October 2004
Columbia 's Nobel Prize Winners
Seventy two persons who have taught, conducted research or studied at Columbia University have won the Nobel Prize since it was first awarded in 1901. Nobel laureates currently on faculty are indicated with an asterisk.
Category | Year | Laureate |
Chemistry | 1932 | Irving Langmuir (metallurgical engineering degree, 1903; M.A., 1906) |
| 1934 | Harold C. Urey (faculty member, 1929-1945) |
| 1946 | John H. Northrop (B.S., 1912; M.A., 1913; Ph.D., 1915) |
| 1960 | Willard Libby (faculty, 1941-1944) |
| 1972 | William H. Stein (Ph.D., 1938) |
| 1981 | Roald Hoffmann (B.A., 1958) |
| 1985 | Herbert A. Hauptman (M.A., 1939) |
| 1989 | Sidney Altman (graduate student, teaching assistant, 1960-1962) |
| 2001 | William S. Knowles (Ph.D., 1942) |
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Economic Science | 1971 | Simon S. Kuznets (B.S., 1923; M.A., 1924; Ph.D., 1926) |
| 1972 | Kenneth J. Arrow (M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1951) |
| 1976 | Milton Friedman (Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1964-1965) |
| 1982 | George J. Stigler (faculty member, 1947-1958) |
| 1987 | Robert Solow (fellowship year, 1949-1950) |
| 1992 | Gary S. Becker (faculty member, 1957-1970) |
| 1993 | Robert W. Fogel (M.A., 1960) |
| 1996 | William S. Vickrey (M.A., 1937; Ph.D., 1948; faculty member, 1946-1996) |
| 1997 | Robert C. Merton (B.S., 1966) |
| 1999 | Robert Mundell (faculty member, 1974-present)* |
| 2000 | James Heckman, (faculty member, 1970-1974) |
| 2001 | Joseph Stiglitz (faculty member, 2001-present)* |
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Literature | 1987 | Joseph Brodsky (faculty member, 1978-1985) |
| 1991 | Nadine Gordimer (faculty member, 1971-1972, 1976-1978, 1983) |
| 1992 | Derek Walcott (faculty member, 1979, 1981-1983, 1984) |
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Peace | 1906 | Theodore Roosevelt (Law, 1880-82) |
| 1931 | Nicholas Murray Butler (B.A., 1882; M.A., 1883; Ph.D., 1884, president of Columbia, 1902-1945) |
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Physics | 1923 | Robert A. Millikan (Ph.D., 1895) |
| 1938 | Enrico Fermi (faculty member, 1939-1945) |
| 1944 | I.I. Rabi (Ph.D., 1927; faculty member, 1929-1988) |
| 1949 | Hideki Yukawa (faculty member, 1949-1954) |
| 1955 | Polykarp Kusch (faculty member, 1937-1972) |
| 1955 | Willis E. Lamb (faculty member, 1938-1952, 1960-1961) |
| 1957 | Tsung-Dao Lee (faculty member, 1953-present)* |
| 1963 | Maria Goeppert Mayer (faculty member, 1940-1946) |
| 1964 | Charles H. Townes (faculty member, 1948-1961) |
| 1965 | Julian S. Schwinger (B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1939) |
| 1972 | Leon N. Cooper (B.A., 1951; M.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1954) |
| 1975 | James Rainwater (M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1939-1986) |
| 1975 | Aage Bohr (faculty member, 1949-1950) |
| 1976 | Samuel C.C. Ting (faculty member, 1964-1967) |
| 1978 | Arno A. Penzias (M.A., 1958; Ph.D., 1962) |
| 1979 | Steven Weinberg (faculty member, 1957-1959) |
| 1980 | Val L. Fitch (Ph.D., 1954; faculty member, 1953-1954) |
| 1981 | Arthur L. Schawlow (faculty member, 1949-1951, 1960) |
| 1984 | Carlo Rubbia (research fellow at Nevis , 1958-1960) |
| 1988 | Leon M. Lederman (M.A., 1948; Ph.D., 1951; faculty member, 1951-1989) |
| 1988 | Melvin Schwartz (B.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1958; faculty member, 1958-1966, 1991-present), now Emeritus* |
| 1988 | Jack Steinberger (faculty member, 1950-1970, 1985-1986, 1988-1998) |
| 1989 | Norman F. Ramsey (B.A., 1935; Ph.D., 1940; faculty member, 1941-1947) |
| 1995 | Martin L. Perl (Ph.D., 1955) |
| 1998 | Horst L. Stormer (faculty member, 1998-present)* |
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Physiology or Medicine | 1933 | Thomas Hunt Morgan (faculty member, 1904-1928) |
| 1946 | Hermann J. Muller (B.A., 1910; M.A., 1911; Ph.D., 1916; faculty member, 1918-1920) |
| 1950 | Edward C. Kendall (B.S., 1908; M.A., 1909; Ph.D., 1910) |
| 1956 | Dickinson W. Richards (M.A., 1922; M.D., 1923; faculty member, 1925-1973) |
| 1956 | Andre F. Cournand (faculty member, 1935-1988) |
| 1958 | Joshua Lederberg (B.A., 1944; faculty member, 1990-1999) |
| 1964 | Konrad E. Bloch (Ph.D., 1938; faculty member, 1938-1946, 1966) |
| 1967 | George Wald (M.A., 1928) |
| 1969 | Salvador E. Luria (faculty member, 1940-1942) |
| 1973 | Konrad Lorenz (Columbia College, 1922-1923) |
| 1976 | D. Carleton Gajdusek (postgraduate training, 1946-1947) |
| 1976 | Baruch S. Blumberg (M.D., 1951) |
| 1978 | Daniel Nathans (intern and medical resident, 1954-1959) |
| 1980 | Baruj Benacerraf (B.S., 1942) |
| 1982 | Sune Bergstrom (research fellowship, 1940-1941) |
| 1989 | Harold E. Varmus (M.D., 1966) |
| 1990 | E. Donnall Thomas (faculty member, 1955-1963) |
| 1998 | Louis J. Ignarro (B.S., 1962) |
| 2000 | Eric Kandel (faculty member, 1972-present)* |
| 2004 | Linda Buck (postdoctoral fellow, 1980-1984; researcher, 1984-1991) |
| 2004 | Richard Axel (A.B., 1967; faculty member, 1978-present)* |