Annual Stibitz-Wilson Awards to honor ‘visionaries at the nexus of medicine and technology’

BOZEMAN - The American Computer and Robotics Museum will honor a science educator and communicator, a pediatric surgeon and cochlear implant specialist, a medical robotics pioneer and a groundbreaking cancer researcher at the Stibitz-Wilson Awards ceremony on Sept. 20 in Bozeman.

The free, public event, of which Montana State University is a sponsor, will begin at 5 p.m. at The ELM Theater, 506 N. Seventh Ave. Seating is not reserved, and the doors will open at 4 p.m.

Honorees will receive their awards at the ceremony and have the opportunity to speak about their work and answer questions from the audience.

The theme for this year's ceremony is "Code to Cure: Visionaries at the Nexus of Medicine and Technology." The 2024 honorees are:

Maya Ajmera is president and CEO of Society for Science and executive publisher of the organization's award-winning magazine, Science News. Over the past 10 years, she transformed the 100-year-old nonprofit into a dynamic, entrepreneurial organization. She also founded a series of outreach and equity programs to reach underserved science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, students across the United States. Ajmera is globally recognized as a social entrepreneur. She founded Global Fund for Children, a nonprofit that invests in innovative, community-based organizations working with vulnerable children. She is also an award-winning author of more than 20 children's books.

Charles Limb is the Francis A. Sooy Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery; chief of the Division of Otology, Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery; and director of the Douglas Grant Cochlear Implant Center at University of California-San Francisco. Limb is currently co-director of the Sound Health Network, which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Institutes of Health and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. SHN promotes research and public awareness about the impact of music on health and wellness. Limb's current research focuses on the neural basis of musical creativity and music perception in cochlear implant users. In 2022, he was named one of the Kennedy Center's Next 50, a group of cultural leaders who are "moving us toward a more inspired, inclusive and compassionate world."

Russell Taylor has more than 50 years of experience in robotics and, for the past 35 years, has been investigating how the partnership between physicians, technology and information can improve treatment processes. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1976 and spent 20 years at IBM Research. He moved to Johns Hopkins University in 1995, where he is the John C. Malone Professor of Computer Science with joint appointments in mechanical engineering, radiology, otolaryngology and surgery. He is the director of the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics and the author of more than 600 peer-reviewed journal and conference publicationsas well as holding multiple patents. He has received numerous awards and honors, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

MSU alumnus Irv Weissman was raised in Great Falls. After earning a bachelor's degree from MSU in 1961, he earned an M.D. from Stanford University in 1965. He returned to Great Falls to start his scientific career at the McLaughlin Research Institute. He founded the immunology program at Stanford University and serves as the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research and professor of pathology and developmental biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was the first scientist to identify and isolate mammalian blood-forming stem cells in mice and has pioneered numerous techniques to study the development of healthy blood and immune systems. Weissman's team has been able to essentially cure most cases of human acute myeloid leukemia in mice, and clinical trials based on his work may lead to new methods by which to use the immune system to attack tumors.

Stibitz-Wilson Awards honorees are selected by a committee of MSU scientists, past award recipients and the American Computer and Robotics Museum's board of directors. Previous honorees include Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna and Jack Kilby; National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients Ralph Baer, Federico Faggin and Mary Shaw; Turing Award winners Tim Berners-Lee, Vinton Cerf, Edward Feigenbaum, Bob Kahn, Barbara Liskov, and Robert Metcalfe; and Montana-based researchers David Andes, Rufus Cone, Diana Six and David Quammen.

Established in 1997, the awards are named for inventor George Stibitz, whose work in the 1930s helped set the stage for modern digital computing, and for biologist Edward O. Wilson, who made landmark contributions to understanding the complex web of life on Earth.

MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, Office of Research and Economic Development, and Office of the President are longtime sponsors of the awards.