This list of Nobel laureates affiliated with Columbia University as alumni or faculty comprehensively shows alumni (graduates and attendees) or faculty members (professors of various ranks, researchers, and visiting lecturers or professors) affiliated with Columbia University in New York City who were awarded the Nobel Prize or the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. People who have given public lectures, talks or non-curricular seminars; studied as non-degree students; received honorary degrees; or served as administrative staff at the university are excluded from the list. Summer school attendees and visitors are generally excluded from the list, since summer terms are not part of formal academic years; the same rule applies to the extension school.
Alumni or faculty members of Barnard College after 1900 and Bard College by 1944 are included in the list. [1] [2] Physicians and long-term medical staff of the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital are included in the list. [3] [4]
The Nobel Prizes, established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, are awarded to individuals who make outstanding contributions in the fields of Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine. [5] An associated prize, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (commonly known as the Nobel Prize in Economics), was instituted by Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, in 1968 and was first awarded in 1969. [6]
As of the 2023 awards, 103 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia University as alumni or faculty. Among the 103 laureates, 72 are Nobel laureates in natural sciences; [lower-alpha 1] 46 are Columbia alumni (graduates and attendees) and 34 have been long-term academic members of the Columbia faculty; and subject-wise, 33 laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, more than any other subject. This list considers Nobel laureates as equal individuals and does not consider their various prize shares or if they received the prize more than once.
All types of affiliations, namely alumni and faculty members, count equally in the following table and throughout the whole page. [lower-alpha 2]
In the following list, the number following a person's name is the year they received the prize; in particular, a number with asterisk (*) means the person received the award while they were working at Columbia University (including emeritus staff). A name marked with a dagger (†) indicates that this person has already been listed in a previous category (i.e., multiple affiliations).
Category | Alumni | Professors of various ranks | Researchers or visitors |
---|---|---|---|
Total: 103 | 46 | 34 | 43 |
Physics (33) |
|
|
|
Chemistry (16) |
|
|
|
Physiology or Medicine (23) |
|
|
|
Economics (17) |
|
|
|
Literature (6) |
|
|
|
Peace (8) |
|
|
|
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Robert Millikan | 1923 | PhD [7] | |
2 | Enrico Fermi | 1938 | Professor [8] | |
3 | Isidor Rabi | 1944 | PhD; Professor [9] | |
4 | Hideki Yukawa | 1949 | Professor [10] | |
5 | Polykarp Kusch | 1955 | Professor [11] | |
6 | Willis Lamb | 1955 | Professor [12] | |
7 | Tsung-Dao Lee | 1957 | Professor [13] | |
8 | Emilio Segrè | 1959 | Visitor (1935, 1936) [14] [15] | |
9 | Maria Mayer | 1963 | Researcher (1942–1945); Manhattan Project (1939–1945) [16] | |
10 | Charles Townes | 1964 | Professor [17] | |
11 | Julian Schwinger | 1965 | BA, PhD [18] | |
12 | Hans Bethe | 1967 | Visiting Professor (Spring 1941, 1948) [19] [20] | |
13 | Murray Gell-Mann | 1969 | Visiting Associate Professor (Fall 1954) [21] | |
14 | Leon Cooper | 1972 | BA, MA, PhD [22] | |
15 | Aage Bohr | 1975 | Visiting Fellow (1949–1950) [23] | |
16 | James Rainwater | 1975 | MA, PhD; Professor [24] | |
17 | Samuel Ting | 1976 | Assistant Professor (1965–1967) and Instructor (1964–1965) [25] | |
18 | Arno Penzias | 1978 | MA, PhD [26] | |
19 | Steven Weinberg | 1979 | Instructor (1957–1959) [27] | |
20 | Val Fitch | 1980 | PhD [28] | |
21 | Arthur Schawlow | 1981 | Visiting Associate Professor (1960); Fellow and Research Associate (1949–1951) [29] | |
22 | Carlo Rubbia | 1984 | Research Fellow (1958–1959) [30] | |
23 | Leon Lederman | 1988 | MA, PhD; Professor [31] | |
24 | Melvin Schwartz | 1988 | BA, PhD; Professor; Research Associate [32] | |
25 | Jack Steinberger | 1988 | Professor [33] | |
26 | Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. | 1989 | BA, PhD; Associate Professor [34] | |
27 | Martin Perl | 1995 | PhD [35] | |
28 | Horst Störmer | 1998 | Professor [36] | |
29 | Daniel C. Tsui | 1998 | Adjunct Scientist [37] | |
30 | John C. Mather | 2006 | Lecturer (1975–1976) [38] | |
31 | Arthur Ashkin | 2018 | BA [39] | |
32 | Giorgio Parisi | 2021 | Researcher (1973–1974) [40] | |
32 | John Clauser | 2022 | MA, PhD [41] |
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Irving Langmuir | 1932 | BS [42] | |
2 | Harold Urey | 1934 | Professor [43] | |
3 | John H. Northrop | 1946 | BS, MA, PhD [44] | |
4 | Willard Libby | 1960 | Head, Chemistry Division of the Columbia University branch of the Manhattan Project (1942–1945) [45] [46] [47] | |
5 | Luis Leloir | 1970 | Researcher, College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia (1944–1945) [48] [49] | |
6 | William H. Stein | 1972 | PhD [50] | |
7 | Roald Hoffmann | 1981 | BA [51] | |
8 | Herbert Hauptman | 1985 | MA [52] | |
9 | Sidney Altman | 1989 | Graduate student in physics [53] | |
10 | William S. Knowles | 2001 | PhD [54] | |
11 | Robert Grubbs | 2005 | PhD [55] | |
12 | Martin Chalfie | 2008 | Professor [56] | |
13 | Robert Lefkowitz | 2012 | BA, MD [57] | |
14 | Martin Karplus | 2013 | Professor [58] | |
15 | Joachim Frank | 2017 | Professor [59] | |
16 | Louis E. Brus | 2023 | PhD; Professor [60] |
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Thomas H. Morgan | 1933 | Professor [61] | |
2 | Hermann J. Muller | 1946 | BA, MA, PhD; Instructor in Zoology (1918–1920) [62] [63] | |
3 | Edward C. Kendall | 1950 | BS, MS, PhD [64] | |
4 | André Cournand | 1956 | Professor [65] | |
5 | Dickinson Richards | 1956 | MD; Professor [66] | |
6 | Joshua Lederberg | 1958 | BA; Research Assistant [67] | |
7 | Konrad Bloch | 1965 | PhD; Researcher [68] | |
8 | George Wald | 1967 | PhD [69] | |
9 | Salvador Luria | 1969 | Research Assistant in Surgical Bacteriology (1940–1942) [70] | |
10 | Konrad Lorenz | 1973 | Undergraduate attendee (1922, one semester of premedical studies) [71] | |
11 | Baruch Blumberg | 1976 | MD; Medical Resident [72] | |
12 | Carleton Gajdusek | 1976 | Medical Resident at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center [73] [74] [75] | |
13 | Daniel Nathans | 1978 | Intern (1954–1955) and Resident (1957–1959) in Medicine, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center [76] | |
14 | Baruj Benacerraf | 1980 | BS; Researcher [77] | |
15 | Sune Bergström | 1982 | Research Fellow (1940–1941) [78] | |
16 | Harold Varmus | 1989 | MD [79] | |
17 | Donnall Thomas | 1990 | Physician-in-chief, Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital (1955–1963) [80] [81] | |
18 | Louis Ignarro | 1998 | BA [82] | |
19 | Eric Kandel | 2000 | Professor [83] | |
20 | Linda Buck | 2004 | Postdoctoral Researcher (1980–1984) [84] | |
21 | Richard Axel | 2004 | BA; Professor [85] | |
22 | James Rothman | 2013 | Professor [86] | |
23 | David Julius | 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher (1984–1990) [87] [88] |
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Simon Kuznets | 1971 | BS, MA, PhD [89] | |
2 | Kenneth Arrow | 1972 | MA, PhD [90] | |
3 | Milton Friedman | 1976 | PhD; Visiting Professor [91] | |
4 | George Stigler | 1982 | Professor [92] | |
5 | Franco Modigliani | 1985 | Instructor at Bard College (1942–1944) [93] | |
6 | Robert Solow | 1987 | Research Fellow (1949–1950) [94] | |
7 | Gary Becker | 1992 | Professor [95] | |
8 | Robert Fogel | 1993 | MA [96] | |
9 | William Vickrey | 1996 | MA, PhD; Professor [97] | |
10 | Robert C. Merton | 1997 | BS [98] | |
11 | Robert Mundell | 1999 | Professor [99] | |
12 | James Heckman | 2000 | Associate Professor [100] | |
13 | Joseph Stiglitz | 2001 | Professor; Stern Visiting Professor [101] | |
14 | Edmund Phelps | 2006 | Professor [102] | |
15 | Alvin Roth | 2012 | BS [103] | |
16 | David Card | 2021 | Visiting Professor (1990–1991) [104] | |
17 | Joshua Angrist | 2021 | Visiting Professor (2018) [105] |
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Gabriela Mistral | 1945 | Visiting Professor at Barnard College (1930–1931) [106] [107] [108] | |
2 | Joseph Brodsky | 1987 | Adjunct Professor (1978–1985) [109] [110] | |
3 | Nadine Gordimer | 1991 | Adjunct Professor (1971–1972, 1976–1978, 1983) [111] | |
4 | Derek Walcott | 1992 | Visiting Professor (1979, 1981–1983, 1984) [112] | |
5 | Orhan Pamuk | 2006 | Professor; Visiting Scholar [113] | |
6 | Louise Glück | 2020 | Undergraduate attendee [114] |
No. | Image | Name | Year | Affiliation with Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Theodore Roosevelt | 1906 | Law student [115] | |
2 | Nicholas Butler | 1931 | BA, MA, PhD; Professor; President [116] | |
3 | Elie Wiesel | 1986 | Visiting Professor at Barnard College (1997–1999) [117] | |
4 | Al Gore | 2007 | Visiting Professor (2001) [118] [119] | |
5 | Barack Obama | 2009 | BA [120] | |
6 | Liu Xiaobo | 2010 | Visiting Scholar (1988–1989) [121] [122] | |
7 | Leymah Gbowee | 2011 | Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College (2013–2014) [123] [124] | |
8 | Maria Ressa | 2021 | Distinguished Fellow at the School of International and Public Affairs (2023–2024) [125] |
Visiting positions such as the "Global Fellowship" of SIPA and "Ernest Kempton Adams (EKA) Lectureship" at Columbia do not require employment-level duties, and thus are excluded from this list. [126] [127] [128] The EKA Fund was established in 1904, enabling Columbia to invite scientists to deliver a series of public lectures. [128] [129]
Affiliates during the Manhattan Project, the scientific research project which developed the first nuclear weapons, who specifically worked for the military are also excluded from this list.
Name | Nobel Prize | Year | Role in Columbia University |
---|---|---|---|
Hendrik Lorentz | Physics | 1902 | EKA Lecturer about a month in the spring of 1906; Lorentz began his lectures on March 23, and gave his final lecture on April 27; later book Theory of Electrons was based on a course of lectures delivered during that period [130] [131] [132] [133] |
Wilhelm Wien | Physics | 1911 | EKA Lecturer (1913); delivered six public lectures in April 1913 [129] [134] |
Max Planck | Physics | 1918 | EKA Lecturer (1909); delivered eight public lectures in the spring of 1909 [129] [134] [135] |
Walter Brattain | Physics | 1956 | Physicist (1941–1943) at the Division of War Research under National Defense Research Committee, working on magnetic detection of submarines [136] [137] [138] |
William Shockley | Physics | 1956 | Research Director (1942–1944) of the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group (set up by the US Navy Department at Columbia) for military projects [139] [140] |
John van Vleck | Physics | 1977 | Visiting lecturer for summer school (1934) [141] [142] |
Kofi Annan | Peace | 2001 | Global Fellow (Spring 2009), School of International and Public Affairs, for public lectures and seminars [126] [127] |
Leon Max Lederman was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, along with Martin Lewis Perl, for research on quarks and leptons. Lederman was director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, where he was resident scholar emeritus from 2012 until his death in 2018.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
Christiane (Janni) Nüsslein-Volhard is a German developmental biologist and a 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate. She is the only woman from Germany to have received a Nobel Prize in the sciences.
Andrew Michael Spence is a Canadian-American economist and Nobel laureate.
Rudolph Arthur Marcus is a Canadian-born American chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems". Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. He is a professor at Caltech, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.
Paul Delos Boyer was an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on the "enzymatic mechanism underlying the biosynthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)" with John E. Walker, making Boyer the first Utah-born Nobel laureate; the remainder of the Prize in that year was awarded to Danish chemist Jens Christian Skou for his discovery of the Na+/K+-ATPase.
David Jonathan Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gross is the Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and was formerly the KITP director and holder of their Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics. He is also a faculty member in the UCSB Physics Department and is affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Stanley Cohen was an American biochemist who, along with Rita Levi-Montalcini, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986 for the isolation of nerve growth factor and the discovery of epidermal growth factor. He died in February 2020 at the age of 97.
Jerome Isaac Friedman is an American physicist. He is institute professor and professor of physics, emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor, "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics.", work which showed an internal structure for protons later known to be quarks. Friedman sits on the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Hans Georg Dehmelt was a German and American physicist, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989, for co-developing the ion trap technique with Wolfgang Paul, for which they shared one-half of the prize. Their technique was used for high precision measurement of the electron magnetic moment.
The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a Canadian-based global research organization that brings together teams of top researchers from around the world to address important and complex questions. It was founded in 1982 and is supported by individuals, foundations and corporations, as well as funding from the Government of Canada and the provinces of Alberta and Quebec.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry which consists of five members elected by the Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)