2021 Prize - Sara Schechner
This year's Sawyer Dialing Prize went to Dr. Sara Schechner “for her career in education and conservation of our dialing heritage, and in particular for her authorship of Time of Our Lives – Sundials of the Adler Planetarium”.
Dr. Schechner is a historian of science, and in particular, of astronomical instruments. She is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard. Previously at the Adler Planetarium, she was pivotal in authoring and producing Time of Our Lives.
Fred presented Sara with an award certification, the tradional cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
She acknowledged the Sawyer Dialing Prize with a presentation on “Sundials That Tell Us More Than the Time”. In her talk, she examined sundials that indicate the political, religious, economic and geographic context in which they were created from the humble dial to the princely treasure. Sundials could be found embedded in eating utensils, swords, guns, or your writing kit. Early consumers wanted pocket sundials with style, much the way iphone and smartphone users today show off their technology. Cities specialized in the manufacture of different styled dials. Living in London you might have an equatorial from Augsburg or in Paris you would choose the Butterfield Dial. For the rich, dials were of silver and gold. The middle class might have brass and the lower class might use a shepherd’s dial out of paper and wood.
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2020 Prize - No Award Given
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2019 Prize - Denis Savoie
This year's Sawyer Dialing Prize was awarded to Dénis Savoie at the NASS annual conference in Denver, CO. The certificate recognizes Dénis "for his long career of education, reserarch, and publications related to gnomonics and his outstanding portfolio of public sundial designs and restorations." Early in his career Dénis was significantly influenced by Morando, who was excellent at calculating planetary motions and played an important part in the reduction of astrometry data from the Hipparcos satellite. In his honor, asteroid 5702 was named Morando thanks to the submission by Dénis Savoi and Jean Meeus, and endorsed by L. D. Schmadel.
Dénis has designed many large sundials, including the giant "Nef Solaire" on the A9 motorway near Tave. Dénis has done many projects with Marc Goutaudier, including the creation of a sundial on the top of the SEIS Seismometer on the InSight mission to Mars. The sundial provided precise orientation of the seismometer using a unique shadow calibration ring.
At the fall annual meeting of the Commission des Cadrans Solaires - a subgroup of the Societe Astronomique de France - on 16 Nov 2019 the President of CCS, Philippe Sauvageot, presented Dénis with the traditional Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials and the Sawyer Dialing Prize certificate. He already received the Sawyer Award Prize of $200.
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2018 Prize - Gianpiero Casalegno
This year's Sawyer Dialing prize was awarded to Gianpiero Casalegno at the NASS annual conference in Pittsburgh, PA. The certificate recognizes Gian for "his achievements in harnessing modern digital technology to the benefit of traditional dialists around the world - 18 Aug 2018."
Gian was not able to attend the conference to receive the Sawyer Award, so Fred Sawyer read the certificate to NASS attendees and forwarded the award certificate and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials to Gian in Italy. Gian chose to use the traditional cash prize of $200 to support the Bellingham Mural Sundial.
Gian prepared an acceptance speech that was read by Sawyer. Gian's began his talk with "My main contribution to gnomonics has been the development of several software programs [including Orologi Solari available to all at http://www.sundials.eu/download/download_enu.html] to help other people dealing with sundial design, simulation and restoration. Therefore today I would like to present a survey of my programs highlighting some unique aspects that could have been neglected or underestimated by most people."
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2017 Prize - No Award Given
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2016 Prize - Roger Bailey
This year's Sawyer Dialing prize was awarded to Roger Bailey at the NASS annual conference in Portland, ME. The certificate recognizes Roger for "consistently showing the dialing community that all you need to know in life can be learned from studying sundials, and for using that study to advance the theory and practice of dialing."
Fred Sawyer presented Roger with an award certificate, the traditional cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
On receiving the award Roger's presentation was "That is a Good Question". Here he pointed out that most of his achievements in the art and science of dialing was sparked by answering good questions, questions like the shadow lengths or the time and direction of sunrise sunset on analemmatic sundials or time systems on Islamic sundials. The theme was "Ask and you shall receive". He remains open to good questions.
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2015 Prize - Gianni Ferrari
Ing. Gianni Ferrari was awarded the 2015 Sawyer Dialing prize, with his certificate acknowledging: "for his long career educating the dialing community about the nearly forgotten heritage of ancient Islamic gnomonics and the wide variety of modern analytically developed sundials." Since 2000 Gianni has contributed nearly 30 articles to the NASS Compendium, enriching dialists' knowledge around the world. Recently he published the books Le Meridiane Dell'Antico Islam (Sundials of Ancient Islam) and Formule e metodi per lo studio degli orologi solari piani - Caratteristiche, descrizione e calcolo degli orologi solar paini comuni e pop conosciuti (Formulae and methods for the study of flat sundials - with characteristics, descriptions and calculations of common and less known sundials). Gianni's acceptance presentation for the conference was on "Forgotten Dialing Formulas" using versines. The versine trigonometric function was engraved on ancient quadrants, forming the small arcs "versus" and "rectus" that were used for solving the Astronomical Triangle to derive solar azimuth and hour angle time. Those that have learned to navigate with a sextant may indeed remember using half versines or "haversines" tables. His presentation is in the September 2015 issue of the NASS The Compendium. Gianni was not able to attend the NASS Conference in Victoria, but sent greetings from Italy. He asked that NASS donate the $200 prize money to benefit an appropriate dialing cause. Like other dialing prize recipients, he received a Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials. Gianni's dial was designed for his home in Modena, Italy at 44o 34' N 10o 51' E.
http://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/spectra-sundial-modena-italy.html
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2014 Prize - Robert Kellogg
At the 2014 NASS Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, Fred Sawyer announced this year’s Sawyer Dialing Award is given to Robert Kellogg, “who, through his constant outreach, his unflagging support of NASS, and his technical ingenuity, as evidenced by his invention of the digital sundial, has helped to usher dialing into the modern age.”
Bob designed and patented a digital sundial based on sunbeam projection, first considered when he was at the US Naval Postgraduate School. But it took more than a decade for those ideas to gel into a firm technical form and a US Patent.
Bob continues to write “Sundials for Starters”, a regular column for NASS's Compendium. Over the last several years he has organized the joint NASS-Analemma Society outreach at the US Science and Engineering Festival and has brought sundialing to Montgomery County Schools in Maryland for the last 20 years.
Fred Sawyer presented Bob with an award certificate, the traditional cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
http://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/spectra-sundial-potomac.html
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2013 Prize - André Bouchard
André Bouchard received the 2013 Sawyer Dialing prize at the Boston NASS Conference “In recognition of two decades of promoting, preserving, extending and exemplifying the pairimoine of Québecois of dialing and gnomonics.”
During the first 15 years of the CCSQ (la Commission des Cadrans solaires du Québec) André made numerous presentations on gnomonics, adopting objective and descriptive ways in order to highlight the specific elements of particular dials and dialist styles. Now as editor of The Gnomonist / Le Gnomoniste, André is rediscovering the fundamentals of philosophy through sundials, showing that they merge both in time, place, casting symbolic meaning and beauty within their surrounding. André illustrated this by discussing the design of the 2008 sundial on the shore of the St. Laurence River at Point aux Outardes Park near Baie-Comeau, where the polar gnomon and its supports simulate bull rushes, augmented by a flight of geese.
Fred Sawyer presented André with an award certificate, the traditional cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
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2012 Prize - Frank King
The 2012 Sawyer Dialing Prize was awarded to Frank King at the annual NASS Conference in Asheville, North Carolina.
The award is given “In recognition of his innovative mathematical and astronomical solutions to problems encountered in the modern design of notable sundials.” Dr. King is Council Chairman of the British Sundial Society, Senior Lecturer of the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Churchill College where he is Chairman of the Churchill Archives Committee and Praelector. At Cambridge he also holds the responsibility of the University Bellringer, “one of the University’s most ancient and unusual posts” with the job of keeping the University Clock telling correct time.
He has designed many sundials including the vertical dial with Italian and Babylonian hours for Selwyn College, Cambridge (a new dial for Old Court), the Pembroke College vertical sundial, the noon mark wall analemma at 10 Paternoster Square in London, the unusual near-horizontal gnomon sundial as a memorial dial for Margaret Stanier, the analemmatic dial for Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee (2002) and the circular analemmatic dial for the MetroTransit Authority (Metropolitana) of Naples.
Frank was presented with a cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
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2011 Prize - Helmut Sonderegger
This year's Sawyer Dialing Prize awarded at the 2011 NASS Conference in Seattle Washington was given to Helmut Sonderegger, "In recognition of his ongoing development and support of the dialing software Sonne, and his many years of leadership in his national society." His acceptance talk was on one of the first Copernican followers, Rheticus.
For many years Helmut Sonderegger has been active in the German Sundial Association and was chairman of a team of dialist to produce the 3rd Editiion of the Austrian Sundial Catalogue. His most famous free sundial software, „Sonne“ calculates about 20 different sundial types and his program „Alemma“ is devoted to the calculation of analemmatic sundials. The software is available at his website, www.helson.at. He endeavors to help people who make sundials through his software and through articles in the NASS Compendium and the German Rundschreiben, and for local groups.
Helmut was presented with a cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
http://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/spectra-sundial-feldkirch-austria.html
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- 2010 Prize - Bill Gottesman
- 2009 Prize - John Davis
- 2008 Prize - Kate Pond
- 2007 Prize - Mac Oglesby
- 2006 Prize - Hendrik Hollander
- 2005 Prize - Tony Moss
- 2004 Prize - Bill Nye and Woodruff Sullivan
- 2003 Prize - Helm Roberts
- 2002 Prize - John Carmichael
- 2001 Prize - Robert Adzema
- 2000 Prize - Fer J. de Vries