The 2015 Nobel Laureates were announced last week at two separate press conferences: one in Oslo to award the Nobel Peace Prize and another in Stockholm for the remaining Nobel Prizes in the sciences, literature and economics.

Considered the highest intellectual honors in the world by scholars, Nobel Prizes are given to those who excel in work relating to physics, literature, chemistry, medicine, peace and economics. The Norwegian Nobel Committee selects the winners from an array of nominees.

“I personally think it’s good that we choose to honor these Nobel Prize winners, because I guess when you’re growing up and you kind of see all these role models, you kind of think, ‘Oh, I can do it too; I don’t have any limitation on myself,’” Sumi Wadhwa (10) said. “Especially if you’re a woman or someone of color, you kind of don’t have all these role models on TV, at least to look up to, so you can look up to the people of science, and I think that’s very cool.”

This year, there were 273 candidates that included 68 organizations and 205 people. Five fields of study received a total of 11 Nobel Prizes, with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy, a system that allows various religious, ethnic, racial and political groups to thrive under one society. Svetlana Alexievich received a Nobel Prize in literature while Dr. Arthur B. McDonald and Takaaki Kajita earned one in physics. Additionally, Dr. Paul L. Modrich, Dr. Tomas Lindahl and Aziz Sancar accepted a prize in chemistry. Dr. Satoshi Ōmura, Tu Youyou and Dr. William C. Campbell were awarded a prize in physiology or medicine and Angus Deaton was honored for economic sciences.

Evani Radiya-Dixit (11) shared her opinion on Tu Youyou being the first Asian woman to win a Nobel Prize.

“I think it shows the limited opportunities that are given to women in science, especially in developing countries,” she said. “It’s only now that we’re seeing a woman from Asian countries getting a nobel prize.

Currently, only qualified individuals can nominate valid candidates for a Nobel Prize. These nominators must fall into certain categories such as having membership in a national assembly, being part of a state government or having received a Nobel Prize in the past.

“I think it’s good that only qualified people can [nominate] who gets the Nobel Prize because if you’re not qualified, say, if you’re a very conservative [religious] person […] you might not choose something that’s really brilliant but really into evolution,” Anooshree Sengupta (10) said. “The people who are qualified are on the cutting edge of science so they know what to choose.”

Though the Norwegian Nobel Committee receives hundreds of nominations each year, information regarding the nominees can only be disclosed 50 years later.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily reasonable because it’s important to release this info earlier so that the public can be aware of this information,” Alexander Young (9) said. “I think it’s important that everybody knows who is nominated and information about this person earlier on, because 50 years later, some of that information may not be relevant anymore, and it’s of greater importance earlier.”

The next Nobel Laureates will be announced at the beginning of October of 2016.