The Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced the winners for the 2026 edition of the prestigious awards. The announcement of the winners of the prizes, spanning fields like literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine, started on the 5th of October and will end on the 12th. One highlight of Friday’s announcement was South African judge Navi Pillay’s win of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Pillay, born September 23, 1941, in Durban, South Africa, headed the Rwanda genocide tribunal and last year presided over a UN commission which accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Pillay, currently a judge on the International Court of Justice in a case where Myanmar also stands accused of genocide, has been “instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.
“In historic international court cases, she has shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence,” the committee said.
Pillay’s “independence, her expertise and steadfastness have made her one of the most respected international jurists of our time.”
Physiology or medicine
The 2026 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to American psychiatrist and bioengineer Karl Deisseroth, German biochemist and biophysicist Peter Hegemann, and German biophysicist Georg Nagel.
Karl Deisseroth
Birth date: November 18, 1971, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education: Bachelor’s in biochemical sciences from Harvard University; doctorate in neuroscience and MD from Stanford University
Affiliation: D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University; Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Peter Hegemann
Birth date: December 11, 1954, Münster, Germany
Education: Graduate in chemistry from Ludwig Maximilian University; doctorate from Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry
Affiliation: Hertie Senior Professor of Neuroscience at Humboldt University of Berlin
Georg Nagel
Birth date: August 24, 1953, Weingarten, Germany.
Education: Studied biology and biophysics at the University of Konstanz; doctorate from the University of Frankfurt
Affiliation: Professor of molecular plant physiology at the University of Würzburg
Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics went to American physicist Francis Halzen. He won “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”
Francis Halzen
Birth date: March 23, 1944, Tienen, Belgium
Education: Master’s and doctorate degrees from KU Leuven
Affiliation: Vilas Research Professor and Gregory Breit Professor at the University of Wisconsin- Madison
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to French chemist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai. They received the prize “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”
Henri B. Kagan
Birth date: December 15, 1930, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Education: Degree in chemical engineering from École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris (now Chimie ParisTech – PSL) and doctorate from Collège de France
Affiliation: Professor Emeritus at the Université Paris-Sud
Kenso Soai
Birth: 1950, Hiroshima, Japan
Education: Graduate and doctorate from the University of Tokyo
Affiliation: Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo
Nobel Prize in Literature
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Canadian poet, classicist, essayist, and translator Anne Carson. She won “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”
Birth date: June 21, 1950, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Notable books: Eros the Bittersweet (1986), Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998), Men in the Off Hours (2000), The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001), Nox (2010; “Night”), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (2002), Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (2019), and Wrong Norma (2024).
Economics
The 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on October 12, 2026
