1881-1957
1929-2007
1926-
1919-
Rita Levi-Montalcini shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for her part in the discovery of a protein that stimulates nerve cell growth.
1909-2012
Sinclair Lewis was a journalist and Nobel Prize winning novelist known for 20th century works like Main Street, Elmer Gantry and Babbitt.
1885-1951
1908-1980
French physicist Gabriel Lippmann created the first color photographic plate. The creation earned him the 1908 Nobel Prize for Physics.
1845-1921
1936-
1906-1987
Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan political and environmental activist and her country's assistant minister of environment, natural resources and wildlife.
1940-2011
1911-2006
Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994. A symbol of global peacemaking, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
1918-
German novelist, short-story and essay writer Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. One of his best-known novels is Death in Venice.
1875-1955
Professor Peter Mansfield received the Nobel Prize for further developing magnetic resonance (MRI) technology, leading to its widespread use in hospitals.
1933-
1874-1937
Rudolph A. Marcus is a Canadian chemist known for his research in electron-transfer reactions. He established what is known as the Marcus Theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1992.
1923-
1951-
1880-1959
1885-1970
1902-1992
1845-1916
1868-1953
1927-2002
1889-1957
1918-2003
Mexican-born chemist Mario Molina won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his research on how man-made compounds affect the ozone layer.
1943-
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved.
1931-
Mother Teresa was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to helping the poor.
1910-1997
Nobel Prize-winning Swedish economist and sociologist Gunner Myrdal is regarded as a major theorist of international relations and developmental economics.
1898-1987
Writer Gabriel García Márquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera, has gained worldwide readership with his brand of magical realism.
1928-
Sir V.S. Naipaul is a Trinidadian-British writer of Indian descent known for his novels set in developing countries. He won the Nobel Prize in 2001 for his novel, Half a Life.
1932-
1928-
Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize–winning Chilean poet who was once called “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.”
1904-1973
Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and other explosives. He used his enormous fortune from 355 patents to institute the Nobel Prizes.
1833-1896
1920-
1942-
1888-1953
Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States, and the first African American to serve as U.S. president. First elected to the presidency in 2008, he won a second term in 2012.
1961-
1905-1993
1935-
1927-
1912-2008
1890-1960
1900-1958
1901-1994
Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studied "conditioned reflex" through an experiment that made hungry dogs salivate at the sound of a dinner bell.
1849-1936
1914-1998
1897-1972
President of Israel Shimon Peres was also twice prime minister of Israel and won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Oslo Accords with Rabin and Arafat.
1923-
Harold Pinter is a renowned British playwright who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.
1930-2008
1867-1936
1940-
American journalist Ernie Pyle was one of the most famous war correspondents of World War II. He won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in 1944.
1900-1945
1901-1968
1922-1995
1949-
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish histologist and professor whose work led to the discovery of neurons.
1852-1934
Louis Renault was a French jurist and educator and co-winner in 1907 of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1843-1918
1908-2005
1872-1970
1845-1923
1891-1970
American economist Paul Samuelson is best known as a founder of neo-Keynesian economics and for being the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
1915-2009
Aung San Suu Kyi is an opposition leader in her home country of Myanmar and the winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace.
1945-
1918-
José Saramago was a Portuguese novelist and man of letters who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
1922-2010
Jean-Paul Sartre was a 20th century intellectual, writer and activist who put forth pioneering ideas on existentialism.
1905-1980
1921-
Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics.
1887-1961
1875-1965
1856-1950
William Shockley was an engineer and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his development of the transistor.
1910-1989
French novelist Claude Simon’s novels include The Wind; The Grass; and The Flanders Road. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985.
1913-2005
Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Jewish-American writer who won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature.
1904-1991
1943-2005
1918-2008
1934-
Roger W. Sperry was a 20th century scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on brain hemispheres.
1913-1994
John Steinbeck was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose book The Grapes of Wrath portrayed the plight of migrant workers during the Depression.
1902-1968
1941-
1909-1975
1915-2005
American radio astronomer and physicist Joseph H. Taylor Jr. was the co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the first binary pulsar.
1941-
1903-1982
1911-1990
J.J. Thomson was a Nobel Prize winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.
1856-1940
1944-
Desmond Tutu is a South African Anglican cleric who is known for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
1931-
1837-1923
1930-
Labor activist and later Polish president Lech Walesa helped form and lead communist Poland's first independent trade union, Solidarity and won a Nobel Prize.
1943-
J. Robin Warren is a Nobel Prize-winning pathologist who, with Barry J. Marshall, identified the bacteria that causes ulcers.
1937-
James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.
1928-
1933-
Elie Wiesel is a Nobel-Prize winning writer, teacher and activist known for the memoir Night, in which he recounts his experiences surviving the Holocaust.
1928-
1950-
1936-
Rosalyn S. Yalow was a Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist who conducted groundbreaking research on type II diabetes.
1921-