Nobel Lectures by Women
The first woman to receive the Nobel prize was Marie Sklodowska Curie in 1903. As of 2010, thirty-four other women also received the honor.
Some female recipients declined, or have not been able to deliver, a Nobel lecture in the past. The eight women who did not lecture are indicated below by an empty-set sign: Ø.
Many thanks to the Nobel Foundation for their generous permission to host these lectures.
Chemistry
- 1911 – Marie Sklodowska Curie (Poland, France)
- 1935 – Iréne Joliot-Curie (France)
- 1964 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (Great Britain)
- 2009 – Ada E. Yonat (Israel)
Economics
- 2009 – Elinor Ostrom (France)
Literature
- 1909 – Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlof (Sweden) Ø
- 1926 – Grazia Deledda (Italy) Ø
- 1928 – Sigrid Undset (Norway) Ø
- 1938 – Pearl Buck (USA)
- 1945 – Gabriela Mistral (Chile) Ø
- 1966 – Nelly Sachs (Sweden)
- 1991 – Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
- 1993 – Toni Morrison (USA)
- 1996 – Wislawa Szymborska (Poland)
- 2004 – Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)
- 2007 – Doris Lessing (United Kingdom)
- 2009 – Herta Müller (Germany)
- 2013 – Alice Munro (Canada)
- 2015 – Svetlana Alexievich (Ukraine)
Peace
- 1905 – Baroness Bertha von Suttner (Austria)
- 1931 – Jane Addams (USA) Ø
- 1946 – Emily Greene Balch (USA)
- 1976 – Betty Williams (Northern Ireland, Great Britain)
- 1976 – Mairead Corrigan Ø (Northern Ireland, Great Britain)
- 1979 – Mother Teresa (Yugoslavia, India)
- 1982 – Alva Myrdal (Sweden)
- 1991 – Aung San Suu Kyi Ø (Burma)
- 1992 – Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala)
- 1997 – Jody Williams (USA)
- 2003 – Shirin Ebadi (Iran)
- 2004 – Wangari Muta Maathai (Kenya)
- 2011 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia)
- 2011 – Leymah Gbowee (Liberia)
- 2011 – Tawakkol Karman (Yemen)
- 2015 – Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan)
Physics
- 1903 – Marie Sklodowska Curie (France) Ø
- 1963 – Maria Goeppert Mayer (USA)
Physiology & Medicine
- 1947 – Gerty Radnitz Cori (Czechoslovakia, USA)
- 1977 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (USA)
- 1983 – Barbara McClintock (USA)
- 1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini (Italy, USA)
- 1988 – Gertrude Elion (USA)
- 1995 – Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Germany)
- 2004 – Linda B. Buck (USA)
- 2008 – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (France)
- 2009 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn (Australia)
- 2009 – Carol W. Greider (USA)
- 2014 – May-Britt Moser (Norway)
- 2015 – Youyou Tu (China)
Ø = No Nobel lecture
