PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: engineering
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal....
Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin was a Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist who profoundly influenced the scientific thought of his generation. Thomson, who was knighted and raised to the peerage...
Swedish inventor
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel was the fourth son of Immanuel...
American engineer
James B. Eads was an American engineer best known for his triple-arch steel bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Mo. (1874). Another project provided a year-round navigation channel for New...
American engineer, architect, and futurist
R. Buckminster Fuller was an American engineer, architect, and futurist who developed the geodesic dome—the only large dome that can be set directly on the ground as a complete structure and the only practical...
English inventor and engineer
Henry Bessemer was an inventor and engineer who developed the first process for manufacturing steel inexpensively (1856), leading to the development of the Bessemer converter. He was knighted in 1879....
Union army officer and engineer
Cyrus B. Comstock was a Union army officer and engineer who commanded the Balloon Corps during the American Civil War and later founded the Comstock Prize in Physics. Comstock was educated in the local...
American civil engineer
William Mulholland was a self-trained Irish-born American civil engineer who is best known for having created an effective means of supplying water to the semi-arid city of Los Angeles. He designed and...
Pakistani scientist
Abdul Qadeer Khan was a Pakistani engineer, a key figure in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program who was also involved for decades in a black market of nuclear technology and know-how whereby uranium-enrichment...
Swiss-Belgian physicist
Auguste Piccard was a Swiss-born Belgian physicist notable for his exploration of both the upper stratosphere and the depths of the sea in ships of his own design. In 1930 he built a balloon to study cosmic...
Chinese scientist
Qian Xuesen was a Chinese engineer and research scientist widely recognized as the “father of Chinese aerospace” for his role in establishing China’s ballistic missile program. Qian was the only child...
Native American engineer
Mary Golda Ross was a Cherokee mathematician who was the first Native woman to work as an engineer in the U.S. space program. She made history as the first female and only Native member of a highly secret...
English engineer
Richard Trevithick was a British mechanical engineer and inventor who successfully harnessed high-pressure steam and constructed the world’s first steam railway locomotive (1803). In 1805, he adapted his...
American engineer
Jack Kilby was an American engineer and one of the inventors of the integrated circuit, a system of interconnected transistors on a single microchip. In 2000, Kilby was a corecipient, with Herbert Kroemer...
American engineer
Robert Noyce was an American engineer and co-inventor of the integrated circuit, a system of interconnected transistors on a single silicon microchip. In 1939 the Noyce family moved to Grinnell, Iowa,...
American chemical engineer
Thomas Midgley, Jr. was an American engineer and chemist who discovered the effectiveness of tetraethyl lead as an antiknock additive for gasoline. He also found that dichlorodifluoromethane (a type of...
British inventor
George Stephenson was an English engineer and principal inventor of the railroad locomotive. Stephenson was the son of a mechanic who operated a Newcomen atmospheric-steam engine that was used to pump...
British inventor
Sir William Siemens was a German-born English engineer and inventor, important in the development of the steel and telegraph industries. After private tutoring, Siemens was sent to a commercial school...
American engineer
Harold Rosen was an American engineer who designed Syncom 2, the first geosynchronous communications satellite. Rosen received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tulane University in New...
American engineer and entrepreneur
Gordon Moore was an American engineer and cofounder, with Robert Noyce, of Intel Corporation. Moore studied chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley (B.S., 1950), and in 1954 he received a Ph.D....
American inventor and engineer
Frederick W. Taylor was an American inventor and engineer who is known as the father of scientific management. His system of industrial management, known as Taylorism, greatly influenced the development...
American astronaut and administrator
Ellen Ochoa is an American administrator and former astronaut who was the first Hispanic woman to travel into space (1993). She later served as director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (2013–18). Ochoa...
British engineer
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British civil and mechanical engineer of great originality who designed the first transatlantic steamer. The only son of the engineer and inventor Sir Marc Isambard Brunel,...
Australian engineer
John Bradfield was an Australian engineer known as “the father of modern Sydney.” Bradfield was known for his lead roles in the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the underground railway system,...
American aircraft and spacecraft designer
Burt Rutan is an American aircraft and spacecraft designer who was perhaps best known for SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first private crewed spacecraft. Rutan was raised in Dinuba, California,...
German inventor
Felix Wankel was a German engineer and inventor of the Wankel rotary engine. The Wankel engine is radically different in structure from conventional reciprocating piston engines. Instead of having pistons...
American engineer
Nick Holonyak, Jr. was an American engineer who was known for his pioneering work with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), notably creating the first visible LED. Holonyak was the son of immigrants from what...
French inventor
Clément Ader was a self-taught French engineer, inventor, and aeronautical pioneer. Ader constructed a balloon at his own expense in 1870. By 1873 he had turned his attention to heavier-than-air flight,...
French engineer
Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla was a French engineer and a key figure in the decision to construct the Panama Canal. Born out of wedlock, Bunau-Varilla attended two prestigious French engineering schools,...
American engineer
Daniel Cowan Jackling was an American mining engineer and metallurgist who developed methods for profitable exploitation of low-grade porphyry copper ores and thus revolutionized copper mining. In particular,...
American engineer and roller coaster designer
Ron Toomer was an American engineer and roller coaster designer who could be considered the sovereign of steel coasters. His work with Arrow Dynamics (founded as Arrow Development Company in 1946) brought...
American inventor
Dean Kamen is an American inventor who created the Segway Human Transporter (Segway HT; later called the Segway Personal Transporter [Segway PT]), a motorized device that allowed passengers to travel at...
American architect and engineer
William Francis Gibbs was a naval architect and marine engineer who directed the mass production of U.S. cargo ships during World War II, designed the famous, standardized cargo-carrying Liberty ships,...
Japanese engineer
Honda Kenichi was a Japanese engineer whose discovery (with Fujishima Akira) of the photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide led to an expansion in the field of photoelectrochemistry. After receiving...
American engineer
William Hewlett was an American engineer and businessman who cofounded the electronics and computer corporation Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). Hewlett’s interest in science and electronics started when...
British inventor and aviator
Sir Frank Whittle was an English aviation engineer and pilot who invented the jet engine. The son of a mechanic, Whittle entered the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a boy apprentice and soon qualified as a pilot...
Swiss oceanic engineer
Jacques Piccard was a Swiss oceanic engineer, economist, and physicist, who helped his father, Auguste Piccard, build the bathyscaphe for deep-sea exploration and who also invented the mesoscaphe, an undersea...
American metallurgical engineer and science administrator
Arden L. Bement, Jr. is an American metallurgical engineer who served as director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2004 to 2010. Bement attended the Colorado School of Mines, where he earned...
American engineer, naturalist, and educator
Theodore Jesse Hoover was an American mining engineer, naturalist, educator, and the elder brother of U.S. Pres. Herbert Hoover (author of this biography). Hoover was the oldest of three children born...
Scottish engineer and entrepreneur
Robert William Thomson was a Scottish engineer and entrepreneur, known as the inventor of the pneumatic tire. Thomson was the son of the owner of a woollen mill and was sent at age 14 to Charleston, South...
American architect
William Strickland was a U.S. architect and engineer who was one of the leaders of the Greek Revival in the first half of the 19th century. Strickland first became known as a scene painter, although he...
Dutch engineer
Sir Cornelius Vermuyden was a Dutch-born British engineer who introduced Dutch land-reclamation methods in England and drained the Fens, the low marshy lands in the east of England. An experienced embankment...
American physicist
William B. Shockley was an American engineer and teacher, cowinner (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for their development of the transistor, a device that...
American engineer
Daniel Goldin is an American engineer who was the longest-serving National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator (1992–2001) and who brought a new vision to the U.S. space agency and...
American geologist
Clarence King was an American geologist and mining engineer who organized and directed the U.S. Geological Survey of the 40th parallel, an intensive study of the mineral resources along the site of the...
French-German engineer
Rudolf Diesel was a German thermal engineer who invented the internal-combustion engine that bears his name. He was also a distinguished connoisseur of the arts, a linguist, and a social theorist. Diesel,...
Swiss scientist
Alexander Agassiz was a marine zoologist, oceanographer, and mining engineer who made important contributions to systematic zoology, to the knowledge of ocean beds, and to the development of a major copper...
Swedish-American engineer
John Ericsson was a Swedish-born American naval engineer and inventor who built the first armoured turret warship and developed the screw propeller. After serving in the Swedish army as a topographical...
American engineer
Ben R. Rich was an American engineer who conducted top secret research on advanced military aircraft while working at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation) under the alias Ben...
Dutch physicist
Simon van der Meer was a Dutch physical engineer who in 1984, with Carlo Rubbia, received the Nobel Prize for Physics for his contribution to the discovery of the massive, short-lived subatomic particles...
