Harvard University Professor of Physics Roy J. Glauber at his home in Arlington, MA, speaks to reporters on the phone about winning the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence.

A Nobel Legacy

Forty-three current and former Harvard faculty members have been awarded Nobel Prizes. Their stories – their struggles and triumphs – are chronicled in this section.

Besides those laureates on the faculty, Prize winners also frequently come to Harvard to serve as visiting faculty or visiting fellows. Many Harvard graduates have also won Nobel Prizes, including such notables as Theodore Roosevelt (Peace, 1906), T.S. Eliot (Literature, 1948), and Henry Kissinger (Peace, 1973).

Established by the will of the Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1901 for outstanding achievements in physics, medicine or physiology, chemistry, literature, and peace (the prize for economics was established in 1968 by the Swedish national bank, Sveriges Riksbank, and first awarded in 1969). The awards are bestowed upon those who, in Nobel's words, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

For more information about the Nobel Prizes, see the Nobel Prize Web site at http://nobelprize.org/.

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