When a reporter asked her how it felt to be only the third woman in history to be so honored, Strickland replied, "Really? Is that all? I thought there might have been more," adding, "I don't know what to say. I'm honored to be one of those women."

Marie Curie shared the prize in 1903 with Henri Becquerel and her husband Pierre Curie for their work on radioactivity. Maria Goeppert-Mayer shared the 1962 prize with E. Paul Wigner and Hans Jensen for her work on the shell structure of atomic nuclei.