UC San Diego Engineering Dean Emeritus Receives NSF Honor

The National Science Board’s Vannevar Bush Award honors exceptional lifelong leadership in science and technology, and has been given to just one person a year since its inception in 1980. The award is named in memory of Vannevar Bush, who served as science advisor to the U.S. President during World War II, and helped establish high levels of sustained federal funding for science and engineering — funding which has improved human lives in countless ways while also growing and strengthening the US economy over many decades.

With this new award, Conn is being recognized by the National Science Board for his seminal contributions to fusion engineering; for his decades of service advising the federal government and scientific agencies; and for his role in founding the Science Philanthropy Alliance, which has increased philanthropic support for basic science in many disciplines.

In 2023, Conn was recognized with one of the oldest and most prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE) awards, the Simon Ramo Founders Award. The only two other people to have received both the Vannevar Bush award and the Simon Ramo Founders Award are David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, and Charlie Townes, who discovered the principles of the maser and laser, and won the Nobel Prize for that discovery.

"I congratulate Bob on this prestigious recognition. This honor is a testament to his outstanding contributions to science and our nation," said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. "As one of only three people to receive both of these highly regarded awards, Bob's achievement speaks to the tremendous impact he has made and to the exceptional caliber of our world-class faculty at UC San Diego.”

Conn is the third UC San Diego recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award. Roger Revelle, considered to be a founding father of UC San Diego, was honored with the award in 1984; Richard Atkinson, chancellor emeritus of UC San Diego and of the University of California, received the award in 2003.

“Recognition at this level is quite astonishing, and I’m deeply grateful to be included in such illustrious company,” said Conn. “It’s also not lost on me that this award is given in memory of the person largely responsible for establishing federal funding for science and engineering, at a time when that very ideal is under fire. With this award I hope I can shed light on the long-term economic, health, and technological benefits of funding our nation’s research and development enterprise.”

“In these difficult times for science, it is an unexpected pleasure and true honor to receive this extraordinary award. Named for President Roosevelt’s science advisor and author of the post-World War II strategy for science, the economy and national defense in America, I am proud to take just one step in his footsteps,” said Conn.

Intellectual Contributions to Practical Fusion

Fusion energy got a huge boon in 2022 when researchers finally achieved ignition — generating more energy from inertial confinement fusion than was required to run the test. With growing industry funding, the promise of clean, affordable and nearly limitless fusion energy is getting much closer to commercial viability. This is thanks in large part to the early work of Conn. In the 1970s, Conn and a colleague, Gerald Kulcinski, created the field of fusion reactor design, researching and outlining the engineering required to build an entire fusion system from start to finish, both for laser-based (inertial confinement) and magnetic-based (magnetic confinement) fusion techniques. He co-founded and served as the first director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Fusion Technology Institute and later established and led UCLA’s Institute of Plasma and Fusion Research.

While at UCLA, Conn co-founded the semiconductor equipment company Plasma & Materials Technology (PMY) in 1986, which developed a system called MORI used for plasma etching and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), key steps even today in the fabrication of semiconductors.

Conn was recruited to UC San Diego from UCLA in 1994 as dean of the recently founded School of Engineering. Conn brought much of his fusion research lab with him to UC San Diego, where it took root and flourished. In fact, some of the foundational strengths within UC San Diego’s new Fusion Engineering Institute are directly connected to the talent and infrastructure Conn brought to San Diego three decades ago.

In addition to building strengths in fusion energy research at UC San Diego, as engineering dean, Conn was instrumental in the formation of several industry-relevant research centers and institutes including the UC San Diego Center for Wireless Communications, the UC San Diego Division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (now the Qualcomm Institute), the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism (now the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur) and the Whitaker Center for Biomedical Engineering. Under Conn’s leadership, in 1998 the school was named the Jacobs School of Engineering in honor of a major gift from Irwin and Joan Jacobs, and it climbed to a top-10 ranking among engineering schools in the United States.

Conn is also a distinguished policy fellow and pacific rim fellow at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS).

Transformative Benefits through Philanthropic Giving

Another of Conn’s lasting legacies is a rallying of the philanthropic community in support of basic science. In 2012, Conn co-founded the Science Philanthropy Alliance with a goal of communicating the transformational impact of basic science to leading foundations and philanthropists. The Alliance also advises philanthropists on where funding for basic science is needed most and will be most impactful. The Alliance has grown from an initial six foundations and philanthropists to almost 40 partners, with endowments of roughly $140 billion. These members give about $9 billion a year, much of it to scientific research.

“This is a case where the benefit to society may seem indirect,” said Conn. “But we know that funding early-stage research has enormous economic benefit, along with the medical and technological advances propelled by basic science. Improved cancer treatments thanks to genetic sequencing; life-saving vaccines; clean fusion energy - these are just a few of the many, many examples of the long-term impacts of basic scientific research.”

In particular, Conn cited a federal reserve study which found that U.S. government spending on research and development consistently accounted for more than 20% of all business economic growth in the U.S. since World War II.

“That’s an astonishing figure – 20% of all business growth in the nation is thanks to federal R&D funding,” said Conn. “This demonstrates how absolutely crucial investment in our research enterprise is, not only to generate the life-changing medical and technological advances we all benefit from, but also from a purely economic perspective.”

Science Policy Contributions

The Vannevar Bush award also honors Conn’s contributions to the nation through advising government and scientific agencies. He has served on many advisory committees for the National Research Council, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Congress and government executive branch agencies, particularly the Department of Energy (DOE). He has served as chair of the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee of the DOE, as member of the University of California President's Advisory Committee on Science and Innovation and, in the late 1990's, as Chair of the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Physics Division Advisory Committee. Conn is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Nuclear Society.

“Congratulations Bob! Being awarded this top NSF award on the heels of the top NAE award is truly incredible. These recognitions, in tandem, shine a bright light on the depth and the breadth of your contributions to the Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego, and the engineering and scientific enterprise across the entire country,” said Albert P. Pisano, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Special Adviser to the Chancellor. “Here at the Jacobs School, we educate the innovation workforce for the industries of the future. Even as the research funding environment faces disruptions, we are able to lean in to our education mission thanks to the long-standing strength and relevance of the Jacobs School. Bob, your leadership has been essential for the building up of our strength and relevance over the years. Thank you, my friend, and congratulations!”