In 1903, only two years after the Nobel Foundation was established, a Nobel Prize was awarded to a woman, Marie Curie, for the first time. Women have been winning Nobel Prizes ever since, but in very small numbers compared to their male colleagues. It took 40 years from its inception for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to be awarded to a woman, Elinor Ostrom. This is despite the fact that one woman, Bertha von Suttner was influential in convincing Alfred Nobel to establish a Prize for Peace. Feel free to let your opinions be heard on how we can increase the role of women in the Arts & Sciences on our feeback page!. Best feedback will be posted.

Physics: (4/219 = 1.8% [CI: 0.5-4.6%] since 1901)

1903	Marie Sklodowska Curie
1963	Maria Goeppert Mayer
2018	Donna Strickland
2020	Andrea Ghez

Chemistry: (7/188 = 3.7% [CI: 1.5-7.5%] since 1901)

1911	Marie Sklodowska Curie
1935	Irene Joliot-Curie
1964	Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
2009	Ada E. Yonath
2018	Frances H. Arnold
2020	Emmanuelle Charpentier
2020	Jennifer A. Doudna
2022	Carolyn R. Bertozzi

Physiology & Medicine: (12/224 = 5.4% [CI: 2.8-9.2%] since 1901)

1947	Gerty Radnitz Cori
1977	Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
1983	Barbara McClintock
1986	Rita Levi-Montalcini
1988	Gertrude Elion
1995	Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
2004	Linda B. Buck
2008	Francoise Barre-Sinoussi
2009	Elizabeth H. Blackburn
2009	Carol W. Greider
2014	May-Britt Moser
2015	Youyou Tu

Peace: (18/137 = 13.1% [CI: 8.0-20.0%] since 1901)

1905	Baroness Bertha von Suttner
1931	Jane Addams
1946	Emily Greene Balch
1976	Betty Williams
1976	Mairead Corrigan
1979	Mother Teresa
1982	Alva Myrdal
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi
1992	Rigoberta Menchu Tum
1997	Jody Williams
2003	Shirin Ebadi
2004	Wangari Maathai
2011	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
2011	Leymah Gbowee
2011	Tawakkul Karman
2014	Malala Yousafzai
2018	Nadia Murad
2021	Maria Ressa

Literature: (16/118 = 13.6% [CI:8.0-21.1%] since 1901)

1909	Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlof
1926	Grazia Deledda
1928	Sigrid Undset
1938	Pearl Buck
1945	Gabriela Mistral
1966	Nelly Sachs
1991	Nadine Gordimer
1993	Toni Morrison
1996	Wislawa Szymborska
2004	Elfriede Jelinek
2007	Doris Lessing
2009	Herta Müller
2013	Alice Munro
2015	Svetlana Alexievich
2018	Olga Tokarczuk
2020	Louise Glück
2022	Annie Ernaux

Economics: (2/86 = 2.3% [CI: 0.3-8.1%] since 1969)

2009	Elinor Ostrom
2019	Esther Duflo

For more information about female scientists in general and Nobel Prize-winning women in particular, we recommend the following books from our Book Stacks.

Book Store

General Overview

• Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries, by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, is the first book to examine the lives and accomplishments of women who have received the Nobel Prize, as well as those those who contributed to prize-winning projects.
• Women's Science : Learning and Succeeding from the Margins by Margaret A. Eisenhart, Elizabeth Finkel
• For Junior High School-age children, consider this concise paperback: Nobel Prize Winners (Women in Profile Series) by Carlotta Hacker
• History of Women in Science for Young People, by Vivian Sheldon Epstein, is an outstanding resource for schools seeking role models for young women interested in science.
• 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century describes the contribution of women from around the world in all fields ranging from writing and science to politics and athletics.
• 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide An indispensable and extremely well-organized treasure map to literature by women. Contains brief reviews of 500 books by women, and seven cross-referenced indexes to identify books by author, title, genre, topic, and even country of book content. - Amazon.com
• Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. have culled a stellar group of 375 titles divided into picture books, storybooks, chapter books, and more complex writings. - Amazon.com

• Marie Curie : A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series)by Susan Quinn
• A Feeling for the Organism : The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock by Evelyn Fox Keller, W. H. Freeman (Contributor)

• Rosalind Franklin and DNA by Anne Sayre
• Lise Meitner : A Life in Physics (California Studies in the History of Science , Vol. 13) by Ruth Lewin Sime

Women in Science:

• Association for Women in Science
• American Medical Women's Association
• NRC's Committee on Women in Science and Engineering
• Third World Organization for Women in Science
• Association for Women Geoscientists
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• National Academy of Sciences
• The President's Interagency Council on Women

Women in Technology:

• WebGrrls
• Women in Technology International
• Society of Women Engineers
• Association for Women in Computing
• The Ada Project: Tapping Internet Resources for Women in Computer Science

• World Book coverage of Women in Science and Medicine
• NSF Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering
• Nature Debate on Why are there so few women in science?
• Nobelists help celebrate AWIS 25th Anniversary
• Pioneering Women of Computing
• Women in Science: Guide to Reference Sources
• Women in Science and Engineering
• Biographies of Women Mathematicians
• ABC's 100 Most Important Women of the Century

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