Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) today congratulated Pier Oddone, the Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, for his appointment to the National Academy of Sciences, an honor society dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology.

"I congratulate Director Oddone for receiving this esteemed honor," said Hultgren. "An appointment of this magnitude from his peers is a testament to his contributions to the science community and leadership at Fermilab. We depend on the efforts of Pier and others to ensure that America is and will remain a world leader in innovation and scientific discovery."

According to the National Academy of Sciences' website, the membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. Among the  renowned members are Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright and Alexander Graham Bell.

Pier Oddone was appointed Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory July, 2005 and previously served as Deputy Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research has been in experimental particle physics and based primarily on electron-positron colliders and he invented the Asymmetric B-Factory, a new kind of elementary particle collider to study the differences between matter and antimatter.

In 2005, Oddone received the Panofsky Award of the American Physical Society for the invention of the Asymmetric B-Factory.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.  He was elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008.  He also served as a member of the Executive Council of the National Laboratory Directors Council (NLDC).