Nobel Laureates

Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 101 scholars who were UChicago faculty members, students, or researchers at some point in their careers. Some of the Nobel winners whose work is closely associated with the University are Milton Friedman (Economics, 1976), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983), Saul Bellow (Literature, 1976), Charles Huggins (Physiology or Medicine, 1966), and Willard Libby (Chemistry, 1960). 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

• John M. Jumper*, 2024
• Moungi Bawendi*, 2023
• John Goodenough*, 2019
• Ada E. Yonath, 2009
• Irwin Rose*, 2004
• Richard E. Smalley, 1996
• Paul Crutzen, 1995
• F. Sherwood Rowland*, 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

Economic Sciences

• James A. Robinson‡, 2024
• Claudia Goldin*, 2023
• Douglas Diamond‡, 2022
• David Card, 2021
• Michael Kremer‡, 2019
• Paul M. Romer*, 2018
• Richard Thaler‡, 2017
• Lars Peter Hansen‡, 2013
• Eugene F. Fama*‡, 2013
• Thomas J. Sargent, 2011
• Leonid Hurwicz, 2007
• Roger B. Myerson‡, 2007
• Edward C. Prescott, 2004
• Daniel L. McFadden, 2000
• James J. Heckman‡, 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
• Harry M. Markowitz*, 1990
• Merton H. Miller, 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

Peace

• Barack Obama, 2009

Physics

• Andrea Ghez*, 2020
• George E. Smith*, 2009
• Yoichiro Nambu, 2008
• Frank Wilczek*, 2004
• Alexei A. Abrikosov, 2003
• Masatoshi Koshiba, 2002
• Daniel C. Tsui*, 1998
• Jerome I. Friedman*, 1990
• Leon M. Lederman, 1988
• Jack Steinberger*, 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
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer, 1963
• Eugene P. Wigner, 1963
• Owen Chamberlain*, 1959
• Tsung-Dao Lee*, 1957
• Chen Ning Yang*, 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

• Bruce A. Beutler*, 2011
• Jack Szostak‡, 2009
• Roger W. Sperry*, 1981
• George Wald, 1967
• Charles Brenton Huggins, 1966
• Konrad Bloch, 1964
• Sir John Carew Eccles, 1963
• James Dewey Watson*, 1962
• George Wells Beadle, 1958
• Edward Lawrie Tatum*, 1958
• Hermann Joseph Muller, 1946
• Edward Adelbert Doisy, 1943
• Alexis Carrel, 1912

* University of Chicago alumnus
‡ Current member of faculty