John J. Hopfield, recipient of ICTP's Dirac Medal in 2001, has won the 2009 Frank Rosenblatt Award from the IEEE for his seminal contributions to the understanding of information processing in biological systems. Hopfield has focused on neurobiology for more than 20 years, investigating how the neural circuits of the brain perform complex calculations. His work is mainly theoretical, employing computer simulations and mathematics. He is well known for his invention of a neural network in 1982 that is now more commonly known as the Hopfield network.

Hopfield is currently the Howard A. Prior Professor Emeritus in the Life Sciences at Princeton University. His achievements include a 1983 MacArthur "genius grant," the American Physical Society's 1985 Prize in Biophysics, and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science by the World Cultural Council in 2005.