MIT-affiliated winners of the 2024 Nobel Prizes were celebrated in Stockholm, Sweden, as part of Nobel Week, which culminated with a grand Nobel ceremony on December 10, 2024.
This year’s laureates with MIT ties include Daron Acemoglu, an Institute Professor, and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, who together shared the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, along with James Robinson of the University of Chicago, for their work on the relationship between economic growth and political institutions. MIT Department of Biology alumnus Victor Ambros ’75, PhD ’79 also shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Gary Ruvkun, who completed his postdoctoral research at the Institute alongside Ambros in the 1980s. The two were honored for their discovery of microRNA.
The honorees and their invited guests took part in a number of activities in Stockholm during this year’s Nobel Week, which began on December 5 with press conferences and a tour of special Nobel Week Lights around the city. Lectures, a visit to the Nobel Prize Museum, and a concert followed.
Per tradition, the winners received their medals from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. (Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize were honored on the same day in Oslo, Norway.)
At least 105 MIT affiliates, including faculty, staff, alumni, and others, have won Nobel Prizes, according to MIT Institutional Research. Photos from the festivities appear below.
This story was originally written by Maia Weinstock and published in MIT News on December 11, 2024. Photos courtesy of Nobel Prize Outreach.