The Hebrew University and Nobel prizes

As is the case in recent years, the Nobel prize announcements last week made me proud of my home university yet again. This year, chemistry prize recipient is Prof. Roger Kornberg from Stanford University. No, he is not a full member of the Hebrew University nor an alumnus, but he is a very regular visiting fellow. He has been visiting the Hebrew University every summer for already 20 years now.

For posterity, here are the historic Nobel laureates who had something to do with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

• Albert Einstein - Physics 2001 - One of the founder's of the Hebrew University and a member of its board of governors. He appreciated the university enough to bequeath his intellectual property to the University. In fact, he is ranked as the third highest earning dead person(!) and thus a source of nongegligible revenue for the university, to this day.
• Daniel Kahneman - Economics 2002 - Former faculty (and still a fellow) of the Hebrew University (currently at Princeton). Received his prize for his development of the prospect theory, which he did while he was faculty member at the university.
• David Gross - Physics 2004 - He is a Hebrew University alumnus (bachelor's and master's degrees), and frequent visitor (directs the well known Jerusalem Winter schools in Theoretical physics.
• Avram Hershko - Chemistry 2004 - Graduated (Ph.D.) from the Hebrew University medical school. Faculty member at the Technion. (My Alma mater ;-) )
• Aaron Ciechanover - Chemistry 2004 - Graduated (Ph.D.) from the Hebrew University. Faculty member at the Technion.
• Robert Aumann - Economics 2005 - Member of the department of Mathematics and the center of rationality of the Hebrew University.
• Roger Kornberg - Chemistry 2004 - Faculty member of Stanford university, but has been a very regular visiting fellow at Hebrew University, for the past 20 years.

I sure hope this winning streak will continue!