Nobel Laureates

ANU is privileged to have hosted a number of Nobel Laureates whose ground-breaking research has increased our understanding of our world, and improved it for the better. Learn more about those people whose work continues to inspire us.

Picture of Professor Brian Schmidt

Professor Brian P. Schmidt AC FAA FRS

The Nobel Prize in Physics Brian Schmidt shares the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae. Whilst studying supernovae, their research determined how supernovae moved, leading to the discovery that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.…

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Professor Rolf Zinkernagel

Professor Rolf Martin Zinkernagel AC HonDSc FAAS

The Nobel Prize for Medicine of PhysiologyRolf Zinkernagel shares the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine with his ANU colleague Peter Doherty for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence.They carried out revolutionary work in immunology together at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.Whilst studying the response of mice to viruses, they found that white…

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Professor Peter Doherty

Professor Peter Doherty AC FAAS

The Nobel Prize for MedicinePeter Doherty shares the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine with his ANU colleague Rolf Zinkernagel for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence.They carried out revolutionary work in immunology together at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.Whilst studying the response of mice to viruses, they found that white blood cells (…

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Professor John Harsanyi

Professor John Harsanyi

The Nobel Prize in Economic SciencesJohn Harsanyi shares the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with fellow game theorists John F. Nash Jr and Reinhard Selten, for pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games.This new field of research was applied to mathematical logic to strategic interactions where agents are unaware of each others objectives.

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Professor John Eccles

Sir John Eccles AC FRS FRACP FRSNZ FAAS

The Nobel Prize in MedicineSir John Eccles shares the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Alan L. Hodgkin and Andrew F. Huxley for discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane.Their research concerned the basic processes that cause electrical impulses, which control nerves and muscular movement.…

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Lord Howard Florey

Lord Howard Florey OM FRS FRCP

The Nobel Prize in MedicineSir Howard Florey shares the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine with colleague Ernst B. Chain and Alexander Fleming for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases.Florey began investigating the properties of naturally occurring substances with Ernst B. Chain, in 1938, before their interest turned to what are now known as antibiotics. In…

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Emeritus Professors

  • Oskar Hermann Khristian Spate ( - )
  • Frederick Colin Courtice ( - )
  • Lindsay Dixon Pryor ( - )
  • Wesley Milgate ( - )
  • John Andrew La Nauze ( - )
  • Leonard Broom ( - )
  • Charles Manning Hope Clark ( - )
  • Geoffrey Sawer ( - )
  • Percy Herbert Partridge ( - )
  • Arthur Neville Hambly ( - )
  • Bernhard Hermann Neumann ( - )
  • John Derrick Ovington ( - )
  • Douglas Henry Pike ( - )
  • Lindsay Michael Birt ( - )
  • Adrien Albert ( - )
  • John Conrad Jaeger ( - )
  • David Guthrie Catcheside ( - )
  • William Edward Hanley Stanner ( - )
  • Alexander George Ogston ( - )
  • Arthur Llewellyn Basham ( - )
  • Gordon Henry Newstead ( - )
  • Alban William Housego Phillips ( - )
  • Alec Derwent Hope ( - )
  • Kurt Mahler ( - )
  • Arnold Hughes Ennor ( - )
  • Charles Patrick Fitzgerald ( - )
  • John Grenfell Crawford ( - )
  • Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant ( - )
  • John Carew Eccles ( - )
  • Herbert Burton ( - )
  • William Keith Hancock ( - )