Wangari Muta Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

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.