Joshua Lederberg

American molecular biologist known for his work in genetics, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, Lederberg was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for...

Dean Everett Wooldridge

Co-founder of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, which was awarded the prime contract for overall systems engineering and technical direction of the nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Program, Wooldridge was a prominent engineer in...

Reona (Leo) Esaki

Inventor of the Esaki tunnel diode, the first quantum electron device, Esaki shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever and Brian David Josephson for his discovery of the...

Arnold T. Nordsieck

Builder of the "differential analyzer"—an analog computer capable of solving complex equations and drawing curves—Nordsieck constructed the device in the 1950s out of $700-worth of war surplus materials. Clones subsequently became the...

Jacob (Jack) Goldman

Creator of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Goldman established one of the most influential research institutions in the history of modern computing. An American physicist and former Chief Scientist, Chief Technical...

Heike E. Riel

Major contributor to the development of the world's largest-ever (20") full-color amorphous-silicon active-matrix display based on organic light-emitting diodes, presented in May 2003, Riel has served as Manager of the Materials Integration...

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Co-founder of CERN and Nobel laureate in Physics, Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist born into a traditional Jewish family in Rymanów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland), and was brought to the United...

Peter G. Lykos

Pioneer in the use of computers in the classroom, Lykos was a key figure in creating a computer center at IIT and launching its Computer Science department. A Chicago native, he was the...

Peter J. Bentley

Developer of the iPhone application iStethoscope and pioneer of Digital Biology, Bentley is a British author and computer scientist based at University College London. He has served as a Reader and College...

Stuart Parkin

Pioneer in the science and application of spintronic materials, Parkin has served as Manager of the Magnetoelectronics group at IBM Research, Almaden, in San Jose, California, and as a 1999 IBM Fellow...

Karl Ganzhorn

Director of IBM development in Europe, Ganzhorn founded and led the German laboratory of IBM at Böblingen. He initiated major development efforts in semiconductor memories, computer systems, and software. Ganzhorn has served as...

Phaedon Avouris

Innovator of the potential for carbon nanotubes to compete with the long-established silicon transistor for important information technology applications, Avouris is a Greek chemical physicist who has served as an IBM Fellow...

Steve Lukasik

Chief Scientist of the Federal Communications Commission, Lukasik advised the Commission on technical issues in communication regulation and the management of non-government use of the electromagnetic spectrum. He received a B.S. in Physics...

Vannevar Bush

The first presidential science advisor, Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a...

King-Sun Fu

A pioneer in the field of pattern recognition and machine intelligence, Fu is considered to be the "father of automatic pattern recognition," and was widely recognized for his extensive contributions to the...

Klaus Schulten

Leader of the research group that developed NAMD and VMD—molecular dynamics and visualization software now used by many thousands of researchers worldwide—Schulten was a German American computational biophysicist and the Swanlund Professor...

William (Bill) Douglas Gropp

Co-creator of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and the Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc), Gropp has served as a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, holding...

Peter P. Sorokin

Co-inventor of the dye laser, Sorokin and his colleague J. R. Lankard at IBM Research Laboratories used a ruby laser to excite a near infrared laser dye. Their report was quickly followed...

Irwin Mark Jacobs

Pioneer of the OmniTRACS system, one of the world's most technologically advanced two-way mobile satellite communications and tracking systems, Jacobs is also co-founder and former Chairman of Qualcomm Incorporated, an American global...

Lynn G. Gref

Developer of the Rapid Development Methodology (RDM), Gref is a technologist and systems engineer who has done pioneering work in missile systems; command, control and communications (C3) systems; and satellite systems. He...