications.*
3. List of outreach, mentoring, community, and leadership engagement activities.*
4. Two support letters. None of the letters must come from the nominee under any circumstances, including self-nominations.*
5. Statement, by the nominator, 4 pages max, describing a specific recent example of research/technical work and demonstrating engineering insight and creativity.
6. Statement, 250 words max, highlighting the work’s direct benefit to Fermilab’s mission.

* For team nominations this information is required for each team member.

​Nominations must be submitted to ura-engineering@fnal.gov by Friday, April 4, 2025. All nomination material should be sent in electronic form, .pdf preferably.

Call for Nominations

The call for nominations will be issued on February 3, 2025 by the Award Committee Chair, FNAL CRO, and URA.

Notification of Award

By May 9, 2025, the committee chair will inform URA and the CRO of the selected awardee and will subsequently contact the award recipient, through an official letter of award notification. Such a letter includes a citation that speaks for the spirit of the award, including the rationale behind the awardee selection and work performed, the awardee’s full name, institution, email address, and phone number.

Engineering Award Committee

The URA Honorary Engineering Award Committee members reflect a sufficiently diverse representation of disciplines and expertise to ensure eligible nominees’ appropriate and fair consideration.   The members and chair of the award committee are appointed by the Fermilab Director/CRO.