To make a groundbreaking discovery and earn a Nobel Prize, one needs talent, persistence, a bit of luck, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. One also requires resources: laboratories, telescopes, specimens, and computers. But perhaps most essential is the freedom to explore.
The heroes of the exhibition, presented on the Art Wall at the Harvard Science Centre, are scientists from Ukraine, who had all the qualities needed for a Nobel Prize. While success is never guaranteed, they were talented, persistent, and brilliant. Yet, years of suppression — from Soviet-era repressions to Russia’s invasion of independent Ukraine — prevented them from realizing their full potential.

The exhibition shares the stories of 10 scientists whose work was abruptly cut short. Their portraits, created by Niklas Elmehed, the official artist of the Nobel Prize, could have been celebrated under different circumstances.

The exhibition will be open from February 10 to March 10 at the Harvard Science Center (1 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA) and displayed on the centre’s Art Wall.

Among the featured names:

– Hryhoriy Levytskyi, cytogeneticist and botanist

– Valentyna Radzymovska, biologist

– Volodymyr Pravdych-Neminskyi, neurophysiologist

– Mykhailo Kravchuk, mathematician, founder of the school of Ukrainian rocket and space technology designers

– Lev Shubnikov, low-temperature physicist

– Volodymyr Kolkunov, agronomist and plant breeder

– Hanna Zakrevska, geologist

– Bijan Sharopov, biologist, science popularizer

– Vasyl Kladko, physicist

– Lyudmyla Shevtsova, biologist...

Nature