Nobel Laureates
James J. Heckman
Economic Sciences, 2000
with Daniel L. McFadden “for his development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice.”
An extraordinary number of Nobel Laureates have been University of Chicago faculty members, students, or researchers at some point in their careers. Some of the laureates whose work is closely associated with the University are Milton Friedman (Economic Sciences, 1976), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983), Saul Bellow (Literature, 1976), Charles Huggins (Physiology or Medicine, 1966), and Willard Libby (Chemistry, 1960).
In addition to these Laureates, Alexei Abrikosov of Argonne National Laboratory (which has been operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy since the laboratory was established in 1946) shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.”
The University of Chicago’s first Nobel Laureate was Albert A. Michelson. The first American to win the Nobel Prize in any of the sciences, Michelson was recognized in 1907 for his measurements of the speed of light. Robert A. Millikan (Physics, 1923), did both of his prize-winning experiments on campus in the Ryerson Laboratory.
Chemistry
- Irwin Rose, 2004*
- Richard E. Smalley, 1996
- F. Sherwood Rowland, 1995*
- Paul Crutzen, 1995
- Yuan T. Lee, 1986
- Henry Taube, 1983
- Herbert C. Brown, 1979*
- Ilya Prigogine, 1977
- William H. Stein, 1972
- Gerhard Herzberg, 1971
- Robert S. Mulliken, 1966*
- Karl Ziegler, 1963
- Willard Frank Libby, 1960
- Glenn Theodore Seaborg, 1951
- Harold Clayton Urey, 1934
Economics Sciences
- Roger B. Myerson, 2007‡
- Leonid Hurwicz, 2007
- Edward C. Prescott, 2004
- James J. Heckman, 2000‡
- Daniel L. McFadden, 2000
- Robert A. Mundell, 1999
- Myron S. Scholes, 1997*
- Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1995*‡
- Robert W. Fogel, 1993‡
- Gary S. Becker, 1992*‡
- Ronald H. Coase, 1991‡
- Merton H. Miller, 1990
- Harry M. Markowitz, 1990*
- Trygve Haavelmo, 1989
- James M. Buchanan Jr., 1986*
- Gerard Debreu, 1983
- George J. Stigler, 1982*
- Lawrence R. Klein, 1980
- Theodore W. Schultz, 1979
- Herbert A. Simon, 1978*
- Milton Friedman, 1976*
- Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1975
- Friedrich August von Hayek, 1974
- Kenneth J. Arrow, 1972
- Paul A. Samuelson, 1970*
Literature
- John M. Coetzee, 2003
- Saul Bellow, 1976*
- Bertrand Russell, 1950
Physics
- Frank Wilczek, 2004*
- Alexei A. Abrikosov, 2003
- Masatoshi Koshiba, 2002
- Daniel C. Tsui, 1998*
- Jerome I. Friedman, 1990*
- Jack Steinberger, 1988*
- Leon M. Lederman, 1988
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1983
- James W. Cronin, 1980*‡
- J. Robert Schrieffer, 1972
- Murray Gell-Mann, 1969
- Luis W. Alvarez, 1968*
- Hans Albrecht Bethe, 1967
- Julian Schwinger, 1965
- Eugene P. Wigner, 1963
- Maria Goeppert-Mayer, 1963
- Owen Chamberlain, 1959*
- Chen Ning Yang, 1957*
- Tsung-Dao Lee, 1957*
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence, 1939*
- Enrico Fermi, 1938
- Clinton Joseph Davisson, 1937*
- Werner Heisenberg, 1932
- Arthur Holly Compton, 1927
- James Franck, 1925
- Robert Andrews Millikan, 1923*
- Albert Abraham Michelson, 1907
Physiology or Medicine
- Roger W. Sperry, 1981*
- George Wald, 1967
- Charles Brenton Huggins, 1966
- Konrad Bloch, 1964
- Sir John Carew Eccles, 1963
- James Dewey Watson, 1962*
- Edward Lawrie Tatum, 1958*
- George Wells Beadle, 1958
- Hermann Joseph Muller, 1946
- Edward Adelbert Doisy, 1943
- Alexis Carrel, 1912
* University of Chicago alumnus
‡ Current member of faculty