At the ceremony Professor Dame Carol Robinson, from the University of Oxford, was named Laureate for Europe for her ground-breaking work in studying how proteins function.

UNESCO: Professor Dame Carol Robinson

Steve Wynn is celebrated for his ground-breaking work with The Dream Syndicate, a band that helped invent the American indie rock scene of the 1980s.

NPR: Steve Wynn in Concert

Long before there was a downtown dance scene, Buttenwieser Hall was a home to choreographers like Martha Graham, who began teaching there in 1935, while Kaufman was a proving ground for major companies like Alvin Ailey, which unveiled its ground-breaking work "Revelations" there in 1960.

WSJ: Culture City: Dressing Up and Stripping Down on 92nd Street

Their academic work in Mali stems from a ground-breaking visit by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, in 2001.

BBC: Timbuktu's art of saving its manuscripts