On Saturday, May 20, during reunion weekend, the 2006 Alumni Seal Prizes will be presented to Nicholas Negroponte ‘61, Angela Ruggiero ‘98, Kim Insalaco ‘99 and Julie Chu ‘01.

The Choate Alumni Seal Prize was instituted at the Choate School in 1958 to be “awarded annually to an alumnus who had shown outstanding leadership and has made a significant contribution to his country, his community, or his school.”

It was first awarded to then-Senator John F. Kennedy ’35, and later recipients have included Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Edward F. Albee ’46, UN ambassador and presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson ’18, Harvard classicist Robert Fitzgerald ’29, and late Headmaster Emeritus Seymour St. John ’31.

Last year, the prize was awarded to George F. Colony ’72, founder and CEO of Forrester Research, an independent technology-market research company.

This year’s recipient, Nicholas Negroponte ’61, is an MIT graduate and faculty member.

In 1980, he co-founded the MIT Media Laboratory, which is dedicated to “the study, invention, and creative use of digital technologies to enhance the ways that people think, express, and communicate ideas.”

Past projects at the Media Lab have helped to create many familiar technologies including digital video.

Professor Negroponte also wrote the 1995 New York Times bestseller Being Digital and was one of the founders of WiReD magazine.

Negroponte currently serves on the board of directors of Motorola, Inc. and is the chairman of One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization created by Media Lab faculty members to “design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education.”

The Rosemary Hall Alumnae Award is given each year to “a distinguished alumna who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in a given field of endeavor.”

The honor was first awarded in 1965 to pediatrician and assistant professor Elizabeth Chittenden Lowry ’27.

Notable recipients include Congresswoman Helen Stevenson Meyer ’46, actresses Glenn Close ’65 and Jamie Lee Curtis ’76, and last year’s honoree Gretchen Teichgraber ‘71, CEO of Scientific American.

This year’s three honorees, Angela Ruggiero ’98, Juile Chu ’01 and Kim Insalaco ’99 competed in the 2006 Torino Olympics with the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team. Despite a heartbreaking semifinal loss to silver-medalists Sweden, the U.S. bounced back to defeat Finland for the bronze.

Each alumna made a significant contribution to the Olympic effort. Ruggiero, who is widely regarded as the best female defensive player in the world, finished second in defensive scoring in her third Olympics.

The awards will be presented at Sixth Form reflections on May 20 in the Seymour St. John Chapel, and recipients will give a brief speech.