15 Women Nobel Laureates You Should Know

1. 1

   Marie Curie (Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911)

   Only person ever to win Nobels in two different sciences. Discovered polonium and radium; her research on radioactivity enabled modern radiation therapy for cancer.

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2. 2

   Selma Lagerlöf (Literature 1909)

   First woman to win the Literature Nobel. Swedish novelist whose work spanned folklore, mysticism, and social realism. Her novel *The Wonderful Adventures of Nils* remains widely read.

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3. 3

   Gerty Cori (Medicine 1947)

   First woman to win the Medicine Nobel. Discovered the 'Cori cycle' of glucose metabolism — foundational to modern biochemistry and diabetes treatment.

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4. 4

   Rosalyn Yalow (Medicine 1977)

   Developed radioimmunoassay, the technique behind most modern hormone blood tests. Without her method, diagnosing diabetes and thyroid disease would be radically harder.

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5. 5

   Barbara McClintock (Medicine 1983)

   Discovered transposable genetic elements ('jumping genes') in maize in the 1940s. Her work was dismissed for 30 years before the Nobel confirmed it. Today, transposons are foundational to genomics.

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6. 6

   Rita Levi-Montalcini (Medicine 1986)

   Discovered Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) — the first growth factor ever identified — in a makeshift home lab during WWII (she was banned from university work as a Jewish woman). Lived to 103, working until the end.

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7. 7

   Toni Morrison (Literature 1993)

   First Black woman to win the Literature Nobel. Author of *Beloved*, *Song of Solomon*, *Sula*. Transformed American literature's engagement with race, memory, and language.

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8. 8

   Wangari Maathai (Peace 2004)

   First African woman Nobel Peace Prize winner. Founded the Green Belt Movement — community tree-planting initiative that planted 30M+ trees across Africa and empowered rural women.

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9. 9

   Elizabeth Blackburn & Carol Greider (Medicine 2009)

   Co-discovered telomeres and telomerase — the 'molecular clock' of cell aging. Their work has opened entire fields in cancer research and gerontology.

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10. 10

    Malala Yousafzai (Peace 2014)

    Youngest Nobel laureate ever (17). Survived a Taliban assassination attempt for advocating girls' education in Pakistan; has since built the Malala Fund to expand girls' schooling worldwide.

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11. 11

    Tu Youyou (Medicine 2015)

    Discovered artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug. Without an MD or PhD. Her 1969 research during the Cultural Revolution has saved an estimated 20 million lives.

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12. 12

    Donna Strickland (Physics 2018)

    Only the third woman ever to win the Physics Nobel. Developed chirped pulse amplification — the technique behind laser eye surgery and modern high-intensity lasers.

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13. 13

    Jennifer Doudna & Emmanuelle Charpentier (Chemistry 2020)

    First all-women Nobel in the sciences. Co-discovered CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing (2012). The first CRISPR therapy (for sickle cell disease) was FDA-approved in 2023.

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14. 14

    Andrea Ghez (Physics 2020)

    Demonstrated the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center using adaptive optics. Fourth woman to win the Physics Nobel — in the same year as Strickland's cohort took that count from 2 to 4.

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15. 15

    Claudia Goldin (Economics 2023), Katalin Karikó (Medicine 2023)

    Goldin — first solo woman to win the Economics Nobel, for her historical analysis of women's labor-market participation. Karikó — mRNA pioneer whose decades of defunded research became the foundation of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

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Sources

• Nobel Prize Organization — Nobel Prize laureate database
• Nobel Women's Initiative

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