Berkeley's Nobel laureates

David Card

Economics, 2021 | Faculty

Card shared his prize for work that challenged orthodoxy and dramatically shifted understanding of inequality and the social and economic forces that impact low-wage workers.

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Jennifer Doudna

Chemistry, 2020 | Faculty

Doudna shares her Nobel with colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier for the co-development of the genome editing breakthrough CRISPR-Cas9.

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Reinhard Genzel

Physics, 2020 | Faculty

Genzel won the physics prize for the discovery of, at the center of our galaxy, a black hole four million times the mass of our sun.

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Eric Betzig

Chemistry, 2014 | Faculty

Betzig’s development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy allows scientists to look inside cells and visualize the pathways of individual molecules.

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Randy Schekman

Physiology or Medicine, 2013 | Faculty

Schekman discovered how cells export proteins, allowing the production and secretion of drugs by yeast cells and sparking a biotech revolution.

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Saul Perlmutter Ph.D. ’86

Physics, 2011 | Faculty

Perlmutter led a team that discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe; the prize was awarded jointly to Adam Riess — a fellow Cal alum — and Brian Schmidt.

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Oliver Williamson

Economics, 2009 | Faculty

Williamson’s research on economic governance opened an analytic window into the “make or buy” decisions that all businesses face.

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George Smoot

Physics, 2006 | Faculty

Astrophysicist Smoot shared this prize with Cal alum John Mather for imaging the infant universe.

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George Akerlof

Economics, 2001 | Faculty

Macroeconomist Akerlof broke with established economic theory in illustrating how markets malfunction when buyers and sellers have access to different information.

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Daniel McFadden

Economics, 2000 | Faculty

McFadden’s econometric methods for studying behavioral patterns in individual decision-making earned him the Nobel Prize.

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John Harsanyi

Economics, 1994 | Faculty

Harsanyi expanded the application of game theory, eventually addressing the prediction of outcomes in games or circumstances in which players lack complete information.

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Yuan T. Lee Ph.D. ’65

Chemistry, 1986 | Faculty

Lee designed experiments that sent streams of intensely packed molecules into each other at supersonic speeds, contributing to today’s powerful lasers.

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Gerard Debreu

Economics, 1983 | Faculty

Economist Debreu’s mathematical models provided the theoretical structure to explain the law of supply and demand.

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Czeslow Milosz

Literature, 1980 | Faculty

Milosz’s poetry was prohibited by the Communist government of his native Poland; this ban ended when he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

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Luis Alvarez

Physics, 1968 | Faculty

Substituting hydrogen for ether in Donald Glaser’s bubble chamber, Alvarez produced a clearer track of speeding particles.

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Charles Townes

Physics, 1964 | Faculty

Townes’s research into the properties of light while designing radar systems during World War II led to the development of the laser.

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Melvin Calvin

Chemistry, 1961 | Faculty

Calvin revealed the complete path of carbon in photosynthesis to explain how plants convert sunlight to food.

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Donald Glaser

Physics, 1960 | Faculty

Glaser’s invention of the bubble chamber allowed scientists to track the movement of atomic particles.

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Owen Chamberlain

Physics, 1959 | Faculty

Chamberlain and Emilio Segrè discovered the anti-proton, signaling a major leap in the study of matter and antimatter.

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Emilio Segrè

Physics, 1959 | Faculty

Segrè and Owen Chamberlain discovered the anti-proton, signaling a major leap in the study of matter and antimatter.

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Edwin McMillan

Chemistry, 1951 | Faculty

McMillan discovered the element neptunium in 1940; he shared his Nobel with Glenn Seaborg.

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Glenn Seaborg Ph.D. ’37

Chemistry, 1951 | Faculty

Seaborg continued Edwin McMillan’s studies on the transuranium elements, and in 1942, he discovered plutonium.

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William Giauque B.S. 1920, Ph.D. 1922

Chemistry, 1949 | Faculty

By reaching below Absolute Zero for the first time in history, Giauque’s work proved one of the most basic laws of nature.

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John Howard Northrop

Chemistry, 1946 | Faculty

Northrop and Wendell Stanley share a chemistry prize; one for isolating a pure enzyme for the first time and the other for isolating a virus, respectively.

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Wendell Stanley

Chemistry, 1946 | Faculty

Stanley and John Howard Northrop share a chemistry prize; one for isolating a pure enzyme for the first time and the other for isolating a virus, respectively.

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Ernest Lawrence

Physics, 1939 | Faculty

Lawrence, awarded for his work on the cyclotron, was the first Nobelist at a public university.

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