Stockholm, Oct 12 (DPA) The shared Nobel economics prize for Elinor Ostrom of the US Monday further underscored that 2009 was a record-year for women prize winners.
Ostrom, of Indiana University in Bloomington, became the first woman to win a Nobel prize for economics.
The economics prize – first awarded in 1969 – was not in the original will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, who endowed the awards.
Ostrom’s win meant that five women have this year been named winners of one of the coveted Nobel awards in the same year. This has not happened since 1901 when the first Nobel prizes were awarded.
Romanian-born Herta Mueller of Germany became the fourth woman winner Thursday when she was named literature laureate.
The Nobel week had opened with Elisabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, both of the US, named co-winners of the medicine prize.
Ada E. Yonath of Israel then shared the chemistry prize before Mueller was named Thursday.
In 2004, three women won Nobel prizes – Linda B. Buck of the US for medicine, Elfriede Jelinek of Austria for literature, and Wangari Maathai of Kenya for peace.
