Nobel Laureate Donna Strickland Judged Not Famous Enough for Wikipedia Page Before Win: Report

Before Tuesday morning, the first female physics Nobel Prize winner in 55 years did not have a Wikipedia page about her because a Wikipedia editor deemed her not famous enough for her own page, Quartz reports. Optical physicist Donna Strickland was one of three scientists awarded for breakthroughs in laser technology on Tuesday. Strickland shared her prize with her colleague Gérard Mourou, and while Mourou already had a Wikipedia page of his own with Strickland mentioned in it, a Wikipedia editor declared in May that Strickland did not merit one because she did not have any “significant coverage (not just passing mentions)... in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject.” The rejected draft reportedly mentioned that she was the “associate chair of the physics department at Waterloo, and a past president of the Optical Society.” Quartz reports that 90 minutes after the prize was announced, her page went up, including a mention of her Nobel win. Strickland is now the only living female Nobel laureate in physics; previous awardees include Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.