During a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, President Joe Biden presented nearly 20 Americans with the nation’s highest honors in scientific and technological achievement, framing the U.S. as a leader in technological change and a land of “possibilities.”
“The fact that several of today's honorees immigrated from other countries is proof of the assertion that everything is possible,” Biden said.
The president on Tuesday awarded nine recipients with the National Medal of Science – established by Congress in 1959 and administered by the U.S. National Science Foundation to recognize outstanding contributions in biology, computer science engineering and more. Another 10 recipients received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, first presented in 1985.
“With this year's recipients, outstanding may be an understatement,” Biden said. “They're extraordinary.”
The president listed some of the medalists’ accomplishments: delivering clean drinking water to low income countries, growing crops that can withstand extreme weather, advancing the path to new treatments for cancer, Parkinson’s and addiction, expanding internet access, protecting democracy and developing wheelchair technology.
“Expanding our understanding of everything from the depths of the human eye to the depths of the universe,” Biden said. “And they have paved the way for a generation of other scientists and innovators to pursue their own discoveries to unlock our nation's full potential.”
Biden also touted his own focus on science and technology, declaring under his administration, “America will be the place where great science happens.”
The president pointed to vaccinating people during the middle of the COVID- 19 pandemic, elevating the Office of Science and Technology Policy to a cabinet level position and launching the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health also known as ARPA-H – an agency he established last year hoping to spur innovation in the health industry.
“This year, we're investing $200 billion in research and development,” Biden said
The president concluded by recounting visiting the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston about a year ago to give a speech on his Cancer Moonshot initiative – Biden’s effort to dramatically cut cancer deaths in the U.S. that he has pitched as a purpose the whole nation can get behind similar to the space race under JFK.
“Kennedy's daughter Caroline, dear friend, she presented me with her father's framed speech answering the question of why he was sending Americans to the moon,” Biden said. “President Kennedy said it was quote ‘because the challenge is one we are willing to accept and one we are unwilling to postpone.’”
“That’s the American attitude: unwilling to postpone, we are unwilling to postpone. And we've been postponing a lot of things too long,” Biden said. “That’s all of you here today – you've been unwilling to postpone. That’s America at our best.”