The Russ Prize spotlights invaluable bioengineering achievement, spurs R&D 'that improves the human condition'
Alfred Nobel signed his third and last will in Paris in November 1895. In it, he specified that the bulk of his fortune should be divided into five parts to be used for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. He died a little more than one year later in December 1896, and in December 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded.
The Nobel Foundation makes it clear that Nobel did not employ a lawyer to help him write his will, which has caused enormous complications since his death. It makes sense; there have been people, historical and modern, who have questioned how his final wishes were executed.
Was Nobel's intent shortchanged?
"Back then, more than 128 years ago, these disciplines were not defined as they are today," said NSPE-Ohio President Dennis Irwin, PhD, PE, FNSPE. "The discipline names were not set the way we understand them now."
Irwin and other engineers maintain if Nobel did not explicitly name an "engineering" prize, he also never intended to exclude engineering. After all, Nobel himself was as an engineer as we define the term today.
Yes, some people with engineering backgrounds have received the Nobel Prize in Physics. However, the lack of a specific engineering prize was keenly felt by many in engineering.
Fritz J. Russ, PhD, felt strongly that a prize with a significant cash award should be made available for achievements in bioengineering, a field in which he took a keen and personal interest. He knew that a notable prize would help the public understand how engineers improve the human condition. He also knew that the large cash award would allow recipients to advance vital research, which would benefit the public health, well-being and quality of life, or it would let them endow scholarships for the next generation of engineering innovators.
In this story, Irwin takes OhioENGINEER readers back to pay tribute to Dr. Fritz and Mrs. Dolores Russ, the namesakes of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology at Ohio University, and to share his narrative of the invaluable Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize. The one-of-a-kind bioengineering prize with a $500,000 cash award is jointly administered by Ohio University's Russ College, which holds the funds, and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), which selects a winning achievement biennially.
As the former dean of Ohio University's Russ College, Irwin spent a great deal of professional and social time with the Russes. He got to know them well, and they became close friends.
Irwin first met Russ in 1987 when Irwin was new at Ohio University and an assistant professor.
Irwin recalled, out of the gate, Russ asked him: "How can I help you?"
Cheekily, Irwin pointed out his boss and said, "Tell him to give me tenure."
To this, Russ responded earnestly asking Irwin, "Do you deserve tenure?"
Russ was studying electrical engineering at Ohio University in the early 1940s when his sister, Midge, introduced him to her friend, Dolores Houser, who worked nearby at a hair salon in Athens.
As Irwin said, "She attended Ohio University at one time, too."
Soon after meeting, Russ and Dolores were married. Irwin noted that they always shared an immense love between them.
"Fritz graduated in 1942 and they both worked in naval research labs in the 1940s," said Irwin.
Russ was an electronics expert for the United States. During World War II, he designed data collection equipment for the first U.S. post-war nuclear tests and traveled to Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to witness the hydrogen bomb test.
Irwin recalled, "He got on a practically destroyed ship to retrieve data."
Russ engaged in a lot of classified projects for the military. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he invented a firing error indicator to measure the precise distance by which an aircraft gun misses its target and then adjusts the gun in time for the next shot.
"Tech booms weren’t relegated to the 1990s," said Irwin. "There was a huge amount of tech developed after World War II." Irwin pointed to the tremendous amount of basic research in math, chemistry, physics, and systems theory that came out of the war.
"The research into navigation systems – radar, you name it – was started in WWII," said Irwin. "In the civilian and military aviation worlds it led quickly to jet airliners and transatlantic travel. Fritz was doing work for this."
"Fritz was working for the Air Force – as a contractor probably – and he went on a trip with one of the generals who was stationed in Dayton," said Irwin. The general and Russ found themselves with only one overnight room available for the two of them.
"The general took the room," Irwin recalled. "Fritz slept on the floor. That's what motivated him to start his own company."
After the war, Fritz and Dolores Russ relocated to Dayton. In the early 1950s, the couple founded Knollwood Electronics and developed the first known transistorized wireless electric guitar.
In 1955, Russ established Systems Research Laboratories in Beavercreek, and before it was sold in 1987, it grew to become one of the nation's largest independent engineering and high-tech research firms. Dolores was always involved serving in business and managerial roles.
Irwin said Russ designed and developed the first system to monitor and report a host of information, including patients' vitals, to a central location within the hospital where professionals could track and analyze the data. His system was implemented at a hospital in the Dayton area.
At the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, he helped build the world's first high-voltage, RF-generated power supply, later used in every television set. He also oversaw development of the first electronic control system for large diesel generators, resulting in two patents.
Fifty-five years' worth of engineering innovation is credited to Russ.
And sometimes Russ helped launch essential innovation by spinning off companies in support of other people's work.
His friend and biochemist Leland Clark – who invented an indispensable blood-oxygen sensor – was funded by Russ and another engineer and friend, Hardy Trollander of the Yellow Springs Instrument Company, to commercialize dissolved oxygen sensors.
"These sensors are vital for heart-lung surgeries," Irwin explained. "You can’t perform these surgeries without this sensor. Leland won the Russ Prize for that." Indeed, Clark is famously known as the "father of biosensors."
In their lives, the Russes valued education, hard work and family. They were highly active in their community, including the Dayton Engineers Club and politics to an extent.
"They were tremendous advocates for the engineering profession," Irwin remembered. "The Russ Prize was Fritz's premier contribution for supporting the profession. Fritz was interested in improving the human condition, and the Russ Prize reflects that interest."
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Russ was inspired by Clark's work.
"Through his friendship with Leland, Fritz developed an interest in bioengineering," Irwin said.
"That interest," he continued, "was strengthened by the fact that Fritz had developed Parkinson's disease, which is incurable." This was a difficult reality for Russ who was a proficient pilot and, as Irwin recalled, a strong presence in every room he entered.
"Fritz knew he was going to give Ohio University his entire estate – a large gift that has grown to about $140 million," said Irwin, "and $124 million was solely for the benefit of the Russ College."
"He made it clear he wanted an engineering prize to be funded as well," Irwin continued. The Russ Prize money is held by Ohio University's Russ College and disbursed to the National Academy of Engineering for Prize expenses."
Irwin said Ohio University's engineering dean at the time, Richard Robe, contacted the NAE president in 1999 to get started. The first prize was awarded in 2001.
Fritz Russ passed away in November 2004 and his beloved Dolores followed in January 2008.
The National Academy of Engineering offers a total of eight prizes, including these three major prizes:
Established to recognize an outstanding bioengineering achievement, the Russ Prize includes a $500,000 cash award, a commemorative medallion, a certificate, and a presentation ceremony and awards gala at NAE in Washington, DC. In addition, a trip to Athens, Ohio, is encouraged so that the Russ Prize recipient can offer a lecture to the public and interact with students socially and at an academic luncheon.
The selection of the achievement is a two-year process. In January of even years, NAE announces the Russ Prize's availability to NAE, the National Academy of Science, foreign academics, American Society of Civil Engineers, IEEE, and others. Some people nominate their own achievements. The winning achievement is announced in odd years.
The NAE Russ Prize selection committee looks for candidates as well. This committee includes two people from Ohio University: Irwin and David Scholl, PhD, an alumnus who started Diagnostic Hybrids, Inc., now Quidel Corp, a company that makes diagnostic tools for viruses.
As Irwin explained, any achievement that is nominated for the Russ Prize should bring together engineering and medicine. Furthermore, any nominated achievement must be in widespread use and improve the human condition.
Irwin clarified the term "widespread use" explaining, "The achievement's impact must be significant in scale; the product must help millions of people, or it must have the potential to do so immediately."
No criteria require that the people involved in the achievement must be trained as engineers or hold any license or certification, he said.
"Certainly, there is promising tech that hasn’t been out there long enough to have an impact," Irwin commented. "Almost every winner has been nominated multiple times."
"There are all sorts of nomination questions about 'who,'" said Irwin. "Was it one person or were there collaborators involved?"
Next, the Russ Prize selection committee wants to know, "Where else can this achievement lead?
"Fritz's purpose was to inspire the continuance of tech development," Irwin explained. "It needs to meet the richness criteria, which means that the achievement has further applications." To qualify for the Russ Prize, the nominated achievement cannot be the ultimate expression of something; it must further research or development.
Irwin asked, "If achievement leads to diagnosis, then what does diagnosis lead to?"
Irwin estimates that the NAE selection committee reviews 12 viable/complete nominations each biennial cycle, and the Russ Prize is awarded for a single achievement. (Any year in which there has been multiple winners, the achievements were related.)
"The first Russ Prize was awarded for the heart pacemaker," Irwin said. "Earl Bakken was CEO of Medtronic, the largest medical devices company in the world. His co-winner was Wilson Greatbatch."
Another Russ Prize recipient was Leland Clark for his blood-oxygen sensor. Irwin said that Prizes were also given to others for LASIK surgery and cochlear implants for hearing.
In 2021, there was no award due to the pandemic, but in 2023, the Russ Prize was awarded once again: Dr. David R. Walt, PhD, Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically-Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, received the Russ Prize for microwell arrays to advance genomics and proteomics.
Some applications of Walt's achievement include screening embryos for genetic defects before in vitro fertilization, studying disease in preserved/frozen tissues, improving crop disease resistance, and identifying individuals’ metabolic profiles to ensure proper drug dosage.
To conclude his OhioENGINEER interview, Irwin made special mention of a particularly notable recipient of the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize: Willem J. Kolff, MD, PhD.
In 1943, in the Netherlands during World War II, Kolff invented and built the first kidney dialysis machine using wooden drums, cellophane tubing, and laundry tubs.
Irwin recalled: "When Willem's achievement was nominated for the Russ Prize, we learned he was in assisted living in Philadelphia."
"He was penniless," Irwin continued.
Kolff's story really highlights the two quintessential reasons this bioengineering achievement award is unequivocally needed: The Russ Prize brings important recognition to engineers who work to improve the human condition, and the cash prize gives them the ability to develop their critical research to better human lives.
Imagine: The engineer who invented this life-saving device – who was known as a trailblazer in the field of artificial organs – was fading away with no means. That is, until his achievement was selected for the Russ Prize in 2003.
Thanks to the Russ Prize, "Willem continued his research," Irwin was pleased to report. "He called me often to tell me about it."