Daniel Kleppner, Lester Wolfe professor of physics and associate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, presented his Killian Award lecture in the spring of 1996. He spoke of advances in science from a personal point of view, tracing themes that wend through the creation of modern science and flow into today's world of atomic physics. The award selection committee said of Professor Kleppner, "...his discoveries, inventions, and contributions in atomic physics place him at the forefront of a science which is one of the foundations of modern technology." He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2006.