University of Michigan political science and public policy professor Robert Axelrod was selected by President Barack Obama to receive the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for achievement in the field of science and engineering.

Axelrod and other new award winners will receive their medals at a White House ceremony later this year.

"Bob Axelrod's work on the evolution of cooperation has done a great deal to rebuild the thinking world's faith in the power of cooperation," Susan Collins, dean of U-M's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, said in a news release.

"We hope this well-deserved honor draws much more attention to his game-changing discoveries."

Axelrod wrote "The Evolution of Cooperation," which outlines an effective way to deescalating conflict. The New York Times said his theory might be "our best hope" for extricating the world from the era's escalating arms race.

Additionally, Axelrod was recently recognized with a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, and he became the youngest political scientist ever to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. He was the first to be recognized with the academy's award for "behavioral research relevant to the prevention of nuclear war."

Axelrod has worked in evolutionary biology, psychology and artificial intelligence, and has interests in international security affairs, including cyber issues and Middle East politics.

He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and received his doctorate from Yale University.