In 1980, the National Science Board (NSB) announced that James R. Killian, Jr. was the recipient of its Vannevar Bush Award “For his outstanding contributions to science and technology through public service to the Nation as one of the leading spokesmen for educational innovation and curriculum reform, for strengthening and broadening engineering education, for support of basic research, and for his distinguished record of service from World War II to the present time.”

Killian was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Special Assistant for Science and Technology to President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1957-1959, making him the first official Presidential Science Advisor.

Established in 1980, the award commemorates Vannevar Bush, a science advisor to President Roosevelt during World War II. The driving force behind the creation of the National Science Foundation.