Category: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate / page 2

Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal


Alva Myrdal was a Swedish politician, diplomat and social reformer, and the 1982 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Myrdal was born on January 31, 1902, in Uppsala, Sweden. She earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Stockholm in 1924 and a Master of Arts from the University of Uppsala in 1934. Myrdal and her husband were leading advocates for social welfare reform and women's rights in the 1930s. She was also a prominent member of the Social Democrat Party in Sweden. In 1943, she was appointed to […]
Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa


Maria Ressa is a Filipino and American journalist and a co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Ressa was born on Oct. 2, 1963, in Manila, Philippines, and moved with her family to New Jersey when she was 10 years old. She graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in English and certificates in theater and dance. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study political theater at the University […]
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf


Ellen Johnson Sirleaf served as the president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018, the first elected female head of state in Africa. Sirleaf was a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakel Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." Sirleaf was born in Monrovia on October 29, 1938. She grew up in Liberia and attended high school at the College of West Africa in Monrovia. She studied at Madison Business College, the […]
Bertha von Suttner
Bertha von Suttner


Bertha von Suttner, writer and peace activist, was the sixth person and the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1905. Suttner was born June 9, 1843, in Prague, Austria, to a noble family. Her father died before her birth, and she was raised by her mother, whose financial mismanagement necessitated that Suttner, at age 30, take a position as teacher-companion to the Suttner daughters. There, she fell in love with her charges' brother, Arthur, who was seven years her junior. She left employment with the family and […]
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi


Aung San Suu Kyi served as the first state counsellor of Myanmar from 2016-2021. On Feb. 1, 2021, she was arrested by the Myanmar military after they declared the November 2020 general election results fraudulent and imposed a one-year state of emergency. Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, Burma – now Yangon, Myanmar – on June 19, 1945. Her father is known as the founder of independent Burma (1948) and is beloved in that country. Her mother had been active in women's political groups before marrying Aung San, and the […]
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa


Mother Teresa was one of the great servants of humanity. She was an Albanian Catholic nun who came to India, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, and attained Indian citizenship. Her selfless work among the poverty-stricken people of Kolkata (Calcutta) is an inspiration for people all over the world and she was honored with Nobel Prize for her work. Mother Teresa's original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was born on August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. Her father was a successful merchant and she was youngest of the […]
Betty Williams
Betty Williams


Betty Williams is a peace activist from Northern Ireland and a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with Mairead Maguire in 1976 for their work as co-founders of the Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organization dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution to violence in Northern Ireland. Williams was born on May 22, 1943, in Belfast, Northern Ireland as Elizabeth Williams. Unusual for the time, her father was Protestant and her mother was Catholic, to which Williams attributes her religious tolerance and desire for […]
Jody Williams
Jody Williams


Jody Williams is an American political activist and a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) for "their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines." Williams was born on October 9, 1950, in Rutland, Vermont. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont (1972), a master’s degree in teaching Spanish and ESL from the School for International Training (1976), and a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1984). Williams is […]
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai


Malala Yousafzai is an advocate for women's education from Pakistan. In 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate at age 17 when she shared the Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi. Yousafzai was born in Mingora, Pakistan on July 12, 1997. In 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her school bus. She was targeted because of her previous activism for education, including her experience as a blogger for BBC on her experience living under the threat of the Taliban, which she initially did using […]