Ruth Mitchell, BA’01, BSc’01 Earns Australia’s First Nobel Peace Prize

In December 2017, Ruth Mitchell ’01 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work as part of to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), in part thanks to an unexpected email she received early on as part of her medical training.

Mitchell’s journey to this point has been filled with more unexpected turns, but at the core she credits her parent’s global mindsets, as well as her Bachelor of Science in Zoology and her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Calgary as preparatory building blocks for the experiences that have shaped the last two decades of her life.

“My parents are huge global citizens,” she explains. “Through my dad’s employment as an indigenous languages’ specialist and my mom’s work as a pastor, I lived in Peru, Scotland, and Ecuador up until my late teens – always fostering a curiosity and a respect for various cultures.”

When Mitchell was 17, the family settled in Calgary in time for the start of her formal academic university education. At UCalgary, Mitchell enrolled in the Zoology program to pursue her fascination for deep structures and functions of the natural world. Quickly into the program, she realized that her personal and academic interests also lied within the realm of political science so she enthusiastically pursued a joint degree.

Mitchell decided to apply to Med school in Australia where she was admitted to Flinders University in Adelaide.

“Early in med school, I concluded that I wanted to become a surgeon. The operating room was where I felt most at home. More specifically, I fell in love with studying the brain and admiring how beautiful it is. Those med school experiences resonated with the comparative anatomy and physiology classes I had so enjoyed at the University of Calgary.”

As her medical specialization in neuroscience took shape in the classroom, Mitchell’s career took an unexpected turn when she received an unsolicited email for an opportunity to attend the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Congress in Beijing in 2004.

“When I received that email, it was like a lightning bolt had hit my keyboard! I couldn’t respond fast enough! It just seemed like the perfect fit between my international interests and my passion for making an impact on global health issues. It was only after joining this inspiring group that I became aware of the extent at which nuclear weapons are fundamentally a huge health risk.”

In 2007, Mitchell’s involvement in the cause for the prevention of nuclear war significantly expanded when the Australia-based movement she helped to found merged with other global initiatives to become the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) of which she is and current Australian board chair.

Ten years later, the international team’s efforts would be rewarded when the group received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.

“It was an extremely honouring and motivating moment to receive the prize in late 2017,” says Mitchell. “It’s been very gratifying to see our initiative reach a global scale and to receive the prize as recognition for our impact. It still feels surreal to see where my involvement with this group has taken me!”

Fuelled by a relentless drive and genuine desire to make a significant impact in the lives of others, there’s no stopping this University of Calgary alumna turned Nobel Prize winner.