UD faculty experts discuss this year's award-winning work in videos

3:22 p.m., Dec. 11, 2014--The 2014 Nobel laureates are receiving their prizes at formal events this week in Stockholm and Oslo, where media coverage has often focused more on the elaborate ceremonies and royal guests than on the award-winning work itself. 

Now, videos are available in which University of Delaware faculty experts discuss this year’s six prizewinners and the research, scholarship and public service that earned them the awards.

Campus Stories

From graduates, faculty

As it neared time for the processional to open the University of Delaware Commencement ceremonies, graduating students and faculty members shared their feelings about what the event means to them.

Doctoral hooding

It was a day of triumph, cheers and collective relief as more than 160 students from 21 nations participated in the University of Delaware's Doctoral Hooding Convocation held Friday morning on The Green.

• Doctoral hooding
• Old Swedes
• Summer SAT, ACT prep
• 'Opus 13' pre-sale

The videotaped lectures made up UD’s Nobel Symposium, held this year on Oct. 30. The annual event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences as a way to provide a more in-depth look at the laureates’ work than is generally covered in the media.

Each of the videos can be viewed individually and includes a short lecture followed by a question-and-answer session. They are:

Bruno Thibault, professor of French, and Deborah Steinberger, associate professor of French, discussed the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded this year to the French author Patrick Modiano “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.” View the video.

Amy Griffin, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, spoke about the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, given to John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.” View the video.

Michael Arnold, associate professor of economics and director of the UD Honors Program, described the work done by Jean Tirole, awarded this year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel “for his analysis of market power and regulation.” View the video.

Josh Zide, associate professor of materials science and engineering, spoke about the Nobel Prize in Physics, given to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.” View the video.

Ismat Shah, professor of materials science and engineering and of physics and astronomy, discussed the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded jointly this year to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” View the video.

Jeffrey Caplan, director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute’s Bioimaging Center with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences, spoke about the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, given to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.” View the video.

The Nobel prizes have been presented annually since 1901, with the announcement made in October. The awards ceremony occurs in December as the culmination of Nobel Week, when laureates participate in a series of seminars and events in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded separately in Oslo.

Photo by Duane Perry