College of Engineering Magazine- Spring 2001

Groundbreaking Award

Charles DeLisi Honored at White House

Charles DeLisi Honored at White House Charles DeLisi with President In recognition of his leading role in the national Human Genome Project, biomedical engineering professor and former dean Charles DeLisi was awarded the prestigious Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton in a January ceremony.

In making the presentation, Clinton called the award “a symbol of our gratitude as a people for those who have performed exemplary deeds of service to others” in areas including civil rights, medicine and health, human rights, religion, education, disability advocacy, government service, and the environment. Among the twenty-eight honored at the ceremony were Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor, who was a visiting professor at the School of Law from 1984 to 1996, Hank Aaron, Elizabeth Taylor, and Ruby Bridges.

As director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Health and Environmental Research Programs in the mid-eighties, DeLisi conceived of government research to sequence the Groundbreaking Award human genome. He secured federal funding of the Human Genome Project, launched in 1990. “Just as Lewis and Clark set forth to explore a continent shrouded in mysterious possibility, Charles DeLisi pioneered the exploration of a modern day frontier, the human genome,” Clinton said at the ceremony.

DeLisi’s “imagination and determination helped to ignite the revolution in sequencing that would ultimately unravel the code of human life itself,” Clinton added. “Thanks to his vision and leadership, in the year 2000 we announced the complete sequencing of the human genome. And researchers are now closer than ever to finding therapies and cures for ailments once thought untreatable. At once scientist, entrepreneur, and teacher, Charles DeLisi is also, in the truest sense, a humanitarian, a man whose life work has been life itself.”

DeLisi is the University’s first Arthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering and directs the College’s program in bioinformatics. He was ENG dean from 1990 to 2000, stepping down from his position last summer to devote more time to teaching and research.

Photograph: courtesy of the White House


Groundbreaking Award Charles DeLisi Honored at White House In recognition of his leading role in the national Human Genome Project, biomedical engineering professor and former dean Charles DeLisi was awarded the prestigious Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton in a January ceremony. In making the presentation, Clinton called the award “a symbol of our gratitude as a people for those who have performed exemplary deeds of service to others” in areas including civil rights, medicine and health, human rights, religion, education, disability advocacy, government service, and the environment. Among the twenty-eight honored at the ceremony were Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor, who was a visiting professor at the School of Law from 1984 to 1996, Hank Aaron, Elizabeth Taylor, and Ruby Bridges. As director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Health and Environmental Research Programs in the mid-eighties, DeLisi conceived of government research to sequence the Groundbreaking Award human genome. He secured federal funding of the Human Genome Project, launched in 1990. “Just as Lewis and Clark set forth to explore a continent shrouded in mysterious possibility, Charles DeLisi pioneered the exploration of a modern day frontier, the human genome,” Clinton said at the ceremony. DeLisi’s “imagination and determination helped to ignite the revolution in sequencing that would ultimately unravel the code of human life itself,” Clinton added. “Thanks to his vision and leadership, in the year 2000 we announced the complete sequencing of the human genome. And researchers are now closer than ever to finding therapies and cures for ailments once thought untreatable. At once scientist, entrepreneur, and teacher, Charles DeLisi is also, in the truest sense, a humanitarian, a man whose life work has been life itself.” DeLisi is the University’s first Arthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering and directs the College’s program in bioinformatics. He was ENG dean from 1990 to 2000, stepping down from his position last summer to devote more time to teaching and research. Photograph: courtesy of the White House
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