Jewish Women Nobel Prize Winners And Almosts You Should Know

The Nobel Prizes are among the most coveted awards globally, an honor that began in 1901 as a legacy of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish engineer, chemist, and inventor, known for his work with dynamite. 

Each year, a different set of recipients highlights the work of groundbreaking professionals across fields, with awards provided in the categories of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Economic Sciences, and Peace. The deadline for nominations each year is January 31 at midnight. Nominations for next year's recipients are quickly drawing to a close, and as of the 2025 award season, only 67 women have been awarded the prize out of a staggering 990 total individual awardees. 

This year had two female awardees: María Corina Machado (Peace Prize)—a Venezuelan activist who has fought for democracy while also working to uplift and support children in Caracas—and Mary Elizabeth Brunkow (Physiology and Medicine Prize)—a scientist who has worked with colleagues in the field to identify critical genes in the field of immunology, with important implications for future works on longevity and wellness. 

These women are the latest in a long line of women with outstanding global contributions. The first woman awarded the Nobel—Marie Curie—received the honor in 1903, just two years after the prize was established. The first Jewish woman to win the prize was Gerty Theresa Cori, in 1947, for her work in the Medicine and Physiology award category. 

Since Cori’s win, a handful of other Jewish women have received the prestigious award. The following profiles of recipients, including a few women who were not honored for their work, can help us honor our foremothers and support future generations of Jewish women in finding role models to guide them through the challenges and opportunities of brave work and brilliant thinking. 

Claudia Goldin

In 2023, Goldin won the Nobel Prize for her research on female labor force participation and earnings over time, with findings highlighting sources of inequality that contributed to gender wage gaps. Goldin was the first woman to win the Economics Nobel solo, not sharing the award with any research team. She was also the first Jewish woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Being first at these impressive feats was hardly new to Goldin, who was also the first woman to be granted a tenured professorship at Harvard. What makes Goldin particularly inspiring is not just her trailblazing history but also her dedication to amplifying the voices of women and speaking out against injustice globally. Through her research, increased attention has been shifted towards understanding the intersections of gender and financial inequality.

Louise Glück

The Poet Laureate of the United States from 2003-2004, Glück’s accolades skyrocketed in 2020, when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Despite her marked success, however, she was known for her humility and desire for a quiet, literature-filled life. From a young age, she recognized that being Jewish set her and her sister apart in her Christian community—they were singled out by nuns at their school and asked to pray before a statue of Jesus. Yet Glück, steadfast to her roots, refused. This quiet pride in Jewish identity is threaded throughout her work, with poetry that draws roots and inspiration from Jewish tradition, imagery, and interpretation in an evocative manner. 

Esther Lederberg 

Lederberg grew up during the Great Depression in New York City, born in an Orthodox Jewish family with a grandfather who stoked her love for learning and reading. After excelling academically at first undergraduate and then graduate studies, she overcame financial hardship and food insecurity to complete her Ph.D. in 1950 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research led to critical developments in the field of genetics around the mutation and adaptation of bacteria, yet it was her husband, Joshua Lederberg, who was credited with much of her work and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958. Following Esther’s lack of recognition, she and Joshua divorced, and Esther was subsequently excluded from many academic circles, including being denied a tenure-track professorial position at Stanford University. 

Lise Meitner 

Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878 and relentlessly pursued education with the support of her Jewish family until women were allowed to attend universities in 1901. By 1906, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Vienna, after which she began conducting research alongside Otto Hahn in Berlin, Germany. After the 1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi-Germany, however, it became unsafe for her to continue to conduct research in Germany, and she fled to Sweden. Hahn continued to write to her of his experiments, including one which perplexed him. Meitner puzzled over his work before finally writing the theoretical equations and models for what is now known as nuclear fission. Despite Meitner’s efforts, however, it was Hahn who received the credit for this work and the Nobel Prize that came with it. Even with subsequent awards presented to Meitner, she was never given the Nobel, something that remains a painful slight to her contributions. 

A common thread weaving together these Jewish women awardees—and those who should have been recipients—is the pursuit of their education and passion in the face of exceptional odds. Whether overcoming gender norms through dedication to research or subtly shaking off gendered expectations through pursuit of knowledge, the curiosity to learn, drive to grow, and chutzpah to buck the status quo meant that each of these women made their mark on history—with or without the Nobel to mark it.