AASF is proud to recognize these trailblazers who have shaped modern life and created transformative change across the country and world.
2025 Pioneer Medalists
David Ho
Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Clyde ’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine; Director, Wu Family China Center; and Emeritus Founding Director, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University
Honored for pioneering HIV/AIDS research and treatment
Mani Menon
Chief of Strategy and Innovation in the Department of Urology for the Mount Sinai Health System
Honored for groundbreaking advances in robotic surgery
Shuji Nakamura
CREE Professor of Solid State Lighting and Displays, Materials at the University of California – Santa Barbara
Honored for inventing the blue LED
Chih-Tang (Tom) Sah
Professor Emeritus of Physics and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Honored for revolutionary work in semiconductor electronics
Wong Tsoo
First engineer at Boeing
Honored posthumously for pioneering modern aircraft design
2025 Justice Medalists
Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga
Political activist
Honored for uncovering critical evidence for the coram nobis cases which led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988
Fred Korematsu
Civil rights activist
Honored for fighting for the rights of Japanese Americans affected by incarceration during World War II
Karen Korematsu
Founder and President of the Korematsu Institute
Honored for advancing civil liberties and public education
2024 Pioneer Medalists
Nasir Ahmed
Invented discrete cosine transform (DCT) for media compression
Mau-Chang Frank Chang
Dawon Kahng
Co-discoverer of the floating-gate memory effect (1967), enabling modern flash memory storage.
Simon Min Sze
Co-discoverer of the floating-gate memory effect (1967), enabling modern flash memory storage.
Teresa Huai-Ying Meng
