Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922) is an American experimental physicist who received, along with
Martin Lewis Perl, the
Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, for their research on
quarks and
leptons, and the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, along with
Melvin Schwartz and
Jack Steinberger, for their research on
neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in
Batavia, Illinois, USA. He founded the
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in
Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. In 2012, he was awarded the
Vannevar Bush Award for his extraordinary contributions to understanding the basic forces and particles of nature.