Browse the index
Filter by category and discipline, then by continent, country and century of birth. Countries not yet represented can be drafted at the research desk.
Category
Era
8 figures
Patrick White
1912 – 1990Voss and the interior epic of the Australian continent.
Australia·LiteratureNobel
Maurice Wilkins
1916 – 2004Shared the DNA structure Nobel.
New Zealand·Biology · PhysicsNobel
Alan MacDiarmid
1927 – 2007Conductive polymers — flexible screens and printed electronics.
New Zealand·ChemistryNobel
Albert Wendt
b. 1939Founded modern Pacific Island literature in English.
Samoa·Literature
Epeli Hau'ofa
1939 – 2009'Our Sea of Islands' reframed the Pacific as vast, not small.
Fiji·Literature · Philosophy
Witi Ihimaera
b. 1944First published Māori novelist; The Whale Rider.
New Zealand·Literature
Elizabeth Blackburn
b. 1948Discovered telomerase, central to ageing and cancer research.
Australia·Medicine · BiologyNobel
Barry Marshall
b. 1951Drank the bacterium to prove ulcers are infectious, not stress.
Australia·MedicineNobel