* 1983 - I. I. Rabi
* 1984 - David W. Allan
* 1985 - Norman Ramsey, Nobel Prize in 1989
* 1986 - Jerrold R. Zacharias
* 1987 - Louis Essen
* 1988 - Gernot M. R. Winkler
* 1989 - Leonard S. Cutler
* 1990 - Claude Audoin
* 1991 - Andrea De Marchi
* 1992 - James A. Barnes
* 1993 - Robert F. C. Vessot
* 1994 - Jacques Vanier
* 1995 - Fred L. Walls
* 1996 - Andre Clairon and Robert E. Drullinger
* 1997 - Harry E. Peters and Nikolai A. Demidov
* 1998 - David J. Wineland, Nobel Prize in 2012
* 1999 - Bernard Guinot
* 2000 - William J. Riley Jr.
* 2001 - Lute Maleki
* 2002 - Jon H. Shirley
* 2003 - Andreas Bauch
* 2005 - Theodor W. Hänsch, Nobel Prize in 2005
* 2004 - John L. Hall, Nobel Prize in 2005
* 2006 - James C. Bergquist
* 2007 - Patrick Gill and Leo Hollberg
* 2008 - Hidetoshi Katori
* 2009 - John D. Prestage
* 2010 - Long Sheng Ma
* 2011 - Fritz Riehle
* 2012 - James Camparo
* 2013 - Judah Levine
* 2014 - Harald R. Telle
* 2015 - Ulrich_L._Rohde
* 2016 - John Kitching
* 2017 - Scott Diddams
* 2018 - Jun Ye
* 2019 - Steven Jefferts 
* 2020 - Robert Lutwak
* 2021 - Ekkehard Peik