The AACR distributes Distinguished Public Service Awards to deserving individuals whose extraordinary work has exemplified the AACR’s mission to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy, advocacy, and funding for cancer research.

2024: Franco Cavalli (Lifetime Achievement) and Worta McCaskill-Stevens (Distinguished Service Award)
2023: Phyllis Pettit Nassi, and Jane Perlmutter
2022 (Distinguished Service Award): Raymond N. DuBois
2021: Charles L. Sawyers*, Nancy P. Pelosi, and Kathy Giusti
2020: Roy S. Herbst, Douglas R. Lowy*, Yoshiyuki Majima, and Patricia Spears
2019: Daniel D. Von Hoff*, Louis M. Weiner, and Nancy F. Goodman
2018: James E. Williams, Anna D. Barker, Phillip A. Sharp, and C. Kent Osborne
2017: Wilbur E. Bosarge, Jr., Sidney Kimmel, and Jack Whelan
2016: Mary Jackson Scroggins
2015: Miri Ziv
2012: Bayard D. Clarkson, Giuseppe “Gios” Bernardi, and Sherrod Brown
2011: John Edward Porter
2010: Jon Meade Huntsman, Sr., Julie Fleshman, and John E. Niederhuber
2009:Arlen Specter, Kathy Giusti, Nicholas P. Valvano, and Stand Up to Cancer Executive Leadership Council
2007: Arlen Specter, LaSalle D. Leffal, Jr., Harold P. Freeman, Rosa DeLauro, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, Nancy G. Brinker, Sue Myrick, Lance Armstrong, and Daniel Inouye
2006: Sherry Lansing, Janet Woodcock, Edward Kennedy, and Deborah Pryce
2005: Charles A. Coltman, Jr., Peggy Fleming, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Arlen Specter, Daniel Q. Haney, and Deidre Downs
2004: Carolyn (Bo) Aldigé, Paula Kim, Kathleen Walas, and C.W. Bill Young
2002: Irene Pritzker, Hamilton Jordan, George H.W. Bush, and R. Kirk Landon
2000: David Khayat and Dianne Feinstein
1999: Donald S. Coffey and Barbara S. Bynum
1996:John Porter, Edward Kennedy, Nancy Kassebaum, Mark Hatfield, and Tom Harkin
1992: Ms. Purchase
1991: Marilyn Tucker Quayle
1990: Louis W. Sullivan
1988:Arthur Holleb and Frank C. Rauscher, Jr.
1981: Laurance S. Rockefeller and R. Lee Clark
1979: Paul G. Rogers and Warren G. Magnuson
1974: Nikolai N. Blokhin
1971: Sidney Farber, Benno C. Schmidt, and Kenneth M. Endicott
1967: John Fogarty, Mary Lasker, and Lister Hill

*Fellow of the AACR Academy