President Donald Trump received a piece of his family’s scientific history Thursday when White House science adviser Michael Kratsios presented him with the National Medal of Science awarded to his late uncle, Dr. John G. Trump.
The presentation came during the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit, before Trump honored six prominent technology leaders with national science and innovation medals.
According to Mediaite, Kratsios paused the ceremony to introduce a video celebrating John Trump’s career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his contributions to medicine and wartime radar.
“Some scientists transform medicine. Some help win wars. John G. Trump did both,” the tribute began.
After the video, Kratsios presented the president with his uncle’s medal in a frame.
“Mr. President, we have been able to find the medal for your uncle, and we want to present it to you in a beautiful frame,” Kratsios said, according to Mediaite. Fox News also shared footage of the presentation.
A Career That Advanced Cancer Treatment And Wartime Radar
John Trump was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT whose research helped expand the use of high-voltage technology in medicine, industry and physics.
The National Science Foundation lists him as a 1983 National Medal of Science recipient. President Ronald Reagan presented the award posthumously at a White House ceremony on Feb. 27, 1985.
According to the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation, Trump worked with physicist Robert Van de Graaff to build one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. Installed at a Boston hospital in 1937, the machine helped doctors treat cancer patients.
During World War II, he worked at MIT’s Radiation Laboratory, which developed microwave radar technology for the Allied war effort. In 1944, he took charge of the laboratory’s British branch.
After the war, Trump continued his research at MIT and helped establish a company that produced high-voltage generators for medical care and scientific research. His work included efforts to treat deep cancerous tumors while limiting damage to healthy tissue.
Six Technology Leaders Receive National Honors
The family tribute preceded the ceremony’s main awards.
According to the White House announcement, Trump presented the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su.
Michael Dell and Satya Nadella received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
The awards recognized achievements spanning space exploration, information processing, semiconductor engineering and computing infrastructure.
“Innovators like these six awardees are the architects of the future,” Kratsios said in the White House release.
For Trump, the ceremony also offered a personal connection to an earlier generation of American innovation through the medal awarded to his uncle more than four decades ago.
