The Nobel Laureates of UC Berkeley
October 12, 2026
In 1939, physicist Ernest Lawrence won UC Berkeley’s first Nobel Prize for his invention of the cyclotron, a machine that accelerated charged particles and introduced a new way to study the atom. Nearly a century later, UC Berkeley’s Nobel laureates have investigated how cells transport proteins, developed models for economic equilibrium and theorized that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. Their work spans decades of research on campus and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
As this year’s Nobel Prize announcements come to a close, The Daily Californian is looking back at the history of UC Berkeley’s laureates, tracing the recipients and their connections to campus. While campus primarily recognizes 63 UC Berkeley Nobel laureates, more than 100 laureates have been associated with UC Berkeley as alumni, short-term faculty or researchers.
“Our list includes alumni, faculty, emeriti and long-term postdoctoral researchers whose education and careers are rooted here,” said campus spokesperson Will Kane. “We expect to add many more Berkeley names in the years ahead.”
The campus’s list includes laureates who hold a degree from UC Berkeley, held a multi-year postdoc or fellowship at UC Berkeley or who are current faculty, emeriti or faculty that stayed until retirement. Other affiliations, including shorter research appointments or visiting lecturers, generally fall outside this criteria.
63 Laureates
These 63 laureates span nearly a century of Nobel Prize winners. Some spent much of their careers at UC Berkeley, while others conducted research here before moving to other institutions.
Twenty-nine of UC Berkeley’s 63 laureates are faculty or emeriti. Twenty-four were faculty members or professor emeriti when they received their prizes; five became faculty after winning their prize.
Thirty-five laureates are alumni, including former students and postdoctoral researchers. They account for more than half of the laureates represented.
Four of the 63 laureates are women: Carol Greider, Frances Arnold, Jennifer Doudna and Carolyn Bertozzi. Three received prizes in chemistry and one in physiology or medicine. Greider and Arnold are alumni, Bertozzi is former faculty and Doudna is current faculty.
UC Berkeley affiliates have received prizes across five fields. Twenty-one laureates each received prizes in physics and chemistry, 11 received prizes in economics, nine received prizes in physiology or medicine and one received a prize in literature.
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recognized climate research that scientists at UC Berkeley helped produce through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were contributors to this project. This prize is not included in our count, as it was awarded to an organization.
Sixteen laureates have worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. All of them received prizes in physics or chemistry, beginning with Ernest Lawrence’s award for the cyclotron. Their discoveries range from finding new elements to genome editing.
Several laureates also contributed to the Manhattan Project, the United States’ project during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb.
UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the Manhattan project’s Los Alamos Laboratory. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics four times, but never won.
Czesław Miłosz is UC Berkeley’s only Nobel laureate in literature. He received the prize in 1980.
UC Berkeley laureates received their Nobel Prizes between 1934 and 2025.
Twenty laureates received prizes in economics or physiology or medicine. Five of the 11 economics laureates won during the 2000s. Six of the nine physiology or medicine laureates received their prizes from 2000 onward.
The Nobel Prize monetary award can be divided up to three individuals, either between co-researchers for a single discovery or split between two separate discoveries.
Svante Pääbo, UC Berkeley postdoctoral alumnus, has been the only individual since the 1980s who has won the entire Nobel Prize portion for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution in 2022.
The number of prize recipients rose from two in the 1930s to 13 between 2020 and 2025, though increases are not consistent across all decades.
The average age of prize recipients rose from about 40 in the 1930s to 67 in the 2020s.
Berkeley’s laureates were born in 14 different countries. Forty-seven were born in the United States.
A connection to UC Berkeley did not always mean working here when the prize was awarded. Laureates’ affiliations at the time of their award included universities and research institutions across the United States, Europe and Asia.
Twenty-four laureates were UC Berkeley faculty members or professors emeriti when they received their Nobel Prizes.
UC Berkeley’s 63 Nobel laureates represent 7% of all Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics.
For Randy Schekman, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, UC Berkeley’s research culture has been central to his career. He recalled the “special cozy feeling” he experienced when first visiting the campus in 1975.
“We don’t have the deep pockets of a place like Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford. So we have to be interdependent in a way that is much less common,” Schekman said. “And we are all keenly interested in applying our work.”
However, Shekman is worried about the future of research amid funding cuts and the current political climate.
“We admit many fewer graduate students because faculty can’t afford them. Over the next two years, people are going to be closing their labs,” he said.
Schekman still emphasized the importance of preserving curiosity-driven research. He pointed to Jennifer Doudna’s Nobel Prize-winning research on CRISPR, which was built on decades of previous discoveries.
“I think my concern going forward is that we don’t lose sight of that investment in basic science,” Schekman said.
About this story
This project was developed by the Data Department at The Daily Californian.
This story uses Berkeley Inspire’s list of 63 Nobel laureates, with award and affiliation data spanning 1934–2025. Biographies and informti
Questions, comments or corrections? Email projects@dailycal.org. Code, data and text are open-source on GitHub.
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