This is a list of Nobel laureates who are Poles (ethnic) or Polish (citizenship). The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed on "those who conferred the greatest benefit on humankind", first instituted in 1901. Since 1903, there have been nineteen Poles who were awarded twenty Nobel Prizes. Poles have been the recipients of all Nobel prize categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics.
Laureates Year Winner Field Contribution 1903 Maria Skłodowska Curie Physics "for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel" 1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz Literature "because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer" 1907 Albert A. Michelson Physics "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid" 1911 Maria Skłodowska Curie (2nd time) Chemistry "for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element" 1924 Władysław Reymont Literature "for his great national epic, The Peasants" 1944 Isidor Isaac Rabi Physics "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei" 1950 Tadeusz Reichstein Medicine "for their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects" 1977 Andrzej Schally Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain"1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer Literature "for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life" Menachem Begin Peace "for jointly having negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978" 1980 Czesław Miłosz Literature "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts" 1981 Roald Hoffmann Chemistry "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions" 1983 Lech Wałęsa Peace "founder of Solidarność; campaigner for human rights" 1992 Jerzy Charpak Physics "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber" 1994 Shimon Peres Peace "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" 1995 Józef Rotblat Peace "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms" 1996 Wisława Szymborska Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality" 2007 Leonid Hurwicz Economics “for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory” 2018 Olga Tokarczuk Literature “for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life” 2024 Victor Ambros (obtained Polish citizenship in 2026) Physiology or Medicine "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation"
Nobel laureates of Polish ancestry
Irène Joliot-Curie (Physics, 1935) Julian Schwinger (Physics, 1965) Pyotr Kapitsa (Physics, 1978)Tadeusz Gajl (2007). Polish Armorial Middle Ages to 20th Century. — Gdańsk: L&L Frank Wilczek (Physics, 2004) Michael Kremer (Economics, 2009) Jack Szostak (Physiology or Medicine, 2009)I want to get to know first steps of evolution - Interview with Jack Szostak (in Polish) "Moi pradziadowie wyemigrowali z Polski do USA. Ja urodziłem się w Londynie, a potem mieszkałem w Kanadzie. Niestety, nie mówię po polsku, ale chętnie przyznaje się do swoich polskich korzeni"( English translation: "My grandparents emigrated from Poland to the U.S.A. i was born in London, and then lived in Canada. Unfortunately, I do not speak Polish, but I eagerly confess to my Polish roots") Robert Lefkowitz (Chemistry, 2012) Victor Ambros (Physiology or Medicine, 2024, obtained Polish citizenship in 2026) John Hopfield (Physics, 2024)
See also List of Nobel laureates List of Nobel laureates by country List of female Nobel laureates
References