Patron: Which U.S. college has educated the most Nobel Laureates?
Librarian 1: Dear Mr. Basler:
I have not found a comprehensive list of Nobel Laureates by undergraduate or graduate affiliation. The top schools in the United States for total Nobel Prizes awarded are: Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., CalTech, and Columbia, and tied with Berkeley is University of Chicago.
California Institute of Technology
"Caltech [California Insitute of Technology] has over 20,000 living alumni—of
whom 17 are Nobel Prize-winning scientists—and has produced leaders in
almost every field imaginable"
< http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/about/notable >
See also < http://one.caltech.edu/who_we_are/# >, click on Nobel Laureates.
University of California, Berkeley
"Your fellow Cal graduates include 24 Nobel laureates (20 of them L&S
alumni), as well as Olympians, heads of state and political leaders, novelists,
entrepreneurs, entertainers and so many more than we can list." < http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=alumni/meet-our-alumni
>
Columbia College
"Columbia College, which has graduated more Nobel laureates in science
than any other American college" < http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss10/record2110.15.html
>
See also < http://dark-legion.org/en/List%20of%20Columbia%20University%20people
>
"Nine Nobel laureates claim CCNY as their Alma Mater, the most from any public college in the United States;" < http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/advancement/pr/presskit/ >
Columbia University
< http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/nobel_laureates/by_year.html >
City University of New York
"Success of CUNY Graduates
CUNY Alumni boasts of 12 Nobel Prize winners, other distinguished alumni includes
General Colin Powell , former US Secretary of State; Andrew Grove , Chairman
of Intel Corporation and TIME Man of The Year; Howard Smith , Vice Chairman
of AIG ; and Bernard Schwartz , CEO of Loral Space and Communications"
< http://www.sma.edu.sg/programmes-p013.asp >
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"However, for the world outside MIT, the stereotypical MIT alumnus is a
researcher. It is no wonder that MIT faculty, staff and alumni have won a total
of 35 Nobel prizes, with 15 of these awards received by MIT alumni. " <
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N24/FamousAlumni.24f.html >
See also < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology_alumni#Alumni_Nobel_laureates
>
"MIT Nobel Prizes
as of Oct. 6, 2004
Full listing, updated
58 Nobel Prizes
-- 26 physics prizes
-- 10 chemistry prizes
-- 12 economics prizes
-- 8 medicine/physiology prizes
-- 2 peace prizes
Nobel laureates
-- 24 professors
-- 20 alumni
-- 13 researchers
-- 1 staff physician
Laureates at MIT (in reverse chronological order)
-- Frank Wilczek (2004) physics
-- Robert Horvitz (2002) physiology/medicine
-- Wolfgang Ketterle (2001) physics
-- Phillip Sharp (1993) physiology/medicine
-- Jerome Friedman (1990) physics
-- Susumu Tonegawa (1987) medicine/physiology
-- Robert Solow (1987) economics
-- Samuel Ting (1976) physics
-- Paul Samuelson (1970) economics
-- Har Gobind Khorana (1968) medicine/physiology
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 6, 2004 (download
PDF). " < http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/nobel-wilczek.html >
University of Illinois at Urbanna Champagne
"Alumni successes
Another prime indicator of the University’s excellence is the success
of its alumni: 11 alumni are Nobel laureates, 157 Guggenheim Fellows and another
18 have won Pulitzer Prizes."
< http://publicaffairs.uiuc.edu/facts/world.html >
See also < http://publicaffairs.uiuc.edu/facts/nobel.html >
See also < http://publicaffairs.uiuc.edu/AwardWinners/nobels.htm >
Table 2 - Number of United States Nobel laureates by Institution – twenty
year segments from 1947-2006. A minimum of three prizes in one time segment
is required for inclusion.
Institution - 1947-66 - 1967-86 - 1987-2006
USA
Harvard - 9 - 13 - 5
Univ. California Berkeley - 7 - 3 - 4
Stanford - 4 - 5 - 9
Caltech - 4 - 4 - 5
Columbia - 4 - 1 - 7
Rockefeller Inst. & Univ. - 3 - 6 - 3
Chicago - 2 - 4 - 7
Princeton - 1 - 2 - 6
MIT - 1 - 5 - 11
Cornell - 1 - 4 - 2
UCLA - 1 - 0 - 3
Yale - 0 - 4 - 1
NIH - National Inst. Health - 0 - 4 - 0
Univ. Colorado, Boulder - 0 - 0 - 4
University of Washington - 0 - 0 - 3
Fred Hutchinson CRC, Seattle - 0 - 0 - 3
Univ. California, Santa Barbara - 0 - 0 - 3
UCSF (U Cal San Fransico) - 0 - 0 - 3
Univ. California, Irvine - 0 - 0 - 3
Nobel Laureates Alma Maters
< http://almaz.com/nobel/alma.html >
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Academic Ranking of World Universities
produces the World Academic Rankings; you may wish to correspond with them regarding
background data on number of alumni with Nobel Prizes < http://www.arwu.org/rank/2007/ranking2007.htm
>. "The Shanghai rankings have been criticized [citation needed] for
placing too much emphasis on the Nobel prizewinners, as opposed to the broader
impact of a university's scientific output. For example, The Times report has
also been critical of the Shanghai rankings. In its 2004 report, THES questioned
why the Shanghai rankings count only Nobel prizes (note that the 2003 ranking
did not include Fields medalists[5]); why the universities where prizewinners
studied, some at the turn of the century before last, were credited and why
universities where winners carried out their research, often at least 20 years
previously, were credited rather than the institution that now benefits from
their presence. Arguably, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ranking also has
the effect of biasing the results towards the sciences for which a Nobel prize
is awarded (eg there is no Nobel prize for computer science). There are three
Nobel prizes for the sciences (chemistry, physics and medicine), one for the
social sciences (economics), one for the arts (literature) and the Peace Prize.
Universities with staff or alumni holding Fields medals for mathematics are
also rewarded, but similar awards for achievement in the arts are not taken
into account. Because of its methodology the list ranks almost exclusively research
universities and not liberal-arts colleges." Wikipedia
Thank you for consulting with the Library of Congress, Science Reading Room.
We hope that this information will be useful.
Michelle Cadoree Bradley
Science Reference
Science, Technology and Business Division
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540-4751