Nobel Women

In 2004, Wangari Muta Maathai became the first African Woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai is known as the founder of the “Green Belt Movement” to reforest Africa.

Toni Morrison grew up in a house of African-American storytellers and developed a love for books. After earning a masters degree in English and teaching for many years, she felt there was a book she wanted to read but had yet to find—so she wrote it herself. A prolific career ensued, with Morrison winning both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for her fiction.

The first woman in France to receive a doctorate degree, scientist Marie Curie is remembered for her discoveries in radioactivity and radioactive elements. Her work won her two Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry, but unfortunately also led to her death.

A powerful, politically minded and acerbic Nobel Laureate, Britain's Doris Lessing is a treasured social commentator and novelist who has continued her prolific and award-winning career into her 80s.

Jane Addams was a pioneer in the field of social work and co-founder of the Hull House, a settlement house for lower class immigrants in Chicago. A noted pacifist and internationalist, Addams fearlessly took unpopular stances and became the first American woman ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her outstanding devotion to the poor in Calcutta’s slums.

Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her against-the-grain studies of how self-imposed regulation of common resources can be more efficient than government regulation.

Pearl Buck is best known for her novel “The Good Earth,” which received the Pulitzer Prize in 1935 and helped earn her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.

Gabriela Mistral was the pen name of Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, the first Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The poet and educator received the prize in 1945.

Gertrude Elion received the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with George Hitchings and Sir James Black for her co-discovery and patent of the drug 6-mercaptopurine, used in the treatment of leukemia.

Passionate about helping the poor, and among the first graduates of Bryn Mawr College, Emily Greene Balch went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.

Currently a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn has received many awards and honors for her work in microbiology.

Writer Nadine Gordimer has devoted her life to fighting for the rights and health of the less fortunate and oppressed. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 for showing “the true power of words,” having written 14 novels and 11 collections of short stories.

Dr. Carol Greider didn’t let her struggle with dyslexia as a young girl stop her from earning her doctorate degree or helping to discover the enzyme telomerase, a key find in the study of cell aging and cancer research.

Bertha von Suttner grew up loving music, languages and travel, and eventually discovered a thirst for peace. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.

Physicist Maria Goeppert-Mayer predicted the existence of double photon absorption decades before it was observed, and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 for developing the “nuclear shell model.”

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for determining the structures of substances such as cholesterol, penicillin and vitamin B12 using X-ray crystallography.

Rita Levi-Montalcini, a specialist in neuroembryology, was the recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery and characterization of the role of the nerve growth factor.

Barbara McClintock was the recipient of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of transposons or “jumping genes.”

The second woman ever to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Rosalyn Yalow was awarded the distinction in 1977 for her discovery of the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique.

Gain a better understanding of the Nobel prize-winning discovery that will aid in the development of new cancer therapies.