JERUSALEM (JTA) — Tony Blair will receive a $1 million prize in part for his efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Tel Aviv University announced the recipients of the international Dan David Prize, which annually makes three awards for outstanding achievement in the categories of Past, Present and Future Time Dimensions.
Blair, the former British prime minister, was awarded the prize in the Present Leadership category "for his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict."
Sharing the Past category prize in the field of Astrophysics-History of the Universe are Paolo de Bernardis of the University La Sapienza, Rome; Andrew Lange of the California Institute of Technology; and Paul Richards of the University of California, Berkeley, for their discoveries providing the first undisputed evidence that the universe has a flat geometry.
The Future prize in the field of Global Public Health was awarded to Robert Gallo of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore for his research of the HIV and T cell leukemia viruses and for the development of a simple blood test to detect the HIV virus.
The prize is named for international businessman and philanthropist Dan David. The laureates, who donate 10 percent of their prize money toward 20 doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, will be honored at a ceremony May 17 at Tel Aviv University.
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