On 27 July, former DTM employee Ralph A. Alpher will be awarded the National Medal of Science. This honor is accorded to "individuals for pioneering scientific research in a range of fields, including physical, biological, mathematical, social, behavioral, and engineering sciences, that enhances our understanding of the world and leads to innovations and technologies that give the United States its global economic edge." Congress established this medal in 1959; the award is administered by the National Science Foundation.

Alpher is being honored for his development of the big bang theory, his work in nucleosynthesis, and his prediction that the expansion of the universe leaves a pervasive radiation field. Alpher's 1948 doctoral thesis, and a paper published that same year with his advisor, George Gamow, argued that the universe originated 14 billion years ago in a superhot explosion and that a microwave background permeates space as a remnant of the primordial fireball. Alpher's work was not fully appreciated, however, until radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally discovered the predicted microwave background radiation in 1964.

Alpher was employed by DTM between 1938 and 1940 as a secretary while attending George Washington University at night. Later, during World War II, he worked as a researcher in Section T, under the leadership of Merle Tuve. Section T later became the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, one of the first independent laboratories of its kind. For his work during the war, Alpher was awarded the Naval Ordnance Development Award in 1945. Alpher has served as an administrator and trustee of Schenectady’s Dudley Observatory since 1986.