List of female Nobel laureates

As of 2020, 57 women have won the Nobel Prize, and a total of 58 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women (Marie Curie won it twice, once in physics and once in chemistry). While a complete count as of 2020 has not been completed yet, it was counted in 2019 that Nobel Prizes had been awarded to a total of 866 men, 53 women, and 24 organizations (counting those who won multiple prizes only once each).[1]

All Nobel Prizes won by women (1901–2019)

The distribution of female Nobel Laureates is as follows:[2][3]

• seventeen women have won the Nobel Peace Prize (12.6% of 107 individuals and 28 organizations in total[4]),
• sixteen have won the Nobel Prize in Literature (13.7% of 117 laureates in total[5]),
• twelve have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (5.4% of 222 laureates in total[6]),
• seven have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (3.8% of 186 laureates in total[7]),
• four have won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1.9% of 216 laureates in total[8]),
• and two, Elinor Ostrom and Esther Duflo, have won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2.4% of 84 laureates in total[9]).

The first woman to win a Nobel Prize was Marie Curie, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel.[2][10] Curie is also the only woman to have won multiple Nobel Prizes; in 1911, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Curie's daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, making the two the only mother-daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes.[2]

The most Nobel Prizes awarded to women in a single year was in 2009, when five women became laureates in four categories.

The most recent women to be awarded a Nobel Prize were Louise Glück in Literature, Andrea M. Ghez in Physics, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna in Chemistry (2020), Esther Duflo in Economics (2019), Donna Strickland in Physics, Frances Arnold in Chemistry, Nadia Murad for Peace, and Olga Tokarczuk in Literature (2018).

Laureates

Year	Image	Laureate	Country	Category	Rationale
1903		Marie Skłodowska Curie (shared with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel)	Poland and France	Physics	"in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"[10]
1905		Bertha von Suttner	Austria–Hungary	Peace	Honorary President of Permanent International Peace Bureau, Bern, Switzerland; Author of Lay Down Your Arms.[11]
1909		Selma Lagerlöf	Sweden	Literature	"in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings"[12]
1911		Marie Skłodowska Curie	Poland and France	Chemistry	"for her discovery of radium and polonium"[13]
1926		Grazia Deledda	Italy	Literature	"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"[14]
1928		Sigrid Undset	Norway	Literature	"principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"[15]
1931		Jane Addams (shared with Nicholas Murray Butler)	United States	Peace	Sociologist; International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.[16]
1935		Irène Joliot-Curie (shared with Frédéric Joliot-Curie)	France	Chemistry	"for their synthesis of new radioactive elements"[17]
1938		Pearl S. Buck	United States	Literature	"for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"[18]
1945		Gabriela Mistral	Chile	Literature	"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"[19]
1946		Emily Greene Balch (shared with John Raleigh Mott)	United States	Peace	Formerly Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.[20]
1947		Gerty Theresa Cori (shared with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Bernardo Houssay)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen"[21]
1963		Maria Goeppert-Mayer (shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner)	United States	Physics	"for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"[22]
1964		Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin	United Kingdom	Chemistry	"for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances"[23]
1966		Nelly Sachs (shared with Samuel Agnon)	Sweden and Germany	Literature	"for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength"[24]
1976		Betty Williams	United Kingdom	Peace	Founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People)[25]
		Mairead Maguire
1977		Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (shared with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones"[26]
1979		Mother Teresa	India and Yugoslavia	Peace	Leader of Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta.[27]
1982		Alva Myrdal (shared with Alfonso García Robles)	Sweden	Peace	Former Cabinet Minister; Diplomat; Writer.[28]
1983		Barbara McClintock	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for her discovery of mobile genetic elements"[29]
1986		Rita Levi-Montalcini (shared with Stanley Cohen)	Italy and United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of growth factors"[30]
1988		Gertrude B. Elion (shared with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment"[31]
1991		Nadine Gordimer	South Africa	Literature	"who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity"[32]
		Aung San Suu Kyi	Burma	Peace	"for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights"[33]
1992		Rigoberta Menchú	Guatemala	Peace	"in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples"[34]
1993		Toni Morrison	United States	Literature	"who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"[35]
1995		Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (shared with Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus)	Germany	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development"[36]
1996		Wisława Szymborska	Poland	Literature	"for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"[37]
1997		Jody Williams (shared with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines)	United States	Peace	"for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines"[38]
2003		Shirin Ebadi	Iran	Peace	"for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children"[39]
2004		Elfriede Jelinek	Austria	Literature	"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"[40]
		Wangari Maathai	Kenya	Peace	"for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace"[41]
		Linda B. Buck (shared with Richard Axel)	United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system"[42]
2007		Doris Lessing	United Kingdom	Literature	"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"[43]
2008		Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (shared with Harald zur Hausen and Luc Montagnier)	France	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discovery of HIV, human immunodeficiency virus"[44]
2009		Elizabeth Blackburn (shared with Jack W. Szostak)	Australia and United States	Physiology or Medicine	"for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"[45]
		Carol W. Greider (shared with Jack W. Szostak)	United States
		Ada E. Yonath (shared with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz)	Israel	Chemistry	"for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome"[46]
		Herta Müller	Germany and Romania	Literature	"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"[47]
		Elinor Ostrom (shared with Oliver E. Williamson)	United States	Economics	"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"[48]
2011		Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	Liberia	Peace	"For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work"[49]
		Leymah Gbowee
		Tawakkol Karman	Yemen
2013		Alice Munro	Canada	Literature	"master of the contemporary short story"[50]
2014		May-Britt Moser (shared with Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe)	Norway	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain"[51]
		Malala Yousafzai (shared with Kailash Satyarthi)	Pakistan	Peace	"for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".[52]
2015		Tu Youyou (shared with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura)	China	Physiology or Medicine	"for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria (artemisinin)"[53]
		Svetlana Alexievich	Belarus	Literature	"for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time"[54]
2018		Donna Strickland (shared with Gérard Mourou and Arthur Ashkin)	Canada	Physics	"for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses"[55]
		Frances Arnold (shared with Gregory Winter and George Smith)	United States	Chemistry	"for the directed evolution of enzymes"[56]
		Nadia Murad (shared with Denis Mukwege)	Iraq	Peace	"for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict"[57]
		Olga Tokarczuk	Poland	Literature	"for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life"[58]
2019		Esther Duflo (shared with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer)	France and United States	Economics	"for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty"[59]
2020		Andrea M. Ghez (shared with Reinhard Genzel and Roger Penrose)	United States	Physics	"for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy"[60]
		Emmanuelle Charpentier (shared with Jennifer Doudna)	France	Chemistry	"for the development of a method for genome editing"[61]
		Jennifer Doudna (shared with Emmanuelle Charpentier)	United States	Chemistry	"for the development of a method for genome editing"[62]
		Louise Glück	United States	Literature	"for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal"[63]

See also

• List of female nominees for the Nobel Prize

References

Genin

• "Women Nobel Laureates". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-13.

Specific

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6. "All Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
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23. "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1964". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
24. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1966". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
25. "Nobel Peace Prize 1976". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
26. "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
27. "Nobel Peace Prize 1979". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
28. "Nobel Peace Prize 1982". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
29. "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1983". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
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34. "Nobel Peace Prize 1992". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
35. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1993". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
36. "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1995". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
37. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1996". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
38. "Nobel Peace Prize 1997". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2012-09-09.
39. "Nobel Peace Prize 2003". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
40. "Nobel Prize in Literature 2004". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
41. "Nobel Peace Prize 2004". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
42. "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2004". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
43. "Nobel Prize in Literature 2007". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
44. "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
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49. "The Nobel Peace Prize 2011". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
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55. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
56. "Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Scientists for Using Evolution in Design of Molecules". Retrieved 3 October 2018.
57. "Nobel Peace Prize for anti-rape activists Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege". Retrieved 5 October 2018.
58. "Nobel Prize in Literature 2018". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
59. Nobel Prize 2019 nobelprize.org
60. Nobel Prize 2020 nobelprize.org
61. name="Nobel Chemistry Prize 2020" nobelprize.org
62. name="Nobel Chemistry Prize 2020"nobelprize.org
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External links

• Alan Asaid (26 September 2009). "Så ratade Akademien kvinnorna" [How the Academy Rejected the Women]. SvD (in Swedish).