The award will be presented at the international conference of the scientific-research society, Sigma Xi, in Raleigh, North Carolina, in November 2011.

The late William Procter, a Sigma Xi member, retired from business in 1920 to study entomology at Columbia University. Soon afterward, he built a field laboratory on Mt. Desert Island, Maine, and published his work, gaining a reputation as a distinguished natural scientist. Each year since 1950, Sigma Xi has awarded the Procter Prize to honor outstanding achievement in scientific research and demonstrated ability to communicate the significance of this work to scientists in other disciplines. Past Procter prize recipients have included noted scientists Vannevar Bush, William Pickering, Margaret Mead, James Van Allen, Michael DeBakey, Murray Gell-Mann, and many others. 

The award includes an honorarium of $5,000, a Steuben glass sculpture, a certificate of recognition, and the opportunity to present the William Procter Prize Lecture to an audience of distinguished scientists and engineers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students, at the society’s annual meeting.

Datta's research focuses on the physics of nanostructures with emphasis on electronic transport, including spin electronics, molecular conduction, nanoscale device physics, and mesoscopic superconductivity.