For his passionate and wildly popular teaching of non-science majors; his mentoring of hundreds of teaching assistants and undergraduate research students; his dedication to public education through lectures, TV documentaries, and video courses; his textbook and other popular writings; and his leadership in saving Lick Observatory, a prominent California observatory that faced defunding in 2014.

For exceptional vision in the conception and design of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a major imaging and spectroscopic survey that has created the most detailed three-dimensional maps of the universe ever made.

For her innovative and sustained contributions to high-energy astrophysics. 

For her illuminating work on the formation of stars, debris disks, and planets.

For innovative and foundational work on methods of thinning, coating, and reading out large-format back-side illuminated CCD detectors.

For his deep theoretical insight into an exceptionally broad range of astrophysical phenomena, including the dynamics of planetary systems, accretion disk winds in active galactic nuclei, and star formation and feedback in galaxies.

For pioneering work on the Keck adaptive optics systems.

For a lifetime of innovative X-ray and multiwavelength research, including foundational studies of the properties of active galactic nuclei and the composition and structures of hot gas in clusters of galaxies.