Thirteen Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the City University of New York (CUNY). The building pictured is Shepard Hall of the City College of New York, a senior college of CUNY.

This list of Nobel laureates affiliated with the City University of New York as alumni or faculty comprehensively shows alumni (graduates and attendees) or faculty members (professors of various ranks, researchers, and visiting lecturers or professors) affiliated with the City University of New York (CUNY) who were awarded the Nobel Prize or the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. People who have given public lectures, talks or non-curricular seminars; studied as non-degree students; received honorary degrees; or served as administrative staff at the university are excluded from the list. Summer school attendees and visitors are generally excluded from the list, since summer terms are not part of formal academic years; the same rule applies to the extension school.

The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals who make outstanding contributions in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine.[1] They were established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, which dictates that the awards should be administered by the Nobel Foundation. Another prize, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was established in 1968 by the Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, for contributors to the field of economics.[2] Each prize is awarded by a separate committee; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Economics, the Karolinska Institute awards the Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Prize in Peace.[3] Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a cash prize that has varied throughout the years.[2] In 1901, the winners of the first Nobel Prizes were given 150,782 SEK, which is equal to 7,731,004 SEK in December 2007. In 2008, the winners were awarded a prize amount of 10,000,000 SEK.[4] The awards are presented in Stockholm in an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.[5]

As of 2021, there have been 14 Nobel laureates affiliated with CUNY as alumni or faculty. CUNY considers any laureate who attended one of its senior colleges as an affiliated laureate.[6] Arthur Kornberg, who graduated from the City College of New York, a senior college of CUNY, in 1937, was the first CUNY laureate, winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959.[7] Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle, both of whom graduated from the City College in 1937 with Kornberg, jointly won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985, the only CUNY laureates to do so.[8] Six CUNY laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, more than any other category.[6] Ten of the CUNY laureates graduated from the City College; two laureates, Rosalyn Sussman Yalow and Gertrude B. Elion, graduated from Hunter College, another CUNY senior college; and one laureate, Stanley Cohen, graduated from Brooklyn College, one of CUNY's senior colleges, in 1943.

Laureates

Year Image Laureate Relation Category Rationale
1959 Arthur Kornberg
(shared with Severo Ochoa) 		City College, class of 1937 Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid"[7]
1961 Robert Hofstadter
(shared with Rudolf Mössbauer) 		City College, class of 1935 Physics "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons"[9]
1970 Julius Axelrod
(shared with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler) 		City College, class of 1933 Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation"[10]
1972 Kenneth Arrow
(shared with John Hicks) 		City College, class of 1940 Economics "for their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory."[11]
1977 Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
(shared with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally) 		Hunter College, class of 1941 Physiology or Medicine "for the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones"[12]
1978 Arno Allan Penzias
(shared with Pyotr Kapitsa and Robert Woodrow Wilson) 		City College, class of 1954 Physics "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"[13]
1985 Herbert A. Hauptman
(shared with Jerome Karle) 		City College, class of 1937 Chemistry "for their achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures"[8]
1985 Jerome Karle
(shared with Herbert A. Hauptman) 		City College, class of 1937 Chemistry "for their achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures"[8]
1986 Stanley Cohen
(shared with Rita Levi-Montalcini) 		Brooklyn College, class of 1943 Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of growth factors"[14]
1988 Gertrude B. Elion
(shared with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings) 		Hunter College, class of 1937 Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment"[15]
1988 Leon M. Lederman
(shared with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger) 		City College, class of 1943 Physics "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"[16]
2005 Robert Aumann
(shared with Thomas Schelling) 		City College, class of 1950 Economics "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."[17]
2008 Paul Krugman Distinguished Scholar, CUNY Graduate Center (2014–)[18] Economics "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity."[19]
2014 John O'Keefe
(shared with Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser) 		City College, class of 1963 Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain"[20]

References

General
  • "CUNY Nobel Laureates". City University of New York. Archived from the original on January 25, 2016. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
Specific
  1. ^ "Alfred Nobel – The Man Behind the Nobel Prize". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  2. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  3. ^ "The Nobel Prize Awarders". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on October 15, 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  4. ^ "The Nobel Prize Amounts". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on July 31, 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  5. ^ "The Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on August 22, 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  6. ^ a b "CUNY Nobel Laureates". City University of New York. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  7. ^ a b "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  8. ^ a b c "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1985". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  9. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1961". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  10. ^ "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1970". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  11. ^ "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1972". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  12. ^ "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  13. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1978". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  14. ^ "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1986". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  15. ^ "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1988". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  16. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  17. ^ "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2005". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  18. ^ "Paul Krugman". CUNY Graduate Center. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  19. ^ "Paul Krugman - Facts". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  20. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved October 8, 2014.

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