U.S. President Barack Obama has named 12 eminent researchers and 11 extraordinary inventors as recipients of national medal awards, the White House said Friday.

The National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation are the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government upon scientists, engineers, and inventors, the announcement said.

"I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," Obama said. "They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this Nation great -- and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment."

The National Medal of Science, created in 1959 and administered by the National Science Foundation, recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering.

It be awarded to Dr. Allen Bard and Dr. John Goodenough, University of Texas at Austin; Dr. Sallie Chisholm, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Sidney Drell, Stanford University; Dr. Sandra Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz; Dr. Sylvester James Gates, University of Maryland; Dr. Solomon Golomb, University of Southern California; Dr. M. Frederick Hawthorne, University of Missouri; Dr. Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology, Wash.; Dr. Barry Mazur, Harvard University; Dr. Lucy Shapiro, Stanford University School of Medicine; and Dr. Anne Treisman, Princeton University.

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation, created in 1980 and administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Patent and Trademark Office, is given to those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness and the strengthening of the technological workforce.

It will be awarded to Dr. Francis Arnold, California Institute of Technology; Dr. George Carruthers, U.S. Naval Research Lab; Dr. Robert Langer, MIT; Dr. Norman McCombs, AirSep Corporation; Dr. Gholam Peyman, Arizona Retinal Specialists; Dr. Art Rosenfeld, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dr. Jan Vilcek, NYU Langone Medical Center; the IBM Corp. team of Dr. Samuel Blum, Dr. Rangaswamy Srinivasan and Dr. James Wynne; and the company Raytheon Raytheon BBN Technologies.

The medal recipients will receive their awards at a White House ceremony in early 2013.