Nobel Prize-winning Princeton professor John Nash and his wife, Alicia, have been identified as the two victims killed in a crash Saturday on the New Jersey Turnpike.

State police say the Nashes were killed when the taxi they were riding in crashed into a guardrail to avoid hitting another car in Monroe Township at around 4:30 p.m.

John Nash's work as a mathematician and his struggle with schizophrenia was the basis for the 2002 Academy Award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind." Russell Crowe portrayed Nash in the film, while Jennifer Connelly won the best supporting actress Oscar for playing Alicia Nash.

Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994 and is well-known for his mathematics work in game theory, and partial differential equations.

Nash was in Norway last week to accept the Abel Prize, a highly coveted and prestigious international mathematician's award.

Officials say the taxi driver was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Police say another car also struck the guardrail. The passenger in that vehicle was also treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Nash still worked as the senior mathematics researcher at Princeton University at his time of death.

At their house in Princeton Junction, friends were on hand to console their adult son who also copes with schizophrenia. Their son is one of the reasons they advocated for those with mental illness and went through with the movie.

"They wanted to help create and external environment where people like their son Johnny and other people would be accepted as people first," said Dr. Debra Wentz, of the New Jersey Association of Mental Health.