PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: Nobel Prize - Chemistry
British physicist
Ernest Rutherford was a New Zealand-born British physicist considered the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867). Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity, and...
American scientist
Linus Pauling was an American theoretical physical chemist who became the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes. His first prize (1954) was awarded for research into the nature of the chemical...
German chemist
Wilhelm Ostwald was a Russian-German chemist and philosopher who was instrumental in establishing physical chemistry as an acknowledged branch of chemistry. He was awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize for Chemistry...
Polish-born French physicist
Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist, famous for her work on radioactivity and twice a winner of the Nobel Prize. With Henri Becquerel and her husband, Pierre Curie, she was awarded the 1903...
German chemist
Fritz Haber was a German physical chemist and winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his successful work on nitrogen fixation. The Haber-Bosch process combined nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonia...
British biochemist
Frederick Sanger was an English biochemist who was twice the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He was awarded the prize in 1958 for his determination of the structure of the insulin molecule....
American chemist
Irving Langmuir was an American physical chemist who was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize for Chemistry “for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry.” He was the second American and the first...
American chemist
Harold C. Urey was an American scientist awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1934 for his discovery of the heavy form of hydrogen known as deuterium. He was a key figure in the development of the...
German chemist
Walther Nernst was a German scientist who was one of the founders of modern physical chemistry. His theoretical and experimental work in chemistry, including his formulation of the heat theorem, known...
Swiss chemist
Alfred Werner was a Swiss chemist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1913 for his research into the structure of coordination compounds. Werner was the fourth and last child of Jean-Adam Werner,...
Swedish chemist
Svante Arrhenius was a Swedish physicist and physical chemist known for his theory of electrolytic dissociation and his model of the greenhouse effect. In 1903, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry....
American chemist
Glenn T. Seaborg was an American nuclear chemist best known for his work on isolating and identifying transuranium elements (those heavier than uranium). He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with...
English chemist
Dorothy Hodgkin was an English chemist whose determination of the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12 brought her the 1964 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Dorothy Crowfoot was the eldest of four sisters...
American chemist
Robert Burns Woodward was an American chemist best known for his syntheses of complex organic substances, including cholesterol and cortisone (1951), strychnine (1954), and vitamin B12 (1971). He was awarded...
American chemist
Paul J. Flory was an American polymer chemist who was awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize for Chemistry “for his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules.”...
British chemist
Sir William Ramsay was a British physical chemist who discovered four gases (neon, argon, krypton, xenon) and showed that they (with helium and radon) formed an entire family of new elements, the noble...
American biochemist
Melvin Calvin was an American biochemist who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of the chemical pathways of photosynthesis. Calvin was the son of immigrant parents. His father...
German chemist
Karl Ziegler was a German chemist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the Italian chemist Giulio Natta. Ziegler’s research with organometallic compounds made possible the industrial production...
British chemist
Sir Derek H.R. Barton was a joint recipient, with Odd Hassel of Norway, of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on “conformational analysis,” the study of the three-dimensional geometric structure...
American chemist
Willard Frank Libby was an American chemist whose technique of carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating provided an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists, anthropologists, and earth scientists. For this...
German chemist
Emil Fischer was a German chemist who was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in recognition of his investigations of the sugar and purine groups of substances. Fischer was the eighth child and...
Dutch chemist
Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff was a Dutch physical chemist and the first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1901), for his work on rates of chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium, and osmotic pressure....
American chemist
Elias James Corey is an American chemist, director of a research group that developed syntheses of scores of complicated organic molecules and winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his original...
German chemist
Otto Hahn was a German chemist who, with the radiochemist Fritz Strassmann, is credited with the discovery of nuclear fission. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 and shared the Enrico...
American physician and biologist
Robert J. Lefkowitz is an American physician and molecular biologist who demonstrated the existence of receptors—molecules that receive and transmit signals for cells. His research on the structure and...
American chemist
Herbert Charles Brown was one of the leading American chemists of the 20th century. His seminal work on customized reducing agents and organoborane compounds in synthetic organic chemistry had a major...
Israeli biochemist
Ada Yonath is an Israeli protein crystallographer who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with Indian-born American physicist and molecular biologist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and American...
British chemist
John Walker is a British chemist who was corecipient, with Paul D. Boyer, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997 for their explanation of the enzymatic process that creates adenosine triphosphate (ATP)....
Indian-born physicist and molecular biologist
Venki Ramakrishnan is an Indian-born physicist and molecular biologist who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with American biophysicist and biochemist Thomas Steitz and Israeli protein...
American chemist
Roger Y. Tsien was an American chemist who was a corecipient, with Osamu Shimomura and Martin Chalfie, of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Tsien attended Harvard University before receiving a Ph.D....
Canadian-American scientist
Sidney Altman was a Canadian American molecular biologist who, with Thomas R. Cech, received the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discoveries concerning the catalytic properties of RNA, or ribonucleic...
American physician and biologist
Brian K. Kobilka is an American physician and molecular biologist whose research on the structure and function of cell-surface molecules known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)—the largest family...
American-Egyptian chemist
Ahmed H. Zewail was an Egyptian-born chemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999 for developing a rapid laser technique that enabled scientists to study the action of atoms during chemical reactions....
Canadian chemist
Michael Smith was a British-born Canadian biochemist who in the 1970s conceived and developed a method by which sequences of DNA can be edited by a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis. The approach...
Israeli chemist
Daniel Shechtman is an Israeli chemist who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals, a type of crystal in which the atoms are arranged in a pattern that follows...
American scientist
Thomas Robert Cech is an American biochemist and molecular biologist who, with Sidney Altman, was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discoveries concerning RNA (ribonucleic acid). Cech...
American chemist
Kary Mullis was an American biochemist, cowinner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a simple technique that allows a specific stretch of DNA...
American-Israeli chemist
Arieh Warshel is an American Israeli chemist who was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing accurate computer models of chemical reactions that were able to use features of both classical...
American biophysicist and biochemist
Thomas Steitz was an American biophysicist and biochemist who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with Indian-born American physicist and molecular biologist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan...
French chemist
Yves Chauvin was a French chemist who was corecipient, with Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for developing metathesis, an important chemical reaction used...
American chemist
Henry Taube was a Canadian-born American chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1983 for his extensive research into the properties and reactions of dissolved inorganic substances, particularly...
American chemist and physicist
Richard E. Smalley was an American chemist and physicist, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Robert F. Curl, Jr., and Sir Harold W. Kroto for their joint discovery of carbon-60 (C60, or...
German chemist
Hermann Staudinger was a German chemist who won the 1953 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for demonstrating that polymers are long-chain molecules. His work laid the foundation for the great expansion of the...
British chemist
Sir Harold W. Kroto was an English chemist who, with Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl, Jr., was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their joint discovery of the carbon compounds called...
American chemist
Martin Chalfie is an American chemist who was a corecipient, with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien, of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Chalfie received a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University...
American chemist
Richard R. Schrock is an American chemist who, with Robert H. Grubbs and Yves Chauvin, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for developing metathesis, one of the most important types of chemical...
American biologist
Walter Gilbert is an American molecular biologist who was awarded a share (with Paul Berg and Frederick Sanger) of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980 for his development of a method for determining...
British biochemist
Max Ferdinand Perutz was an Austrian-born British biochemist, corecipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his X-ray diffraction analysis of the structure of hemoglobin, the protein that transports...
German biochemist
Adolf Butenandt was a German biochemist who, with Leopold Ruzicka, was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on sex hormones. Although forced by the Nazi government to refuse the prize,...
American scientist
John B. Fenn was an American scientist who, with Tanaka Koichi and Kurt Wüthrich, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002 for developing techniques to identify and analyze proteins and other large biological...
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