University of California
03/19/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 03/20/2025 11:20
Discoveries that changed the world: Meet UC’s women Nobel laureates
If Andrea Ghez had listened to her critics, one of the galaxy's greatest mysteries might yet remain unsolved.
The UCLA astronomer won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for proving the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Like every other scientist who's reached the pinnacle of their field, Ghez has overcome a lot of skepticism along the way - after all, questions are the driver of the scientific method. What is science if not the process of putting your elegant theories through the meat grinder of rigorous testing and review?
But Ghez also faced down doubts that had nothing to do with the laws of physics. "At every stage, someone has always said no, you can't do this because you're a girl," she recalls. "I got very used to ignoring when people said I couldn't do something."
In winning the Nobel Prize, Ghez joined one of the smallest clubs in science. Of the 749 people who've won the prize in a scientific field - physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, or economics - just 29 have been women. And of that small group, nearly 1 in 4 have ties to the University of California. This Women's History Month, we're honoring UC's seven women Nobelists who've overcome the odds and changed the world.
This Women's History Month, we're honoring UC's seven women Nobelists who've overcome the odds and changed the world.
Maria Goeppert Mayer, UC San Diego, Physics, 1963
Maria Goeppert Mayer. Image: United States Department of Energy
By the time theoretical physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer joined UC San Diego as a founding faculty member in 1960, she was well known for her landmark contributions to the fields of quantum electrodynamics, spectroscopy, statistical mechanics, crystal physics and nuclear physics. A trailblazer in her field during an era when few researchers were women, Goeppert Mayer worked on isotope separation for the Manhattan Project during World War II and developed the shell model of nuclear physics.
Goeppert Mayer made her globally recognized achievements in an era with limited opportunities for women in science and research. Her husband was a chemistry professor, and rules at the time prevented her from also holding a paid position as a faculty member. Nevertheless, she followed him from university to university, working as a lab assistant or a "volunteer associate professor" and making trailblazing discoveries at Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, Los Alamos National Lab, University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab. In 1960, at age 53, she was offered her first paid professorship at UC San Diego. Goeppert Mayer was the second woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, following Marie Curie's 1903 win for the discovery of radiation.
Elinor Ostrom, UCLA, Economic Sciences, 2009
Elinor Ostrom. Image: Getty Images/University of Indiana
The first woman to win The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, UCLA alumna Elinor Ostrom was honored in 2009 for her analysis of economic governance and how common resources can be successfully managed by the people who use them. Her work bucked the conventional wisdom that common property is best regulated by government or privatized. Looking at the interaction of people and ecosystems, Ostrom conducted numerous field studies of how people in small communities managed shared natural resources like fish stocks, pastures, forests and groundwater basins. She found that local, collective management often yielded better results than outside intervention. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that her work "advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention."
Ostrom commented on her win in an interview with the academy: "Having lived through an era where I was thinking of going to graduate school and was strongly discouraged because I would never be able to do anything but teach in a city college … [laughs] Life has changed!" She received her bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from UCLA. A faculty member at University of Indiana Bloomington for 47 years, Ostrom died of pancreatic cancer in 2012, continuing her work until her last day.
Elizabeth Blackburn, UC San Francisco, and Carol W. Greider, UC Santa Cruz, Physiology or Medicine, 2009
Left: Carol Greider. Right: Elizabeth Blackburn. Photos: Christopher P. Michel
Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for Blackburn's discovery of the molecular nature of telomeres and their joint discovery of telomerase. Blackburn and Greider wanted to find out how chromosomes, the strands of DNA that contain our genes, maintain and repair themselves. Telomeres play an essential role by protecting the ends of chromosomes as cells divide (Blackburn has likened them to shoelace caps). The enzyme telomerase, meanwhile, restores telomeres and protects them from damage, helping maintain genome stability and protecting against cancer, degeneration and age-related diseases. The discoveries gave rise to a wave of scientific advancement that continues to this day.
At the time of their discovery in 1984, Greider was a graduate student in Blackburn's lab in the Department of Molecular Biology at UC Berkeley. Blackburn subsequently moved to UC San Francisco, where she has been a faculty member since 1990. Greider, who received her B.S. from UC Santa Barbara, worked for many years at Johns Hopkins University but returned to California in 2020 to join UC Santa Cruz as a distinguished professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology.
Andrea Ghez, UCLA, Physics, 2020
Andrea Ghez receiving her Nobel Prize citation. Image: Annette Buhl/UCLAFor decades, the question of what lies at the center of our galaxy was the subject of fervent scientific debate. Andrea Ghez, a UCLA professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics, and Reinhard Genzel, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of physics and astronomy, shared a 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for providing a provocative answer: a supermassive black hole that is four million times the mass of our sun. Ghez's work has opened a new approach to studying black holes, one that she is using to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies. "Her group's discoveries are a continuing sequence of stepping stones that go further and deeper into new science," says fellow UCLA professor Mark Morris.
One of the world's leading experts in observational astrophysics, Ghez created and heads UCLA's Galactic Center Group. "There were times when people didn't believe our approaches would work," reflects Ghez. "I was pretty well trained by then to believe in myself." She is the fourth woman ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
Jennifer Doudna, UC Berkeley, Chemistry, 2020
Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Institute. Photo: Christopher Michel
Biochemist Jennifer Doudna co-developed CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing breakthrough that has been called the discovery of the century for its powerful implications. CRISPR-Cas9 has allowed scientists to make targeted changes to DNA - the code of life - in any organism, including human cells, with unprecedented efficiency and precision. In the years since Doudna and co-prizewinner Emmanuelle Charpentier published their landmark 2012 paper, CRISPR-Cas9 technology has become widely used on a global scale, offering new ways to treat and cure disease, develop new crops and more.
Doudna recalls a formative moment in high school when she saw a female scientist give a lecture on how cells turn cancerous. She was captivated by the topic, but even more so by the idea that women could be scientists. Talking about the importance of role models for girls in STEM, Doudna told the Huffington Post, "I think that for a lot of women, there's a subtle but unfortunately effective discouragement of women pursuing the STEM fields. Women have natural curiosities, as do men," she added. "And we just want to show women they can pursue these fields and they can be feminine, they can be mothers, they can be wives - they really can do all those things and do it on their own terms."
Carolyn Bertozzi, UC Berkeley, Chemistry, 2022
Carolyn Bertozzi as a young professor at UC Berkeley. Image: College of Chemistry/UC BerkeleyUC Berkeley alumna Carolyn Bertozzi was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing bioorthogonal chemistry, in which chemical reactions can be performed inside living organisms (including humans) without disrupting normal cell chemistry. Bertozzi's work built on the "click chemistry" developed by her Nobel Prize co-winners K. Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal. Among many other applications, bioorthogonal reactions can be used in cancer diagnosis and the targeted delivery of cancer drugs.
Bertozzi worked at UC Berkeley for 19 years, developing the chemical biology techniques for which she received the Nobel Prize. She earned her Ph.D. from Cal in 1993, returned in 1996 as a chemistry faculty and Berkeley Lab member, and became the first director of the Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a cutting-edge nanoscience research facility. She left in 2015 for Stanford's Safran ChEM-H Institute, which she still leads today. "Carolyn Bertozzi is a true trailblazer in chemical biology," said Doug Clark, dean of the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry. "Her lab is among the most prolific in the field, consistently producing innovative and enabling chemical approaches, inspired by organic synthesis, for the study of complex biomolecules in living cells. Carolyn's work and spirit embody what is best about the scientific tradition and history of the College of Chemistry and of UC Berkeley."