Four female Nobel Prize winners have been appointed as foreign members of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) following a board meeting on 19 May 2026.
The national science institution confirmed the appointments during its second extraordinary board meeting of the year. The decision forms part of a wider international member system designed to connect South Korea with researchers of global renown. Under current guidelines, the institution can appoint prominent overseas experts to fill up to 20 per cent of its regular membership capacity, which equates to a limit of 100 individuals.
The newly selected group includes Professor Anne L’Huillier from Lund University in Sweden, who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing experimental methods that generate attosecond light pulses to observe electron dynamics. Professor Donna Strickland from the University of Waterloo in Canada, co-developer of the Chirped Pulse Amplification technology used to create high-power laser pulses, also joins the academy after winning the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Medical science is represented by neuroscientist Professor May-Britt Moser from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who secured the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering grid cells within the spatial positioning system of the brain. The final appointee is Dr Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from the Pasteur Institute in France, a virologist who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her role in discovering the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.
These four appointments bring the total number of international scholars at KAST to 59, a group that includes 34 Nobel laureates.
Academy officials plan to use the expanded network to enhance global academic exchanges and create fresh training initiatives for early-career scientists. The network will also serve as a foundational mentoring structure for female researchers, providing visible role models during a period of national population decline.
President Jeong Jin-ho highlighted the strategic importance of the appointments for the balance of the institution.
“The addition of female scholars from various countries, including Sweden, Norway, and France, to the Academy’s network of foreign members and Nobel laureates—which had been somewhat biased toward the United States and men—is significant in that it expands the scope of global academic exchange and ensures diversity,” President Jeong said.
“The Academy plans to promote practical exchange and participation programs to ensure that the selection of foreign members does not remain merely an honorary appointment.”
