The Klopsteg Memorial Award is given to a notable physicist in memory of Paul E. Klopsteg

Paul E. Klopsteg

Paul Ernest Klopsteg was an American physicist. The asteroid 3520 Klopsteg was named after him and the yearly Klopsteg Memorial Award was founded in his memory....

. Established in 1990, it is awarded by the American Association of Physics Teachers

American Association of Physics Teachers

The American Association of Physics Teachers was founded in 1930 for the purpose of "dissemination of knowledge of physics, particularly by way of teaching." There are more than 10,000 members that reside in over 30 countries. AAPT publications include two peer-reviewed journals, the American...

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The Klopsteg Memorial Award recipient is asked to make a major presentation at an AAPT Summer Meeting on a topic of current significance suitable for non-specialists.
Award Winners

2007 Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, a science communicator, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and a Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History...

, Astrophysicist and Director, Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History, New York
"Adventures in Science Illiteracy"

2006 Lisa Randall

Lisa Randall

Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe. Her most well known contribution to the field is the Randall-Sundrum model,...

, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA,
"Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions"

2005 Wendy Freedman, Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, CA
"The Accelerating Universe"

2004 Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilinger is an Austrian quantum physicist. He is currently professor of physics at the University of Vienna, previously University of Innsbruck. He is also the director of the Vienna branch of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information IQOQI at the Austrian Academy of Sciences...

, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
"Quantum Experiments: From Philosophical Curiosity to a New Technology"

2003 Sylvester James Gates

Sylvester James Gates

Sylvester James Gates, Jr. is a noted American theoretical physicist. He received BS and PhD degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter in 1977. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to deal with supersymmetry. Gates is currently the John S...

, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
"Why Einstein Would Love Spaghetti in Fundamental Physics"

2002 Barry C. Barish, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
"Catching the Waves with LIGO"

2001 Virginia Trimble

Virginia Trimble

Virginia Louise Trimble is an astronomer specializing in the structure and evolution of stars and galaxies, and the history of astronomy.-Life:...

, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA
"Cosmology: Man's Place in the Universe"

2000 Terrence P. Walker, The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH
"The Big Bang: Seeing Back to the Beginning"

1999 Michael S. Turner, University of Chicago
"Cosmology: From Quantum Fluctuations to the Expanding Universe"

1998 Sidney R. Nagel, The James Franck Institute
"Physics at the Breakfast Table - Or Waking Up to Physics"

1997 Max Dresden, Stanford University and Stanford Linear Accelerator
"Scales, Macroscopic, Microscopic, Mesoscopic: Their Autonomy and Interrelation"

1996 Margaret Geller

Margaret Geller

Margaret Joan Geller is an American astronomer and professor. She is a Senior Astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and has written numerous articles and produced several award-winning scientific short films....

, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Optical Infrared Astronomy Division

1995 Peter Franken

Peter Franken

Peter A. Franken was an American physicist who contributed to the field of nonlinear optics. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1977....

, University of Arizona
"Municipal Waste, Recycling, and Nuclear Garbage"

1994 N. David Mermin, Cornell University
"More Quantum Magic"

1993 Charles P. Bean, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York
"An Invitation to Table-Top Physics Inside and in the Open Air"

1992 Gabriel Wienreich University of Michigan at Anne Arbor
"What Science Knows about Violins And What It Doesn't Know," Am. J. Phys. 61, 1067 (1993).

1991 Paul K. Hansman, University of California at Santa Barbara
"Seeing Atoms with the New Generation of Microscopes," Am. J. Phys. 59, 1067 (1991).