Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Linus Carl Pauling ( PAW-ling; February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger, and Karl Barry Sharpless). Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. His contributions to the theory of the chemical bond include the concept of orbital hybridisation and the first accurate scale of electronegativities of the elements. Pauling also worked on the structures of biological molecules, and showed the importance of the alpha helix and beta sheet in protein secondary structure. Pauling's approach combined methods and results from X-ray crystallography, molecular model building, and quantum chemistry. His discoveries inspired the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins on the structure of DNA, which in turn made it possible for geneticists to crack the DNA code of all organisms.In his later years, he promoted nuclear disarmament, as well as orthomolecular medicine, megavitamin therapy, and dietary supplements, especially ascorbic acid (commonly known as Vitamin C). None of his ideas concerning the medical usefulness of large doses of vitamins have gained much acceptance in the mainstream scientific community. He was married to the American human rights activist Ava Helen Pauling.

Thomas Ebbesen (born 30 January 1954) is a Franco-Norwegian physical chemist and professor at the University of Strasbourg in France, known for his pioneering work in nanoscience. He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging”, together with Stefan Hell, and Sir John Pendry in 2014.

Per Thomas Andersen (8 February 1954 - 13 December 2023) was a Norwegian literary historian and novelist.
He was appointed professor at the University of Tromsø from 1992, and at the University of Oslo from 1993. His thesis from 1992 treated the decadence of Scandinavian literature of the period from 1880 to 1900. Among his other scientific works are Stein Mehren – en logosdikter from 1982, Norsk litteraturhistorie from 2001, and Tankevaser from 2003. He published the novels Hold in 1985 and Arr in 1992. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2023 he received the King's Medal of Merit.

Helge Holden (born 28 September 1956) is a Norwegian mathematician working in the field of differential equations and mathematical physics. He was Praeses of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 2014 to 2016.
He earned the dr.philos. degree at the University of Oslo in 1985. The title of his dissertation with Raphael Høegh-Krohn was Point Interactions and the Short-Range Expansion. A Solvable Model in Quantum Mechanics and Its Approximation. He was appointed professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (now: the Norwegian University of Science and Technology ) in 1991. His research interests are Differential equations, mathematical physics (in particular hyperbolic conservation laws and completely integrable systems), Stochastic analysis, and flow in porous media.
In 2014 he became Chairman of the board of the Abel Prize fund.He was elected Secretary General of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) for the period 2019–2022.

Dan Laksov (10 July 1940 – 25 October 2013) was a Norwegian-Swedish mathematician and human rights activist. He was primarily active within the field of algebraic geometry.

Arne Johan Vetlesen (born 10 September 1960) is a Norwegian professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, who concentrates on the topic of ethics, environmental philosophy and social philosophy.
He took the cand.mag. (similar to BA) degree in sociology and anthropology, before studying at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main from 1985 to 1990 under the guidance of Jürgen Habermas. He took the dr.philos. degree at the University of Oslo in 1993. Before becoming a full professor at the University of Oslo in 1998, Vetlesen worked as a research fellow and associate professor. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.Vetlesen works interdisciplinary, often combining his philosophical theses with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. He is the author of more than twenty books on diverse topics such as environmental philosophy, moral philosophy, hermeneutics and psychoanalysis, social philosophy, consumerism and capitalism. His books in English include Cosmologies of the Anthropocene (2019), The Denial of Nature (2015), A Philosophy of Pain (2009), Evil and Human Agency (2005), Perception, Empathy, and Judgment (1994), and Closeness (1997).

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (born February 6, 1962) is a Norwegian anthropologist. He is currently a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, as well as the 2015–2016 president of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Viggo Hagstrøm (16 February 1954, Oslo – 19 January 2013) was a Norwegian legal scholar, and professor of law at the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law.He obtained the cand.jur. degree in 1979, and was appointed lecturer in law at the University of Oslo in 1980. In 1985, he obtained the dr.juris degree and was appointed as associate professor. He became professor of law, particularly property law, in 1988. He was head of department for the Department of Private Law 1992–2000. He was a member of the Study Group on a European Civil Code. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and held an honorary doctorate at the University of Copenhagen. He was editor-in-chief of Tidsskrift for Rettsvitenskap (from 1999).Hagstrøm died on 19 January 2013, after having been in a coma since November the previous year because of choking on an item of food served during a publisher's dinner.

Peter Lødrup (29 August 1932 – 16 June 2010) was a Norwegian legal scholar and judge.
He was born in Bærum and grew up in Oslo as a son of district stipendiary magistrate Mentz Darre Lødrup (1901–1968) and writer Evi Bøgenæs Lødrup (1906–1985). He finished his secondary education at Frogner School in 1951 and graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1957. He was hired as a research assistant at the University of Oslo in the same year. In March 1958 he married Grethe Faye.He took the dr.juris degree in 1966 with the thesis Luftrett og ansvar, was a deputy judge from 1966 to 1967 and a docent at the University of Oslo from 1966 to 1967. From 1970 to his retirement in 2002 he was a professor, and he also served as dean from 1980 to 1985 and member of the Academic Collegium (the university board). His special fields were tort, family law, inheritance and aerial law, and he is notable for his textbooks. Notable books include Luftrett (1962 and a second volume in 1975), Barn og foreldre (7th edition 2006), Lærebok i erstatningsrett (6th edition 2009), Arverett (5th edition 2008) and Familieretten (6th edition 2009). He also edited Norsk lovkommentar with Knut Kaasen and Steinar Tjomsland.He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1974 and also of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, was secretary-general and president of the International Society of Family Law from 1975 to 1991. He held an honorary degree at Lund University since 1993.He was a judge in the probate court in Oslo, and an acting Supreme Court Justice on five occasions between 1991 and 1998. He chaired Unifor, an administrative foundation for funds and endowments concerning the University of Oslo. He was decorated as a Knight, First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, and died in June 2010.

Terkel Nissen Rosenqvist (2 October 1921 – 1 April 2011) was a Norwegian chemist and metallurgist.