Homer William Smith (January 2, 1895 – March 25, 1962) was an American physiologist and science writer known for his experiments on the kidney and philosophical writings on natural history and the theory of evolution.

"[4] At the age of eleven, while Smith had the measles, his father built him a shed in which he could conduct scientific experiments;[5] these involved chemistry and microbiology, as well as the use of a vacuum pump, telegraph, static machine, X-ray tube, and Tesla coil.

[7] As a result of the apathy he felt following the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, he set out on a philosophical quest of reading and writing with a renewed focus towards scholarship.

[10] His elegant experiments on the kidney in the 1930s proved beyond any doubt that it operated according to physical principles, both as a filter and a secretory organ, eliminating the last vestige of vitalism in physiology.

[12] It considers "man's ideas about the supernatural in the perspective of the evolution of western theology and philosophy from the ancient Egyptians to the nineteenth century",[14][11] culminating in Darwin's theory of evolution and the reaction to it, including the thoughts of Thomas Henry Huxley and the relationship of modern thought to that of pre-evolutionist philosophers John Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

[15][b] Albert Einstein says in the foreword: The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations.

The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions which fundamentally affect the science of nephrology, broadly defined, but not limited to, the pathobiology, cellular and molecular mechanisms and genetic influences on the functions and diseases of the kidney.