Lydia E. Kavraki

Known for research in robotics, bioinformatics, and algorithms, Kavraki left Greece to pursue a PhD in computer science at Stanford University. Drawn to the human potential of robotics, Kavraki studied how robots—from...

John Napier

Renowned as the discoverer of the logarithm and inventor of "Napier's bones," Napier was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchiston. He was the son...

Branimir Makanec

A pioneer of computer popularization in Croatia, Makanec established the Multimedia Center of the Zagreb University Referral Center (MMC). The MMC was an open-type computer center intended to be used for non-numerical...

Jan Camenisch

Co-inventor of Identity Mixer, a unique cryptographic protocol suite for privacy-preserving authentication and transfer of certified attributes, Camenisch is a leading scientist in the area of privacy and cryptography. He has served...

Partha Ranganathan

Co-developer of the publicly distributed Rice Simulator for ILP Multiprocessors (RSIM), Ranganathan contributed to what was at that time the only publicly-distributed software for simulating shared-memory multiprocessors with state-of-the-art instruction-level-parallel (ILP) processors. A...

Hans C. Pfeiffer

Inventor of PREVAIL, IBM's E-Beam Projection approach for Next Generation Lithography, Pfeiffer was a physicist best known for his contributions to the development of electron beam lithography (often abbreviated as e-beam lithography),...

Martin M. Wattenberg

Co-creator of IBM's Many Eyes, a ground-breaking public visualization platform and experiment in open, public data visualization and analysis, Wattenberg is an American scientist and artist known for his work with data...

Elisha Gray

Best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876, Gray is considered by some writers to be the true inventor of the variable resistance telephone, despite losing out to Alexander...

Nagui Halim

Team leader who developed System S—a computing system able to manage and analyze massive volumes of continuous streams of data—Halim was named an IBM Fellow in 2011, the highest honor a scientist,...

Jeffrey (Jeff) Preston Bezos

Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Bezos graduated from Princeton University as a member of Tau Beta Pi and worked as a financial analyst for D. E. Shaw & Co. before founding Amazon...

Steve Chen

Principal designer of the Cray X-MP and Cray Y-MP multiprocessor supercomputers, Chen is a computer engineering pioneer. He has served as founder and CEO of Galactic Computing, a developer of supercomputing blade...

Thomas Alva Edison

Credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications, Edison also developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera,...

Frances (Betty) Elizabeth Holberton

One of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, Holberton made foundational contributions to the history of computing. During World War II, while the men were fighting,...

Robert William Bemer

Best known as "The Father of ASCII," Bemer made foundational contributions to computing through his work on COBOL and the ASCII character codeset. Bemer began his career as an aerodynamicist at Douglas Aircraft...

Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus

Known as the "Queen of Carbon Science," Dresselhaus was an American physicist, materials scientist, and nanotechnologist whose career centered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she served as an institute professor...

Peter R. Samson

Creator of the Harmony Compiler for the PDP-1 and the Expensive Planetarium star display for Spacewar!, Samson is an American computer scientist best known for creating pioneering computer software. He studied at...

Jean E. Sammet

Developer of FORMAC, the first widely used computer language for symbolic manipulation of mathematical formulas, Sammet spent 27 years at IBM where she created it. She received her B.A. in Math from Mount...

Mina Spiegel Rees

Pioneer of federally funded computer research and development and the first woman president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Rees transformed the landscape of postwar American science. She was...

Harold Cohen

Author of the celebrated AARON program, an ongoing research effort in autonomous machine (art making) intelligence, Cohen is recognized as one of the few artists ever to have become deeply involved in...

Jennifer Granholm

The first woman to serve as both Attorney General and Governor of Michigan, Granholm held those offices from 1999 to 2003 and 2003 to 2011, respectively, and later served as the 16th...