Here are the 96 Nobel Prizewinners who attended Cambridge University that I have found during my research. For more information on any of the Laureates, see the Nobel Archive
Laureate | College | Prize | Year | Reason for Prize |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lord Rayleigh | Trinity | Phy | 1904 | Discovered Argon |
JJ Thomson | Trinity | Phy | 1906 | Investigated the electrical conductivity of gases |
Ernest Rutherford | Trinity | Che | 1908 | Atomic structure and radioactivity |
William Bragg | Trinity | Phy | 1915 | Analysed crystal structure using X-rays |
Lawrence Bragg | Trinity | Phy | 1915 | Analysed crystal structure using X-rays |
Charles Barkla | Trinity | Phy | 1917 | Discovered the characteristics of X-radiation |
Niels Bohr | Trinity | Phy | 1922 | Investigated atomic structure and radiation |
Francis Aston | Trinity | Che | 1922 | Work on mass spectroscopy and the `whole number rule' |
Archibald Hill | Trinity | Med | 1922 | Heat production in the muscles |
Austen Chamberlain | Trinity | Pea | 1925 | Work on the Locarno Pact, 1925 |
Charles Wilson | Sidney Sussex | Phy | 1927 | Invented the cloud chamber |
Arthur Holly Compton | - | Phy | 1927 | Discovered wavelength change in diffused X-rays |
Owen Richardson | Trinity | Phy | 1928 | Richardson's Law of electron emission of hot metals |
Frederick Hopkins | Trinity/ Emmanuel | Med | 1929 | Discovered growth stimulating vitamins |
Lord Adrian | Trinity | Med | 1932 | The function of neurons |
Charles Sherrington | Caius | Med | 1932 | The function of neurons |
Paul Dirac | St John's | Phy | 1933 | Quantum mechanics |
James Chadwick | Caius | Phy | 1935 | Discovered the neutron |
Henry Dale | Trinity | Med | 1936 | The chemical transmission of nerve impulses |
George Thomson | Trinity | Phy | 1937 | Interference in crystals irradiated by electrons |
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi | Fitzwilliam | Med | 1937 | Combustion in biology |
Ernst Chain | Fitzwilliam | Med | 1945 | Discovery of penicillin |
Howard Florey | Caius | Med | 1945 | Discovery of penicillin |
Edward Appleton | St John's | Phy | 1947 | Discovered the Appleton Layer |
Patrick Blackett | Magdalene/ King's | Phy | 1948 | Nuclear physics and cosmic radiation |
Bertrand Russell | Trinity | Lit | 1950 | A History of Western Philosophy, 1945 |
Cecil Powell | Sidney Sussex | Phy | 1950 | Photography of nuclear processes |
John Cockcroft | St John's/ Churchill | Phy | 1951 | Used accelerated particles to study atomic nuclei |
Ernest Walton | Trinity | Phy | 1951 | Used accelerated particles to study atomic nuclei |
Richard Synge | Trinity | Che | 1952 | Developed partition chromatography |
Archer Martin | Peterhouse | Che | 1952 | Developed partition chromatography |
Hans Krebs | - | Med | 1953 | Discovered the citric acid cycle |
Max Born | - | Phy | 1954 | Fundamental research into quantum mechanics |
Alexander Todd | Christs | Che | 1957 | Work on nucleotides |
Frederick Sanger | St John's | Che | 1958 | Structure of the insulin molecule |
Philip Noel-Baker | King's | Pea | 1959 | Work towards global disarmament |
John Kendrew | Trinity | Che | 1962 | Determined the structure of haemoproteins |
Max Perutz | Peterhouse | Che | 1962 | Determined the structure of haemoproteins |
Francis Crick | Caius/ Churchill | Med | 1962 | Structure of DNA |
James Watson | Clare | Med | 1962 | Structure of DNA |
Maurice Wilkins | St John's | Med | 1962 | Structure of DNA |
Alan Hodgkin | Trinity | Med | 1963 | Transmission of nerve impulses along a nerve fibre |
Andrew Huxley | Trinity | Med | 1963 | Transmission of nerve impulses along a nerve fibre |
Dorothy Hodgkin | Newnham/ Girton | Che | 1964 | Structure of compounds used in fighting anaemia |
Ronald Norrish | Emmanuel | Che | 1967 | Study of fast chemical reactions |
George Porter | Emmanuel | Che | 1967 | Study of fast chemical reactions |
Rodney Porter | Pembroke | Med | 1972 | Chemical structure of antibodies |
John Hicks | Caius | Eco | 1972 | Equilibrium theory |
Brian Josephson | Trinity | Phy | 1973 | Tunneling in superconductors and semiconductors |
Patrick White | King's | Lit | 1973 | For an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature |
Martin Ryle | Trinity | Phy | 1974 | For the invention of aperture synthesis |
Antony Hewish | Caius/ Churchill | Phy | 1974 | For the discovery of pulsars |
Nevill Mott | Caius/ St John's | Phy | 1977 | Behaviour of electrons in magnetic solids |
Philip Anderson | Churchill | Phy | 1977 | Behaviour of electrons in magnetic solids |
James Meade | Trinity | Eco | 1977 | Contributed to the theory of international trade |
Pyotr Kapitsa | Trinity | Phy | 1978 | Invented the helium liquefier |
Peter Mitchell | Jesus | Che | 1978 | Energy transfer processes in biological systems |
Abdus Salam | St John's | Phy | 1979 | Unification of electromagnetic and weak particle interactions |
Steven Weinberg | - | Phy | 1979 | Unification of electromagnetic and weak particle interactions |
Allan Cormack | St John's | Med | 1979 | Development of CAT scans |
Walter Gilbert | Trinity | Che | 1980 | Developed the theory of nucleotide links in nucleic acids |
Frederick Sanger | St John's | Che | 1980 | Developed the theory of nucleotide links in nucleic acids |
Aaron Klug | Trinity | Che | 1982 | Determined the structure of biologically active substances |
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | Trinity | Phy | 1983 | The evolution and devolution of stars |
William Fowler | Pembroke | Phy | 1983 | The evolution and devolution of stars |
Gerard Debreu | Churchill | Eco | 1983 | Reformulation of the theory of general equilibrium |
Richard Stone | Caius | Eco | 1984 | Developing a national income accounting system |
Cesar Milstein | Fitzwilliam | Med | 1984 | Developed a technique for producing monoclonal antibodies |
Georges Kohler | - | Med | 1984 | Developed a technique for producing monoclonal antibodies |
Norman Ramsey | Clare | Phy | 1989 | Developing the separated field method |
James Mirrlees | Trinity | Eco | 1996 | Studied behaviour in the absence of complete information |
John Walker | Sidney Sussex | Che | 1997 | Studied how a spinning enzyme creates the molecule that powers cells in muscles |
Amartya Sen | Trinity | Eco | 1998 | For his contributions to welfare economics |
John Pople | Trinity | Che | 1998 | For his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry |
Alan McDiarmid | Sidney Sussex | Che | 2000 | For the discovery and development of conductive polymers |
Paul Greengard | ? | Med | 2000 | For discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system |
Tim Hunt | Clare | Med | 2001 | For discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle |
Joseph Stiglitz | Caius | Eco | 2001 | For analyses of markets with asymmetric information |
John Sulston | Pembroke | Med | 2002 | For discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death |
Sydney Brenner | King's | Med | 2002 | For discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death |
Richard Schrock | - | Che | 2005 | For the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis |
Martin Evans | Christ's | Med | 2007 | For discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice |
Roger Tsien | Churchill | Che | 2008 | For increasing understanding of the protein GFP |
Elizabeth Blackburn | Darwin | Med | 2009 | For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase |
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan | Trinity | Che | 2009 | For studies of the structure and function of the ribosome |
Robert Edwards | Churchill | Med | 2010 | For the development of in vitro fertilization |
John Gurdon | Churchill/ Magdalene | Med | 2012 | For the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent |
Michael Levitt | Peterhouse | Che | 2013 | For the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems |
Angus Deaton | Fitzwilliam | Eco | 2015 | For his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare |
Oliver Hart | King's | Eco | 2016 | For his contributions to contract theory |
John Kosterlitz | Caius | Phy | 2016 | For theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter |
Duncan Haldane | Christ's | Phy | 2016 | For theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter |
David Thouless | Trinity Hall | Phy | 2016 | For theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter |
Richard Henderson | Corpus Christi | Che | 2017 | For developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution |
Peter Ratcliffe | Caius | Med | 2019 | For discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability |
Didier Queloz | Trinity | Phy | 2019 | For work on exoplanets and the evolution of the Universe |
Thanks to Martin Boer, and the University Press and Publications office for finding several that I had missed, and to Edward Hoffman for many of the links below.
Chicago (85 Nobelists), MIT (73), Columbia (72), Harvard (>43), Oxford (48), Gottingen (44), Cornell (40), Princeton (32), John Hopkins (32), Caltech (31), Humboldt, Berlin (29), Stanford (23), Manchester (23), Washington Uni. St Louis (21), Rockefeller (21), Berkeley (20), Yale (18), Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) (18), Pennsylvania (16), Imperial College, London (14), LSE (14), and Liverpool (8), maintain their own impressive lists of Nobel Prizewinning alumni, but their criteria for deciding who is an alumnus vary wildly, and are on the whole different to those here. If only Undergraduate and Graduate Students are counted as having studied at an institution then these totals drop to perhaps 37 for Columbia and 29 for Chicago (compared to up to 48 for Harvard). By the same criteria, Cambridge loses Compton, Hicks, Fowler, Walker, Debreu, Kohler, Greengard, Weinberg, Brenner, Stiglitz, Ramakrishnan, Gurdon and Queloz leaving 83 who were actually students here.
Wikipedia has a detailed if inconsistent page on the alma maters of Nobel Prizewinners. See also here for a further list of links to Nobel Prizewinning Alumni pages.