President George Rupp with Rep. Sherwood Boehlert

Columbia's President George Rupp presented a "Champion of Science Award" to Rep. Sherwood "Sherry" Boehlert, New York congressman and chairman of the House Science Committee, at a Science Coalition breakfast at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

Boehlert, who is currently serving his tenth consecutive term in Congress representing upstate New York, became chairman of the House Science Committee in January after serving there since 1983. The Committee governs all federal nonmilitary scientific and technology research and development programs, including NASA, the National Science Foundation and initiatives within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce.

A longstanding supporter of environmental research, Boehlert is the third-ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he is chairman of its Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. He is also a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and a delegate to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, serving as chairman of the Scientific and Technology Committee.

The Science Coalition is a public policy group of more than 400 member organizations that seeks to expand and strengthen the federal government's investment in university-based scientific research, medical engineering and agricultural research. Columbia is one of the dozen universities that founded the Coalition in 1994.

The Champion of Science awards, first presented in 1999, are given to members of Congress who have demonstrated strong support for federal funding of basic research. Previous recipients include among others Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. Jim Walsh (R-NY).

The award contains an actual "pharmacy on a chip" -- a device developed in university labs that can release powerful chemotherapeutic drugs directly onto tumors. This device represents the interconnectedness of the scientific fields of medicine, electrical engineering, materials science and chemistry that are important to modern-day discovery.