Dr. John H. Hopps, Jr., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, receives the National Materials Advancement Award from the Federation of Materials Societies at a reception at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on December 10, 2003.

In dual capacities within the Office of Defense Research and Engineering – Principal Deputy to the Director of DDR&E and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Laboratories and Basic Sciences – Dr. Hopps has broad responsibility for research and education programs in science and engineering disciplines. His duties include oversight of the Defense Laboratories, improvement of the Defense Laboratory science and engineering workforce, and direction of DDR&E university-based basic research, instrumentation, graduate fellowship and education programs in the science and engineering disciplines. He has additional responsibility for international programs of technical cooperation between the U.S. and its allies.

Dr. Hopps has long been a vocal advocate for taking an interdisciplinary approach to developing the technical workforce and examining frontiers of research, particularly in materials science and engineering. He came to the Department of Defense from Northwestern University, where he served as Institute Professor in the Materials Research Center. His activities included an initiative for the integration of materials science into the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum. From 1995-1999, Dr. Hopps served as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and as Professor of Physics at Morehouse College, his undergraduate alma mater. There he established the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs and the International Power Institute, and established interdisciplinary programs in neuroscience and telecommunications, all within the framework of a four-year liberal arts institutional structure.

Previous recipients of the National Materials Advancement Award include Dr. Paul C. Maxwell, Science Consultant to the US House of Representatives Committeee on Science (1985); Dr. John B. Wachtman, Jr., Director of the Center for Ceramics Research at Rutgers University (1986); Dr. William O. Baker, retired Chairman of the Board of AT&T Bell Laboratories (1987); Dr. Morris Cohen, Institute Professor Emeritus, MIT (1988); Dr. Allen G. Gray, Technical Director Emeritus, ASM International (1989); Dr. Klaus M. Zwilsky, Director of the National Materials Advisory Board (1990); Dr. Rustum Roy, Director of the Materials Education Council (1991); Rep. George E. Brown, Jr., Chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee (1992); Dr. Lyle H. Schwartz, Director of the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (1993); Dr. Nathan E. Promisel, retired Director of the National Materials Advisory Board (1994); Dr. Peter R. Bridenbaugh, Executive Vice President-Automotive, ALCOA (1995); Dr. Mary L. Good, Under Secretary of Commerce (1996); Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr. (1997); Dr. Robert Baboian, retired Fellow of Texas Instruments (1998); Dr. Merton C. Flemings, Toyota Professor, MIT (1999); Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus, Director, Office of Science, US Department of Energy (2000); Dr. Bhakta B. Rath, Associate Director of the Naval Research Laboratory (2001); and Dr. Jerry M. Woodall, D. Baldwin Sawyer Professor at Yale University (2002).