Scientists/Mathematicians

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)

- Suggested a dynamic relationship between species and environment. - Acknowledged behavior toward environment and environmental change as the driver of evolution. - Suggested that repeated behavior through generations drove change within species.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

1. Began his career as an assistant to the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe 2. Formulated three laws of planetary motion 3. Proved that planetary orbits are elliptical rather than circular

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

1. English scientist and mathematician who wrote the "Principia Mathematica" 2. Viewed the universe as a vast machine governed by the universal laws of gravity and inertia 3. Mechanistic view of the universe strongly influenced deism

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

1. German physicist whose theory of special relativity undermined Newtonian physics 2. Challenged traditional concepts of time, space, and motion 3. Contributed to the view that humans live in a universe with uncertainties 4. Added to the feeling of uncertainty in the postwar world

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

1. Italian scientist who contributed to the scientific method by conducting controlled experiments 2. Major accomplishments included using the telescope for astronomical observation, formulating laws of motion, and popularizing the new scientific ideas 3. Condemned by the Inquisition for publicly advocating Copernicus's heliocentric theory

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

1. Polish clergyman and astronomer who wrote "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" 2. Helped launch the Scientific Revolution by challenging the widespread belief in the geocentric theory that the earth is the center of the universe 3. Offered a new heliocentric universe in which the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun

Rachel Carson/Silent Spring (1962)

1962; from environmentalism movement; book about the impact of DDT on the food chain

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

A British naturalist, renowned for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Origin of Species

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

A philosopher of rationalism who advocated for doubting all sources of truth in order to develop a more rational understanding of reality

Bill Nye (1955-)

After graduating from Cornell, this engineer worked for Boeing and helped develop a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor and later helped develop sundials used in the Mars Exploration Rover missions. When not doing scientific research, this engineer also hosted his own television series that focused on teaching science to children.

Grace Hopper (1906-1992)

American Computer Scientist, Mathematician, and United States Navy Rear Admiral who, in collaboration with her team, invented A-0: the world's first compiler. In addition to its invention, she believed in making computing more accessible to others and thus, replaced mathematical symbols in programming with common English words and created the common business-oriented language, FLOW-MATIC.

Sandra Faber

American astrophysicist known for her work of studying the evolution of galaxies,

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

American author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and Civil Disobedience, on resistance to civil government and many other articles and essays. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

Jennifer Doudna (1964-)

American biochemist; first x ray based structure of catalytic RNA, RNA interference, CRISPR

Gerty Cori (1896-1957)

American biochemist; helped discover glycogen metabolism

Linda B. Buck (1947-)

American biologist; work on the olfactory system, and olfactory receptors with Richard Axel

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)

American cytogeneticist who discovered moving genetic material known as transposons, or "jumping genes."

Nettie Stevens (1861-1912)

American geneticist; discovered sex chromosomes

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

Sylvia Earle (1935-)

American marine biologist; National Geographic explorer, holds record for women's deepest dive, and ties the overall record with Graham Hawkes

Esther Lederberg (1922-2006)

American microbiologist; discovered bacterial virus Lambda phage, the transfer of genes by specialized transduction, the development of replica plating, and the discovery of the bacterial fertility factor F(f plasmid)

Carol W. Greider (1961-)

American molecular biologist; discovered telomerase

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)

American paleontologist; author, very popular, influential

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

American theoretical physicist known for his work in particle physics, quantum mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics. He created pictorial representations or "diagrams" which represented the mathematical expressions that governed the behavior of subatomic particles.

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)

American-Chinese physicist; worked on manhattan project, helped develop process for separating uranium into uranium-235 and uranium-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

An American cosmologist, astronomer, astrobiologist, astrophysicist, science popularizer, author, and science communicator in astronomy as well as many other natural sciences. The first physical messages sent into outer space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, were assembled by him.

Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)

An American scientist who discovered penicillin. This form of medicine helped to fight bacterial diseases. It also meant the switch from the fluids theory to the germ theory in medicine

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)

An Austrian (later Swedish) physicist, she co-led a team of scientists that discovered the nuclear fission of uranium but was posthumously awarded the Nobel Prize for that work. Her accomplished career includes the discovery of an isotope of Protactinium and the cause of the Auger effect (when an atom with a vacant electron stabilizes itself through the ejection of electrons), assisting fellow scientist Max Planck, and having an element named after herself.

Virginia Apgar (1909-1974)

Apgar score, which was a way to quickly assess the health of a newborn to lower infant mortality rate

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-)

Astronomer; Researcher and popular educator in astronomy and the sciences

Alice Ball (1892-1916)

Ball Method, most effective way of treating leprosy in the early 20th century

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Believed sensory experience to be the basis of all knowledge, although the five senses and the common sense provided only the information from which knowledge could be derived. Aristotle also believed that everything in nature had within it an entelechy (purpose) that determined its potential. Active reason, which was considered the immortal part of the human soul, provided humans with their greatest potential, and therefore fully actualized humans engage in active reason. Because everything was thought to have a cause, Aristotle postulated an unmoved mover that caused everything in the world but was not itself caused. (See also Unmoved mover.)

E.O. Wilson

Biologist who co-coined, with Robert MacArthur, the theory of island biogeography, which identifies factors that regulate species richness on islands.

Anne McLaren (1927-2007)

British developmental biologist; helped lead to human in vitro fertilization

Elsie Widdowson (1906-2000)

British dietitian and nutritionist; added vitamins to the rations during WWII

Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923)

British engineer; work on electric arcs and ripples in water in sand

Edmund Halley (1656-1742)

British mathematician and astronomer for whom Halley's Comet was named.

Mary Leakey (1913-1996)

British paleoanthropologist; discovered first fossilized Proconsul skull, which is now believed to be ancestral to humans

Brian Cox (1968-)

British physicist; professor of particle physics in the school of physics and astronomy at the University of Manchester

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

British theoretical physicist; cosmology, general relativity, quantum gravity, black holes

Maud Menten (1879-1960)

Canadian researcher; significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry Worked with Leonor Michaelis on enzyme production and co authored Michaelis-Menten equation in 1913

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

Danish physicist whose model of the atom and how it absorbs and emits energy contributed to quantum theory and is also widely used in the teaching of elementary chemistry today.

Inge Lehmann (1888-1993)

Danish seismologist; discovered that the earth has a solid inner core inside a molten outer core

Watson and Crick

Developed the double helix model of DNA.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871) Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)

Difference engine, first computer code

Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings

Discovered drugs to treat leukemia and to make organ transplants possible in the 1950s

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. He is one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time.

Richard Dawkins (1941-)

Ethologist; gene centered view of evolution, concept of the meme, middle world, extended phenotype, new atheism

Sally Ride (1951-2012)

First American woman in space in 1983

Mae Carol Jemison (1956-)

First black woman in space

Shirley Ann Jackson (1946-)

First black woman to get a doctorate at MIT (her PhD was in physics, and she was the second black Woman to ever get a PhD in physics

Elizabeth Blackburn (1948-)

Former president of Salk institute for biological studies, telomerase research

Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956)

French chemist; discovered artificial radioactivity

Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908)

French engineer; first to discover evidence of radioactivity, worked with the Curies

Sophie Germain (1776-1831)

French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher; Sophie Germain prime numbers

Émilie du Châlelet (1706-1749)

French natural philosopher; advocacy of Newtonian physics

Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (1942-)

German biologist; Studied protein DNA interaction

Emmy Noether (1882-1935)

German mathematician; developed Noether's theorem, helped with symmetry in physics

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)

German philosopher; metaphysical philosopher of the enlightenment. Made a calculator, and other scientific and mathematical contributions

Max Planck (1858-1947)

German physicist who developed quantum theory and was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1918. Planck length

Archimedes of Syracuse (288BC-212BC)

Greek mathematician; Archimedes' Principle, Archimedes' Screw

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911)

Industrial and safety engineer; pioneering work in sanitary engineering, and experimental research in domestic science, laid a foundation for the new science of home economics

Robert Hooke (1635-1703)

Invented the compound microscope. First to observe cells in 1665. Coined the term "Cells" from cork.

Tim Berners-Lee (1955-)

Invented world wide web

Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017)

Iranian mathematician; research topics included the Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergo doc theory, and simplectic geometry

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943)

Irish author, astrophysicist. Co-discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967

Ada Yonath (1939-)

Israeli crystallographer; pioneering work on the structure of the ribosome

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012)

Italian neurobiologist; worked with Stanley Cohen on the discovery of nerve growth factor

Leonardo da Vinci

Italian painter, engineer, musician, and scientist. The most versatile genius of the Renaissance, Leonardo filled notebooks with engineering and scientific observations that were in some cases centuries ahead of their time. As a painter Leonardo is best known for The Last Supper (c. 1495) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503).

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

Italian-American physicist is known as the "architect of the atomic bomb" and is credited with building the first nuclear reactor. Major contributions to particle physics such as discovering the neutrino, determining the weak force as a fundamental force of nature, and demonstrating self-sustaining Nuclear chain reaction.

Marie and Pierre Curie

Marie (1867-1934) a polish born physicist, and her husband Pierre discovered that radium constantly emits subatomic particles, which means it doesn't have a constant weight.

Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)

Mathematician whose calculations helped get friendship 7' success, also helped with the Apollo missions

Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717)

One of the first European naturalists to study insects by direct observation

Abdus Salam (1926-1996)

Physicist; contributed to electroweak unification theory

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

Prussian naturalist, explorer, and geographer who published many extremely popular books detailing his journeys around the world, most famously in South America. He most notably discovered an ocean current off the coast of South America, ascended Mt. Chimborazo (the world record for mountain climbing at the time), collected and recorded thousands of biological specimens, theorized about magnetism, volcanos, tectonics, and seismology, and studied how altitude affected weather patterns.

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921-2011)

Radioimmunoassay technique

Sofya Kovalevskaya (1859-1891)

Russian mathematician; noteworthy contributions to analysis, differential equations, and mechanics

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Scottish physicist best known for contributions towards creating an understanding of electromagnetic theory. He also did significant research involving color and gases, and generated the first color photograph.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

Serbian-American inventor, engineer, and physicist whose made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission, and application of electric power. He is best known for his development advocacy for alternating current (AC) electrical systems, along with developing the three-phase system of electric power transmission, and inventing an induction coil widely used in radio technology.

Laura Bassi (1711-1778)

She was accepted into the Academy of Science in Bologna for her work in mathematics, which made her one of the few women to be accepted into a scientific academy in the seventeenth century.

Dian Fossey (1932-1985)

Studied gorillas in Rwanda

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778)

Swedish botanist; developed a hierarchical classification scheme of nested groups. He formalized binomial nomenclature.

Craig Venter (1946-)

Whole genome shotgun sequencing

Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014)

Worked as a research chemist for the DuPont Company and discovered Kevlar, a synthetic fiber that was resistant to corrosion and flame, and so strong it could not be pierced by a steel bullet. She is one of the first female research chemists, had 17 other patents, was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, and is a recipient of the Perkin Medal (one of the highest honors in applied chemistry).

Charles H. Townes (1915-2015)

Worked on the theory and application of the maser

Lynn Margulis (1938-2011)

argued in the late 60s and 70s, against much opposition, that cell organelles (e.g., mitochondria and chloroplasts) were once independent bacteria that became incorporated within ancient eukaryotes. Mounting experimental evidence would finally vindicate Margulis, as "Endosymbiotic Theory" became widely accepted in the 80s. This also highlights that not all paleobiology is done with fossils!

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)

biochemist who developed protein crystallography; a method she used to advance the process of X-ray crystallography. She confirmed both the structure of penicillin (created by Ernst Chain and Edward Abraham) and vitamin B12, an accomplishment for which she won a Nobel Prize.

Mary the Jewess

developed distillation techniques and 1st true alchemist in Western World (Egypt)

Mary Anning (1799-1847)

discovered several species of extinct marine reptiles

Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins (1920-1958)

discovered the twist in DNA by X-ray experiments

Vera Rubin (1928-2016)

scientist who studied antimatter and discovered dark matter 1970

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

sometimes referred to as the father of preventive medicine as the result of bacteria and infectious disease

Charles Lyell (1797-1875)

the present is the key to the past; past geological processes are the same as present-day. Uniformitarianism

Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

was one of the first to attempt a generalization of quantum theory to relativistic speeds, the result of which was the Dirac equation.