Leon Max Lederman is an American experimental physicist who received, along with Martin Lewis Perl, the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, for their research on quarks and leptons, and the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for their research on neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, USA. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. In 2012, he was awarded the Vannevar Bush Award for his extraordinary contributions to understanding the basic forces and particles of nature. He was born on July 15, 1922 in New York City, New York, United States. He received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He then joined the Columbia faculty and eventually became Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. Leon Lederman is the recipient of fellowships from the Ford, Guggenheim, Ernest Kepton Adams and National Science Foundations. He is a founding member of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel and the International Committee on Future Accelerators. He has received the National Medal of Science (1965) and the Wolf Prize for Physics (1982) among many other awards.