Fedoroff recognized with the 2024 Honorary Alumni Award

Nina V. Federoff is one of five longtime Penn State champions and benefactors recognized by the Penn State Alumni Association with the 2024 Honorary Alumni Award.
 
The Honorary Alumni Award has been given by the Alumni Association since 1973 to honor people who, while not graduates of Penn State, have made significant contributions toward the University’s welfare, reputation or prestige. 
 
The recipients will be recognized during an award ceremony on Saturday, June 1, on the University Park campus. The ceremony also will feature the presentation of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni and Philanthropist of the Year awards.  
 
Since the Honorary Alumni Award was established, more than 100 individuals have been given honorary alumni status. 

Nina V. Federoff received a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Syracuse University and a doctoral degree in molecular biology from the Rockefeller University. She is now an Evan Pugh Professor Emerita (2010-present) at Penn State and was the founding director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State. 

Federoff served as a Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, where she founded and directed the Center for Desert Agriculture (2011-14). Federoff was a Verne M. Willaman Professor of Life Sciences at Penn State, where she was the director of the Biotechnology Institute (1995-2010). She has been a member of the Santa Fe Institute’s External Faculty (2003-18) and served on the faculties of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Johns Hopkins University (1978-95).
 
She has published three books and more than 170 papers in scientific journals, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served on the National Science Board from 2000 to 2006. Among her awards is a 2006 National Medal of Science, the highest honor awarded to U.S. scientists. Fedoroff served as the science and technology adviser to the secretary of state and to the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (2007-10). She established and serves on the board of the Global Knowledge Initiative, an organization focused on forging collaborations between scientists in developed and developing countries. Additionally, she has served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as a trustee of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.