Winners of Most Number of Nobel Prizes

As if winning one Nobel Prize wasn’t hard enough, there indeed are people who have won it multiple times! It is only an acknowledgement of the stature of Nobel Prize that people wonder about winner of the most number of Nobel Prizes. The most common answer to this question is Marie Curie — but there are other people as well who won the Nobel Prize multiple times. Today, lets take a look at the list of these mega accomplishments!

List of Multiple Nobel Prize Winning Persons

1. Marie Curie

Marie Curie was the first person to win a second Nobel Prize. First she shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 with Henri Becquerel. Then in 1911 Madam Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry all by herself. In 1911, she was awarded in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by 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.

2. John Bardeen

John Bardeen is the one of the only three persons to have won the Nobel Prize twice in the same field. Prof. Bardeen was first awarded Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 along with William Bradford Shockley and Walter Houser Brattain. These scientists were collectively awarded for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect.

John Bardeen went to repeat the feat in 1972 when he again won the Nobel Prize in Physics. This time he shared the award with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer. This group of physicists was awarded for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory.

3. Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes. For his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances, Linus Pauling won his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. Then in 1962, Pauling won the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning ceaselessly, not only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts.

4. Frederick Sanger

Frederick Sanger won his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958. This award was given to him for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin. Then in 1980, Sanger again won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This time around Sanger shared the award with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert. These fine chemists won the award for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids.

5. Karl Barry Sharpless

Karl Berry Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions”, and one third of the 2022 prize, jointly with Carolyn R. Bertozzi and Morten P. Meldal, “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”.

List of Multiple Nobel Prize Winning Organizations

1. Comité international de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross)

The ICRC won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, 1944 and 1963.

2. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

The UNHCR won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981.