The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems.” Haroche, of the Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, received support from NSF as a principal investigator (PI) and co-PI in the 1980s, when he was at Yale University. Wineland, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado Boulder, was selected for a Graduate Research Fellowship in 1965.
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors.” G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are nature's most versatile chemical sensors. There are over 800 GPCRs in the human genome and they respond to a broad spectrum of chemical entities. Kobilka, of the Stanford University School of Medicine, was selected for an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 1977 and, more recently, an International Collaboration in Chemistry award for research on the chemical basis for allosteric regulation of G-protein-coupled receptors.
Alvin E. Roth, a professor at Harvard University who recently accepted a new position at Stanford University, and Lloyd S. Shapley, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles, were jointly awarded the 2012 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The laureates were recognized “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design”. Shapley and his collaborators developed new algorithms in cooperative game theory to understand the properties of stable matching methods. Roth further developed the theory and tested it in laboratory experiments, and then used the results to develop new methods for allocation. Roth has received 16 awards from NSF since 1978. Shapley received multiple NSF awards between 1971 and 1983. To date, NSF has funded 47 researchers who earned Nobel Prizes in Economics.