Northwestern University has announced the winners of the 2026 Nemmers Prizes in medical science, music composition, Earth sciences, economics and mathematics, which include two Columbia faculty. The award recognizes leaders from outside Northwestern for outstanding contributions to new knowledge
The biennial prizes recognize top scholars for their lasting contributions to new knowledge, outstanding achievements and the development of significant new modes of analysis. Each award comes with a cash prize, and the recipients will interact with Northwestern faculty and students through lectures, conferences or seminars.
Maureen Raymo was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Earth Sciences, a prize of $300,000, in recognition of her pioneering development of hypotheses that explain climate change across Earth’s history and her educational leadership in the Earth system sciences. Raymo is G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Science in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, former director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-founding dean emerita of the Columbia Climate School. “It’s really incredible to have my work acknowledged in this way,” Raymo said of the award. “I’ve been reflecting on the many special collaborators and experiences I’ve had over my career, including a talented cohort of post-docs who’ve gone on to build successful careers of their own.”
A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Raymo has leveraged knowledge of the inner workings of Earth’s solid, liquid and gaseous spheres to advance our understanding of how Earth’s systems interact, change and ultimately drive climatic change on geologic time scales. She is best known for developing the Uplift Weathering Hypothesis, which borrows from and links various Earth system science sub-disciplines, including science that underpins our understanding of plate tectonics, mountain building, atmospheric science, ocean biogeochemistry, chemical weathering, the carbon cycle and climate change.
Raymo will visit Northwestern during the 2026-27 academic year to engage in programming with faculty and students in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.
Andrei Okounkov, a professor of mathematics at Columbia University, also received a Nemmers award. Okounkov’s work uncovers surprising connections between chance, shape and geometry, changing how mathematicians think about patterns that emerge at large scales.
The Nemmers Prizes are named for the family of Erwin Nemmers, a former faculty member at the Kellogg School of Management from 1957 to 1986. Erwin Nemmers joined forces with his brother, Frederic Nemmers, to make a significant contribution to Northwestern. Their gifts, totaling $14 million, were designated to establish four endowed professorships at Kellogg and the Nemmers Prizes, which carry some of the largest monetary stipends in each field.
The full list of Nemmers winners can be found here.
