Last night, President Obama awarded the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation to four renowned, foreign-born innovators working here in the United States, showing once again the long history of contributions made by highly educated immigrants to our country:

• Federico Faggin, born in Italy, was part of the team at Intel that designed the first microprocessor.  Along with his team, he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for “…significantly impacting the global economy and people’s day-to-day lives.”

• David Mumford, born in England, received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Currently a professor emeritus of applied mathematics at Brown University, he received the National Medal of Science for his work “which fundamentally changed algebraic geometry, and for connecting mathematics to other disciplines such as computer vision and neurobiology.”

• Amnon Yariv, born in Israel, earned his B.S., master’s degree and Ph.D. from University of California-Berkeley.  He is currently a professor at California Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received the National Medal of Science for “foundational contributions to photonics and quantum electronics, including his demonstration of the semiconductor distributed feedback laser that underpins today’s high-speed optical fiber communications.”

• Yakir Aharonov, born in Israel, is currently a professor of theoretical physics at Chapman University (California) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the National Medal of Science for “his contributions to the foundations of quantum physics and for drawing out unexpected implications of that field....”

America benefits from the research and innovation of these outstanding minds, no matter where they were born.

America Should Welcome, Not Restrict, Access to Highly Educated, Foreign-born Professionals

To learn more about how America benefits from a highly educated workforce, visit: http://www.competeamerica.org.

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Compete America (www.competeamerica.org) is a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration and committed to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce necessary to ensure continued innovation, job creation and leadership in a worldwide economy.