Professor Elinor Ostrom, the only woman to claim the Nobel Prize in economics, died of cancer today at age 78, Indiana University is reporting.

Ostrom shared the 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, with University of California economist Oliver Williamson. She won for her groundbreaking research on the ways that people organize themselves to manage resources.

In April, Time magazine named Ostrom to its Time 100, a list of the most influential people in the world. The Indianapolis Star says Ostrom served as a professor at Indiana University for 47 years. Ostrom was senior research director of IU's Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis.

"Ostrom's research has ranged from the effectiveness of Indianapolis and Chicago police departments to the management of pasturelands, forests and other shared natural resources," the Star reports.

She died at IU Health Bloomington Hospital "surrounded by friends," the university says.