WASHINGTON — For President Donald J. Trump, the Golden Age of Science is personal. At the Science: A New Golden Age Summit on Thursday, October 8, 2026, before he presented the nation’s highest science and technology honors to six great American innovators, the White House played a special tribute to his uncle, Dr. John G. Trump, the MIT engineer awarded the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. On stage, the President held his uncle’s framed medal beside OSTP Director Michael Kratsios.
“Some scientists transform medicine. Some help win wars. John G. Trump did both,” the tribute begins. Born in the Bronx in 1907, John Trump arrived at MIT in 1931 to work with Robert Van de Graaff, who was then building the world’s most powerful generators. Trump’s research used vacuum tubes and compressed gas to produce the high voltage behind powerful X-rays, which were then used for some of the first radiation treatments for cancer.
Then came the war. John Trump helped found the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, the center of America’s wartime radar effort, and led the lab’s British branch. On D-Day, his radars jammed German defenses, marked drop zones and guided bombers through cloud cover. Gen. Carl Spaatz called his work “one of the most important factors contributing to our success.” He is also remembered for reviewing Nikola Tesla’s papers for the U.S. government after Tesla’s death in 1943.
“Peace did not slow him,” the tribute says. He returned to MIT and co-founded the High Voltage Engineering Corporation, which brought radiation cancer treatments to hospitals around the world and became the world’s leading supplier of research particle accelerators. His National Medal of Science honored a lifetime of bringing the beneficial use of ionizing radiation to medicine, industry and atomic physics.
The tribute closes with the mission of the whole summit: “John Trump devoted his life to pushing his country’s science and technology forward. Today, we honor those who do the same.” Under his nephew, that mission now has $6 billion-plus in new science initiatives, nuclear reactors headed for the Moon and Mars, and a return to merit across American research. Watch the Official White House tribute to Dr. John G. Trump.
