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NSF-Funded Nobel Prize Winners in Science Through 2004

October 2004

The National Science Foundation (NSF) was established in 1950 "to promote the progress of science" and today funds more than 10,000 new awards each year in fulfilling that mission. NSF selects projects through a time-tested process of merit review, and the success of that process is reflected, in part, in the number of NSF-supported scientists recognized for their discoveries. In particular, NSF takes great pride in the remarkable achievements by U.S. and U.S.-based researchers that have received Nobel Prizes and the many who have been supported by NSF grants throughout their careers.

NSF's contributions are significant considering the agency's size and the foundation's support for fundamental research in many disciplines relative to agencies focused on a specific mission such as health, defense or energy. NSF's share of federal funding for basic academic research in physical sciences (including physics and chemistry) is 35 percent, non-health-related biology is 65 percent and non-health-related social sciences is 84 percent.

* Given awards by NSF before receiving Nobel Prize

** Given awards by NSF after receiving Nobel Prize

This information is based on NSF's Awards Database, which covers awards from the 1989 to present, and older information that predates electronic records at NSF. Information is available online for prior awards only if the award has been amended since that 1989.

For details on these laureates and the discoveries that earned them Nobel Prizes, see http://nobelprize.org.

Updated: October 15, 2004

PHYSICS
1955 – **Willis E. Lamb, **Polykarp Kusch
1957 – **Chen Ning Yang
1959 – **Owen Chamberlain
1960 – Donald A. Glaser
1961 – **Robert Hofstadter
1963 – **Eugene P. Wigner
1964 – **Charles H. Townes
1967 – **Hans A. Bethe
1969 – **Murray Gell-Mann
1972 – Leon N. Cooper, J. Robert Schrieffer
1974 – **Ivar Giaever
1975 – James Rainwater
1976 – Burton Richter
1977 – Philip W. Anderson
1978 – Robert W. Wilson
1979 – Sheldon L. Glashow, Steven Weinberg
1980 – James W. Cronin
1981 – Arthur L. Schawlow
1982 – Kenneth G. Wilson
1983 – Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, William A. Fowler
1988 – Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz
1989 – Norman F. Ramsey, Hans G. Dehmelt
1990 – Henry W. Kendall
1993 – Joseph H. Taylor Jr., Russell A. Hulse
1994 – Clifford G. Shull
1995 – Frederick Reines
1996 – David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff, Robert C. Richardson
1997 – Steven Chu, William D. Phillips
1998 – Robert B. Laughlin, Horst L. Stormer, Daniel C. Tsui
2000 – Herbert Kroemer
2001 – Carl E. Wieman, Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle
2002 – Raymond Davis Jr., Riccardo Giacconi
2003 – Anthony J. Leggett
2004 - David J. Gross, H. David Politzer, Frank Wilczek

CHEMISTRY
1951 – **Glenn T. Seaborg
1954 – **Linus C. Pauling
1960 – **Willard F. Libby
1965 – **Robert B. Woodward
1966 – **Robert S. Mulliken
1968 – **Lars Onsager
1972 – **Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, William Stein
1974 – Paul J. Flory
1976 – William N. Lipscomb
1979 – Herbert C. Brown
1980 – Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert
1981 – Roald Hoffman
1983 – Henry Taube
1984 – **Robert B. Merrifield
1985 – Herbert A. Hauptman
1986 – Dudley R. Herschbach, Yuan T. Lee
1987 – Donald J. Cram
1989 – Sidney Altman, Thomas R. Cech
1990 – Elias J. Corey
1992 – Rudolph A. Marcus
1994 – George A. Olah
1995 – Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland
1996 – Robert F. Curl Jr., Richard E. Smalley
1997 – Paul D. Boyer
1998 – Walter Kohn, John A. Pople
1999 – Ahmed H. Zewail
2000 – Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid
2001 – K. Barry Sharpless
2002 – John B. Fenn
2003 – Peter Agre, Roderick MacKinnon

MEDICINE
1953 – **Fritz Lipmann
1958 – **George W. Beadle, Joshua Lederberg
1959 – **Severo Ochoa, **Arthur Kornberg
1962 – **Francis C. Crick, **James D. Watson
1964 – **Konrad Bloch
1965 – Francois Jacob, Jacques Monad
1967 – **George Wald
1968 – Robert W. Holley, H. Gobind Khorana
1969 – **Max Delbrόck, **Salvador E. Luria
1972 – Gerald M. Edelman
1974 – **George E. Palade
1975 – **David Baltimore, Renato Dulbecco, Howard M. Temin
1978 – Hamilton O. Smith
1979 – **Allan M. Cormack
1981 – Roger W. Sperry, Torsten N. Wiesel
1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini
1987 – Susumu Tonegawa
1992 – Edmond H. Fischer
1993 – Richard J. Roberts, Phillip A. Sharp
1995 – Edward B. Lewis, Eric F. Wieschaus
1997 – Stanley B. Prusiner
2000 – Paul Greengard
2001 – Leland H. Hartwell
2003 – Paul C. Lauterbur
2004 - Richard Axel

ECONOMICS
1970 – **Paul A. Samuelson
1972 – **Kenneth J. Arrow
1973 – Wassily Leontief
1975 – Tjalling C. Koopmans
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence R. Klein
1981 – James Tobin
1982 – George J. Stigler
1983 – Gerard Debreu
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1986 – James M. Buchanan Jr.
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1992 – Gary S. Becker
1993 – Robert W. Fogel, Douglass C. North
1994 – John C. Harsanyi, **John F. Nash
1995 – Robert E. Lucas
1997 – Robert C. Merton
1998 – Amartya Sen
2000 – James J. Heckman, Daniel L. McFadden
2001 – George Akerlof, Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz
2002 – Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith
2003 – Robert C. Engle, Clive W. Granger
2004 - Finn E. Kydland, Edward C. Prescott

 
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