Elinor Claire "Lin" Ostrom (née Awan; August 7, 1933 – June 12, 2012) was an American political economist. She won the Nobel Prize 2009 in Economic Sciences which she shared with Oliver Williamson. Ostrom became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in this category. Her worked said that the idea of the Tragedy of the Commons was too simple. Some communities do share common resources in a positive way and do not waste or destroy them.
Ostrom was one of 20 Nobel Laureates[1] who signed the "Stockholm memorandum" at the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability in Stockholm, Sweden on 18 May 2011.[2]
Ostrom taught at both Indiana University and Arizona State University. She was born in Los Angeles, California.[3] She was married to political scientist Vincent Ostrom (born 1919) from 1963 until she died. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2011 and died of the disease[3] in Bloomington, Indiana at age 78.[4]