Cledo Brunetti Award Committee

What Is the Cledo Brunetti Award Committee?

The Cledo Brunetti Award Committee is the IEEE body responsible for administering and selecting recipients of the IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, an annual technical field award that recognizes outstanding contributions to nanotechnology and technologies for microsystem miniaturization. The committee evaluates nominations, applies the award criteria, and recommends recipients to the IEEE Awards Board for final approval.

The award was established in 1975 through a bequest by Cledo Brunetti, an executive at FMC Corporation who contributed to the development of printed circuit technology. Brunetti's endowment created a permanent fund that supports the award in perpetuity. The IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award may be presented to an individual or to a team of up to three people, and recipients receive a bronze medal, a certificate, and an honorarium.

Award Scope and Criteria

The award focuses on the technical fields of nanotechnology and microsystem miniaturization, areas that encompass the design, fabrication, and characterization of structures, devices, and systems at the nanometer to micrometer scale. These fields have grown in strategic importance as the electronics, photonics, biomedical, and energy sectors have developed technologies whose performance depends on precise control of features at dimensions below one micrometer.

According to the IEEE awards program, the committee evaluates nominations on the basis of innovation, development, social value, uniqueness of concept, other technical accomplishments, and the quality of the nomination documentation. Both individual researchers and collaborative teams are eligible, reflecting the increasingly collaborative nature of nanotechnology research. Past recipients have included contributors to nanolithography, quantum transport in nanostructures, and silicon-based microsystems.

Nomination and Selection Process

The nomination process for the Cledo Brunetti Award follows the general IEEE technical field award procedures. Nominators submit a formal package including a citation, endorsement letters from experts in the relevant field, and a biographical summary of the nominee's contributions. The Cledo Brunetti Award Committee reviews these submissions against the stated criteria and makes a recommendation to the IEEE Awards Board, which approves the final selection each year. Nominations are accepted on an annual cycle, with deadlines published through the IEEE Awards program.

IEEE technical field awards are distinct from IEEE society-level honors in that they represent recognition at the level of the full Institute, carrying the weight of IEEE's membership of over 425,000 engineers and scientists worldwide. The Cledo Brunetti Award sits within a portfolio of IEEE technical field awards administered by the IEEE Awards program, each tied to a specific discipline, from signal processing to energy conversion to nanotechnology. This breadth ensures that the award reaches researchers working at the intersection of multiple communities, which characterizes much of contemporary nanotechnology.

Applications

The Cledo Brunetti Award Committee and the award it administers connect to a range of fields in which nanotechnology and microsystem miniaturization play a central role, including: