Craig Partridge, chair of the Department of Computer Science at Colorado State University, has been appointed by President Joe Biden to the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, the White House has announced.

The 16-member committee evaluates nominees for the National Medal of Science, a presidential award that recognizes individuals for their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, engineering, social and behavioral sciences. Since its establishment, the National Medal of Science has been awarded to 506 distinguished scientists and engineers whose careers spanned decades of research and development, according to the White House.

Partridge joined the CSU faculty as chair of the Department of Computer Science in 2018. He previously was chief scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies. He is a member of the Internet Hall of Fame and Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Partridge is also a member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies. He is a former chair of ACM’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication and a former member of the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Advisory Committee. Partridge received his A.B., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University.

“I am deeply honored by this appointment and look forward to working with my fellow committee members to help select outstanding scientists worthy of recognition,” Partridge said.