What do you know about the Nobels? 

Since 1901, committees in Sweden and Norway have awarded Nobel Prizes annually to recognize achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and (from 1969) economics. Through the years, dozens of Harvard scholars and researchers have earned the title of Nobel laureate across all categories. Test your knowledge of Harvard’s connections with the prestigious prize in the following quiz.

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1. Which Nobel laureate wrote, “I rhyme / to see myself, to set the darkness echoing”?

Annie Ernaux

Orhan Pamuk

José Saramago

Seamus Heaney

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2. Whose groundbreaking work on women’s labor participation earned her the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the third awarded to a woman?

Carmen M. Reinhart

Gita Gopinath

Claudia Goldin

Iris Bohnet

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3. T.W. Richards won the 1914 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for:

Accurately determining the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements

Demonstrating for the first time that an element could have different atomic weights

Developing the nephelometer, an instrument that measures the concentration of particulates in a liquid or gas colloid

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4. Which of the following Nobel Peace Prize-winning groups grew from the scholarship and organizing of Harvard-affiliated physicians?

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

International Committee of the Red Cross

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

Doctors Without Borders

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5. Harvard Medical School Professor Joseph Murray earned the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for performing the first successful whole organ transplant on a human. In what year did he perform the surgery?

1954

1961

1972

1978

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6. What did 1964 laureate Konrad Bloch contribute to the understanding of cholesterol?

The chemical structure of cholesterol

How cholesterol is synthesized in the body

How cholesterol forms plaques inside blood vessels

How the body clears cholesterol

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7. Investigative journalist and 2021 Harvard Kennedy School fellow Maria Ressa earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her work documenting terrorism and authoritarianism in which country?

Venezuela

Somalia

The Philippines

Hungary

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8. Nobel laureate Michael Kremer’s work led to the approval of pneumococcal vaccines that have saved an estimated 700,000 lives. In what discipline was his prize?

Physiology or medicine

Peace

Chemistry

Economic Sciences

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9. Quantum computing and quantum cryptography grew out of the theories of which Nobel laureate in physics?

Roy Glauber

Riccardo Giaconi

Anne L’Huillier

Donna Strickland

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10. Which Harvard professor or researcher won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his or her role in the discovery of microRNA?

Jack Szostak

William Kaelin

Gary Ruvkun

Linda Buck

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