That’s a million-dollar question. Or, more precisely, an 11-million-Swedish-kroner one. The Nobel Prize honors contributions “for the greatest benefit to humankind,” so it’s no surprise Badgers have earned a few. UW–Madison boasts 19 Nobel laureates among its alumni and faculty, and on their first try they didn’t get just get one — they got two. In 1944, Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser ’1910 shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by striking a nerve, literally. Their research revealed that individual nerve fibers each have their own specialized functions, laying the foundation for modern neurophysiology and explaining how the body’s electrical wiring works. Since then, UW–Madison affiliates have been awarded Nobel Prizes in five of the six categories (literature, physics, physiology or medicine, chemistry, and economic sciences). We don’t yet have a Badger with a Nobel Peace Prize, but to start, we’d nominate Cameron Wicks PhD’24.

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