The only woman to get the Nobel Prize in science this year, and all of the laureates for 2022 are Americans or Europeans, but a prize official claimed on October 10 that the distinguished prizes were growing more diverse. The Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and economics are given out by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, whose secretary general, Hans Ellegren, expressed his rather gladness about the development.
The only woman to win this year in a science discipline was Carolyn Bertozzi of the US, who shared the Chemistry Prize with two men, Barry Sharpless of the US and Morten Meldal of Denmark. According to Ellegren, the recipients of the Nobel prizes in science are frequently those whose research was done decades ago, when there were fewer women working in laboratories.
This year’s sole additional female laureate was French novelist Annie Ernaux, who took home the Literature Prize. 2009 set the record for the most women to win a Nobel Prize in a single year with five recipients. Four more women won in 2018 and 2020. 2017 was the most recent year without a single woman laureate, however, this was typical up until 2000.
There was little geographic diversity among the laureates in the 2022 season either. Six were from the US, while five were from the European Union (Austria, Denmark, two France, and Sweden).
Ales Bialiatski, a convicted dissident from Belarus who won the Nobel Peace Prize, was the sole laureate from a developing nation. In the coming years, increased geographic diversity, according to Ellegren, could be expected.
News Mania Desk
