The $100,000 Lemelson–MIT Award for Global Innovation (previously named the Award for Sustainability) was last awarded in 2013. The Award for Global Innovation replaced the $100,000 Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award, which was awarded from 1995 to 2006. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognized outstanding individuals whose pioneering spirit and inventiveness throughout their careers improved society and inspired others.
The Lemelson–MIT Program also awards invention prizes for college students, called the Lemelson–MIT Student Prize.
BP Agrawal (Lemelson–MIT Award for Sustainability)
2009
Chad Mirkin (Lemelson–MIT Prize), George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University
Joel Selanikio[8] (Lemelson–MIT Award for Sustainability), CEO and co-founder, Magpi, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Georgetown University Hospital
Robert Dennard (Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award)
2004
Nick Holonyak Jr. (Lemelson–MIT Prize) (John Bardeen Endowed Chair Emeritus in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Al Gross (Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award) for his invention of the first walkie-talkie, CB radio, the telephone pager, and the cordless telephone.
Stephanie Kwolek (Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award) for her work on liquid-crystalline polymers and the development of the armored fabric Kevlar.
1998
Robert Langer (Lemelson–MIT Prize) (David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Jacob Rabinow (Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award) for the first disc-shaped magnetic storage media for computers, the magnetic particle clutch, the first straight-line phonograph, the first self-regulating clock, and a "reading machine" which was the first to use the "best match" principle.
1997
Douglas Engelbart (Lemelson–MIT Prize) (computer and Internet pioneer) for his invention of the computer mouse.
Gertrude Elion (Lemelson–MIT Lifetime Achievement Award) for the following inventions:
6-mercaptopurine (Purinethol), the first treatment for leukemia.
azathioprine (Imuran), the first immunosuppressive agent, used for organ transplants.