Nobel Prizes still elusive for Duke

The Nobel Prize winners of 2000 have been announced, and the white-tie banquets and night-long dancing will begin Dec. 10. When the week of celebration is over, the revelers will disperse to labs and lecture halls across the world, with fond, indelible memories of their time in Sweden.

"It's the world's best party," said Robert Richardson, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 for his discovery of superfluid helium-3, joining the ranks of Albert Einstein and William Faulkner.

Nobel Prizes are awarded every year in each of six categories: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics.

Richardson, who received his Ph.D. in physics from Duke in 1966 and went on to teach at Cornell University, is one of two Duke graduates to win the prestigious award. He currently serves on Duke's Board of Trustees.

The other Duke-affiliated recipient was Charles Townes, who received his masters degree in physics from the University in 1936 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964.

Not one of the University's full faculty members, past or present, have been awarded the prize. "We would love to have at least one Nobel Prize winner on the faculty," said William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. "However [the award] is not the sole barometer of the quality of a university."

Indeed, U.S. News and World Report's recent ranking of the nation's universities made little mention of the number of Nobel Prize winners each had produced- perhaps because determining that number yields an approximation at best.

The University of Chicago, for instance, claims 72 Nobel laureates as its own-counting all those who were students, faculty, or researchers at the university at any point during their careers.

"We're a relatively young, modern research university," King said. "It takes time to really develop expertise in the fields [the judges are] looking for."

Provost Peter Lange agreed. "Outside of a few science fields on the campus and on the medicine side, we've not had departments of such standing that they would be likely to have produced Nobel Prize winners," he said.

That is not to say, however, that worthy researchers have not been passed over, said Chancellor for Health Affairs Ralph Snyderman.

"There are at least two outstanding candidates for the Nobel Prize," he said. "[James B. Duke Professor of Cardiology] Robert Lefkowitz should have won years ago, in my opinion."

Although Snyderman and other administrators agree that the lack of Nobel Prize winners is not detrimental to the University's reputation, they acknowledge that having a faculty member win the award sometime in the near future would be a welcome turn of events.

"Obviously the winning of a Nobel Prize is a sign of distinction," said Lange. "Having people of great distinction in a department often can be a factor in recruiting people, but it depends on how well [the laureate] interacts with the department, with their colleagues, and what they contribute to the University."

The University does not necessarily hire professors with the thought of a Nobel Prize in mind, Lange said.

"The Nobel Prize is so much a matter of unpredictable factors that what we're really trying to do is hire people of the greatest quality," he said.

And that practice will, with time, inevitably pay off, said Richardson: "One day, Duke will have at least one Nobel Prize winner," he said.