Help Us Find Out a Nobel Answer

As many of you have probably heard, last week President Obama announced the nomination of Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman to head up OSTP’s Science Division.

So this got us thinking; has there ever been a sitting Nobel Prize winner in the sciences (that is, chemistry, physics, or medicine) named to a position in the White House? As stated in the White House release, Dr. Wieman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for the creation of a new form of matter known as a “Bose-Einstein condensate.” We’ve looked through all of our archives and have been unable to find another OSTP staffer or other government employee in the Executive Office of the President who came to the job with a science Nobel in hand.

Then it occurred to us: What a great opportunity to do some crowdsourcing! If you know of a previous employee in the White House complex who had earned a Nobel Prize in one of the sciences before joining the staff here, please let us know via Twitter @whitehouseostp using #WHNOBEL.

Thanks, and we look forward to your suggestions!