Nobel Prize-winning Women

 

Out of the 537 Nobel Prizes ever awarded, only 41 have gone to women. Marie Curie is the only woman to have ever won the prize twice; in 1903 she won it for Physics and in 1911 she won it for Chemistry. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, also won the Chemistry prize.

Peace

 

1905 - Bertha von Suttner won the prize for her work championing arbitration over armed conflict. She was the author of a book called Lay Down Your Arms and the Honorary President of Permanent International Peace Bureau.

 

1931 - Jane Addams was the International President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

 

1946 - Emily Greene Balch Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

 

1976 - Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan shared a prize for their work as founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement

 

1979 - Mother Teresa won the prize for her work with the poor. She was the founder and Leader of the order, the Missionaries of Charity, whose task it was and still is to take care of those in society whom no one else will take care of.

 

1982 - Alva Myrdal won half of the prize for her work as a politician, diplomat and writer promoting social welfare and disarmament.

 

1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi won the whole prize for “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”.

 

1992 - Rigoberta Menchú Tum won the whole prize “in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples”.

 

1997 - Jody Williams shared the prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines for their work “for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines”.

 

2003 - Shirin Ebadi won the whole prize for “her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children". For more information regarding Shirin Ebadi look at our Interesting Women section.

 

2004 - Wangari Maathai won the whole prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace".

 

 

Economic Sciences

2009 –  Elinor Ostrom won for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.

 

 

Literature

1909 - Selma Lagerlöf won "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings".

 

1926 - Grazia Deledda won for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general”.

 

1928 - Sigrid Undset won "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages".

 

1938 - Pearl Buck won “"for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces".

 

1945 - Gabriela Mistral "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world".

 

1966 - Nelly Sachs won half a prize for “for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength”.

 

1991 - Nadine Gordimer "who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity".

 

1993 - Toni Morrison "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality".

 

1996 - Wislawa Szymborska “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".

 

2004 - Elfriede Jelinek "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power".

 

2007 - Doris Lessing "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"

 

2009 - Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"

 

 

Physiology or Medicine

1947 - Gerty Cori "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen"

 

1977 - Rosalyn Yalow "for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain"

 

1983 - Barbara McClintock "for her discovery of mobile genetic elements"

 

1986 - Rita Levi-Montalcini "for their discoveries of growth factors"

 

1988 - Gertrude B. Elion "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment"

 

1995 - Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development"

 

2004 - Linda B. Buck "for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system"

 

2008 - Françoise Barré-Sinoussi "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus"

 

2009 - Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"

 

 

Physics

 

1903 – Marie Curie won a quarter of the prize for research on radiation.

 

1963 – Marie Goeppert-Mayer won a quarter of the prize for her discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure.

 

 

Chemistry

1911 – Marie Curie won the whole prize for the discovery of radium and polonium.

 

1935 - Irène Joliot-Curie "in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements"

 

1964 - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin from the UK won the whole prize “"for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances".

 

2009 - Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".