251 American Innovators

George Washington Carver

Plant scientist who showed farmers how to heal their soil.

Percy Lavon Julian

Chemist who made life-saving medicines from plants.

Mae Jemison

Doctor and the first Black woman to travel into space.

Charles Drew

Doctor who pioneered blood banks that save lives.

Rachel Carson

Writer and scientist who launched the modern environmental movement.

Barbara McClintock

Geneticist who discovered that genes can jump around.

Linus Pauling

Chemist who explained how atoms bond together.

Jonas Salk

Doctor who created the first successful polio vaccine.

Carl Sagan

Astronomer who made the cosmos exciting for everyone.

Science2000s & Today

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist who brings the universe to TV and books.

Chien-Shiung Wu

Physicist whose careful experiments changed our view of nature.

Maria Goeppert Mayer

Physicist who explained the structure inside the atom's nucleus.

Patricia Bath

Eye doctor and inventor who helped restore sight.

Edwin Hubble

Astronomer who showed the universe is huge and growing.

Sylvia Earle

Ocean explorer who fights to protect the seas.

Ynes Mexia

Botanist who collected thousands of plants on bold expeditions.

Severo Ochoa

Biochemist who helped uncover how cells build RNA.

Luis Walter Alvarez

Physicist who proposed why the dinosaurs went extinct.

Mario Molina

Chemist who helped save the ozone layer.

Annie Jump Cannon

Astronomer who created a system to classify the stars.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Astronomer whose discovery let us measure the universe.

Vera Rubin

Astronomer who found strong evidence for dark matter.

Maria Mitchell

America's first professional woman astronomer.

Gerty Cori

Biochemist who showed how the body uses sugar for energy.

Marie Maynard Daly

First Black woman in America to earn a chemistry doctorate.

Ernest Everett Just

Biologist who studied the secrets of living cells.

Shirley Ann Jackson

Physicist and leader whose research shaped modern communication.

Flossie Wong-Staal

Virologist who helped reveal how HIV works.

David Ho

Doctor whose treatments transformed the fight against HIV.

Sally Ride

Physicist who became the first American woman in space.

Edward O. Wilson

Biologist who became a champion for Earth's biodiversity.

Lynn Margulis

Biologist who showed cells evolved by teaming up.

Eunice Newton Foote

Scientist who first showed certain gases trap heat.

Science1700s

Benjamin Franklin

Founding Father who experimented with electricity.

Joseph Henry

Scientist who explored the power of electromagnetism.

Josiah Willard Gibbs

Scientist who built the foundations of thermodynamics.

Albert Einstein

Physicist who reshaped our understanding of space and time.

Richard Feynman

Playful physicist who made hard ideas easier to grasp.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Astrophysicist who explained how stars live and die.

Kalpana Chawla

Engineer and the first woman of Indian origin in space.

Antonia Novello

First woman and first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General.

Jewel Plummer Cobb

Cell biologist who studied how to fight cancer.

Roger Arliner Young

First Black woman to earn a zoology doctorate in the U.S.

Florence Bascom

Pioneering geologist who studied rocks and mountains.

Walter Reed

Army doctor who proved how yellow fever spreads.

Dian Fossey

Scientist who devoted her life to mountain gorillas.

James Van Allen

Space scientist who discovered Earth's radiation belts.

Stephen Jay Gould

Paleontologist who made evolution exciting to read about.

Eugene Shoemaker

Geologist who connected craters on Earth and the Moon.

George Gamow

Physicist who helped explain the Big Bang.

Nancy Grace Roman

The 'Mother of Hubble' who gave humanity its eye on the universe.

Grace Hopper

Navy admiral who made computers understand human-like language.

Margaret Hamilton

Software pioneer whose code helped land humans on the Moon.

Annie Easley

NASA computer scientist who helped power rockets and clean energy.

Dorothy Vaughan

NASA leader who mastered computer programming for the space race.

Mark Dean

Engineer behind key inventions inside the personal computer.

Jerry Lawson

Engineer who helped create the swappable video game cartridge.

Hedy Lamarr

Movie star and inventor of wireless signal-hopping technology.

Steve Jobs

Co-founder of Apple who made computers friendly and personal.

Steve Wozniak

Engineer who built one of the first easy-to-use home computers.

Bill Gates

Co-founder of Microsoft who helped put software on every desk.

Vint Cerf

A 'father of the internet' who helped computers talk worldwide.

Robert Kahn

Co-inventor of the rules that make the internet work.

Radia Perlman

Engineer whose algorithm keeps computer networks running smoothly.

Frances Allen

Pioneer who made programs run faster through smart compilers.

Jean Sammet

Programming-language expert who helped shape early software.

Lynn Conway

Engineer who transformed how microchips are designed.

Adele Goldberg

Helped invent the point-and-click computer screen we use today.

Barbara Liskov

Computer scientist who shaped how we organize software.

Shafi Goldwasser

Cryptographer who helped make digital secrets truly secure.

Ken Thompson

Co-creator of the Unix operating system and the C language.

Dennis Ritchie

Creator of the C language that powers modern software.

Donald Knuth

Scholar who turned computer algorithms into a fine art.

John McCarthy

Coined the term 'artificial intelligence' and built early AI.

Marvin Minsky

Pioneer who explored how machines might think and learn.

Douglas Engelbart

Inventor of the computer mouse and interactive computing.

Larry Page

Co-founder of Google who reinvented how we search the web.

Sergey Brin

Co-founder of Google who helped organize the world's information.

Jeff Bezos

Founder of Amazon who reshaped online shopping.

Jensen Huang

Co-founder of NVIDIA who powered modern graphics and AI.

Fei-Fei Li

AI scientist who taught computers to recognize images.

Brendan Eich

Creator of JavaScript, the language of the web.

Whitfield Diffie

Co-inventor of public-key cryptography for safe online secrets.

Martin Hellman

Helped invent the math that keeps online messages private.

Ron Rivest

Co-creator of the RSA system that secures the internet.

Leonard Adleman

Co-creator of RSA encryption and DNA computing pioneer.

Bob Metcalfe

Co-inventor of Ethernet, the wiring that links computers.

Ralph Baer

The 'father of video games' who put games on the TV.

Nolan Bushnell

Founder of Atari who helped launch the video game industry.

Carol Shaw

One of the first professional video game designers.

Limor Fried

Engineer who makes electronics fun and open for everyone.

Megan Smith

Engineer who served as Chief Technology Officer of the U.S.

Kimberly Bryant

Founder of Black Girls Code, opening tech to more students.

Timnit Gebru

Computer scientist who studies fairness and ethics in AI.

Joy Buolamwini

Researcher who exposed unfairness in face-recognition AI.

Ayah Bdeir

Inventor of littleBits, snap-together electronic building blocks.

An Wang

Computing pioneer behind early calculators and word processors.

Gordon Moore

Co-founder of Intel famous for 'Moore's Law' on chips.

Robert Noyce

Co-inventor of the microchip and co-founder of Intel.

Mark Zuckerberg

Co-founder of Facebook who changed how people connect online.

Katie Bouman

Scientist whose algorithm helped image a black hole.

Lewis Latimer

Inventor who helped make the electric light bulb practical and affordable.

Granville Woods

Self-taught inventor who made trains safer with electrical communication.

Elijah McCoy

Engineer whose oiling device kept machines running smoothly.

Garrett Morgan

Inventor of an early traffic signal and a safety hood for firefighters.

Orville Wright

Co-inventor of the first successful powered airplane.

Wilbur Wright

Co-inventor of the first successful powered airplane.

Nikola Tesla

Inventor who helped power the world with alternating current.

Thomas Edison

Prolific inventor of the practical light bulb and the phonograph.

Henry Ford

Industrialist who made cars affordable with the moving assembly line.

Mary Jackson

NASA's first Black female engineer who helped advance flight research.

Ellen Ochoa

Engineer and the first Hispanic woman to travel to space.

Emily Warren Roebling

Engineer who helped complete the Brooklyn Bridge.

Lillian Gilbreth

Pioneer of industrial engineering who made workplaces more efficient.

Stephanie Kwolek

Chemist who invented Kevlar, the fiber used in bulletproof vests.

Gladys West

Mathematician whose work helped make GPS possible.

Otis Boykin

Inventor of electronic components used in computers and pacemakers.

George Carruthers

Inventor of a space telescope that observed Earth and the stars.

Guion Bluford

Aerospace engineer and the first African American in space.

Mary Golda Ross

Cherokee engineer who helped design early spacecraft and missiles.

Mary Sherman Morgan

Rocket scientist who developed fuel for early American space launches.

Katharine Burr Blodgett

Inventor of non-reflective 'invisible' glass.

Norbert Rillieux

Engineer who transformed sugar refining with a clever evaporator.

Frederick McKinley Jones

Inventor of mobile refrigeration that keeps food fresh in transit.

Lonnie Johnson

Engineer who invented the Super Soaker water blaster.

James West

Co-inventor of the microphone technology used in most phones.

Valerie Thomas

Scientist who invented an illusion transmitter for 3D images.

Marian Croak

Engineer whose work helped make internet voice calls possible.

Aprille Ericsson

Aerospace engineer who builds instruments to study space.

Ayanna Howard

Roboticist building robots that help people and explore space.

Ruth Benerito

Chemist who developed wrinkle-resistant, easy-care cotton.

Edith Clarke

First woman electrical engineer to work professionally in the U.S.

Sarah E. Goode

One of the first Black women to receive a U.S. patent.

Engineering1700s

Eli Whitney

Inventor of the cotton gin and a champion of interchangeable parts.

Cyrus McCormick

Inventor of the mechanical reaper that transformed farming.

Robert Fulton

Engineer who made steamboat travel practical.

Samuel Morse

Co-creator of the telegraph and Morse code.

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor credited with developing the first practical telephone.

George Westinghouse

Engineer who championed safe railroads and AC electric power.

Buckminster Fuller

Designer of the geodesic dome and a thinker about sustainable design.

Willis Carrier

Engineer who invented modern air conditioning.

Charles Steinmetz

Immigrant engineer who unlocked the math behind AC power.

Vannevar Bush

Engineer who imagined a machine to link human knowledge.

Burt Rutan

Aerospace engineer who designed record-setting aircraft and spacecraft.

George Ferris

Engineer who built the first giant Ferris wheel.

Kate Gleason

Engineer and builder who pioneered affordable mass-produced housing.

Hattie Scott Peterson

Among the first Black women to earn a civil engineering degree.

Marc Hannah

Engineer whose graphics technology powered movie special effects.

Beulah Louise Henry

Prolific inventor nicknamed 'Lady Edison.'

Steve Sasson

Engineer who built the first digital camera.

Jan Ernst Matzeliger

Immigrant inventor who automated shoe manufacturing.

Katherine Johnson

NASA mathematician whose calculations helped send astronauts to space.

Christine Darden

NASA mathematician and engineer who studied the science of sonic booms.

Math1700s

Benjamin Banneker

Self-taught mathematician and astronomer who published popular almanacs.

David Blackwell

Pioneering statistician known for game theory and probability.

Euphemia Lofton Haynes

First Black American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics.

Elbert Frank Cox

First Black person in the world to earn a PhD in mathematics.

J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.

Mathematician and physicist who entered college at age 13.

John von Neumann

Brilliant mathematician who shaped modern computers and game theory.

Claude Shannon

Founder of information theory—the math behind all digital data.

Maryam Mirzakhani

First woman to win the Fields Medal, math's top honor.

Karen Uhlenbeck

First woman to win the Abel Prize in mathematics.

Emmy Noether

Mathematician whose theorem links symmetry to the laws of physics.

Julia Robinson

Mathematician who helped solve a famous unsolvable problem.

Norbert Wiener

Mathematician who founded cybernetics, the science of control and feedback.

John Nash

Mathematician whose game theory changed economics and biology.

Disabled Innovators

John Tukey

Statistician who invented the word 'bit' and the box plot.

George Dantzig

Mathematician who invented the simplex method for optimization.

Richard Hamming

Mathematician who taught computers to fix their own errors.

Evelyn Boyd Granville

One of the first Black American women to earn a math PhD.

Marjorie Lee Browne

Mathematician and teacher who brought computers to her university.

Fern Hunt

Applied mathematician who uses math to study patterns and chaos.

Shing-Tung Yau

Geometer whose work shapes both pure math and string theory.

Terence Tao

Math prodigy and Fields Medalist working across many fields.

Benoit Mandelbrot

Mathematician who discovered the endless beauty of fractals.

Edward Lorenz

Meteorologist and mathematician who founded chaos theory.

Lotfi Zadeh

Engineer-mathematician who invented fuzzy logic.

Olga Taussky-Todd

Mathematician known as the 'torchbearer' of matrix theory.

Mina Rees

Mathematician who guided American math research after WWII.

Mary Tsingou

Programmer of one of the first computer experiments in physics.

Margaret H. Wright

Mathematician who makes optimization work in the real world.

Ingrid Daubechies

Mathematician whose wavelets help compress images and sound.

Fan Chung

Mathematician who studies the math of networks and graphs.

Joan Birman

Mathematician who unravels the math of knots and braids.

Sylvia Bozeman

Mathematician and mentor opening doors for women in math.

Talitha Washington

Applied mathematician connecting math, biology, and data science.

Tatiana Toro

Mathematician studying the geometry of complicated shapes.

Carlos Castillo-Chavez

Mathematician who models how diseases spread.

Richard Tapia

Mathematician and champion for diversity in science.

Federico Ardila

Combinatorics expert who blends math, music, and community.

Pamela Harris

Combinatorialist and advocate for underrepresented mathematicians.

Manjul Bhargava

Number theorist and Fields Medalist inspired by patterns.

Persi Diaconis

Magician-turned-mathematician who studies the math of randomness.

Ron Graham

Mathematician, juggler, and master of huge numbers.

Stephen Smale

Fields Medalist who explored shapes in high dimensions.

Cathleen Morawetz

Applied mathematician who studied the math of waves.

Raymond Johnson

Mathematician and trailblazer in partial differential equations.

Scott Williams

Topologist who celebrates Black achievement in mathematics.

Freeman Hrabowski

Mathematician and educator who builds future scientists.

Jean Taylor

Mathematician who proved the geometry of soap bubbles.

Erica Walker

Researcher who studies how students learn and love math.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Street artist turned painter who blended words, symbols, and raw energy.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painter of giant flowers and wide desert landscapes.

Jacob Lawrence

Painter who told African American history in bold, colorful series.

Faith Ringgold

Artist who turned quilts into storytelling canvases.

Augusta Savage

Harlem Renaissance sculptor and devoted art teacher.

Romare Bearden

Collage master who pieced together scenes of Black American life.

Maya Lin

Designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at just 21 years old.

Ansel Adams

Photographer of America's dramatic black-and-white landscapes.

Norman Rockwell

Illustrator who painted warm scenes of everyday American life.

Walt Disney

Animation pioneer who brought cartoons and theme parks to life.

Jim Henson

Creator of the Muppets who reinvented puppetry for television.

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

Author-illustrator whose playful rhymes taught millions to read.

Andy Warhol

Pop artist who turned soup cans and celebrities into icons.

Jackson Pollock

Painter who dripped and poured paint to create energetic abstracts.

Keith Haring

Pop artist whose bold figures spread messages of love and hope.

LGBTQ+ Innovators

Alma Thomas

Teacher and painter of joyful, colorful abstract patterns.

Elizabeth Catlett

Sculptor and printmaker who honored working people and women.

Gordon Parks

Photographer and filmmaker who documented life with a camera.

Kara Walker

Artist whose dramatic silhouettes confront American history.

Kehinde Wiley

Painter of grand portraits that reimagine who gets remembered.

Amy Sherald

Portrait painter who gave Michelle Obama her official portrait.

Dorothea Lange

Documentary photographer of the Great Depression.

Judith Baca

Muralist who turned city walls into community history lessons.

Carmen Lomas Garza

Painter who celebrates everyday Mexican American family life.

Jesús Moroles

Sculptor who shaped massive granite into flowing forms.

T. C. Cannon

Native American painter who mixed bold color with modern style.

Native American Heritage

Maria Martinez

Pueblo potter famous for her shiny black-on-black pottery.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Painter who blends maps, words, and Native American history.

Allan Houser

Chiricahua Apache sculptor of graceful modern forms.

Native American Heritage

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architect who designed buildings in harmony with nature.

Louis Comfort Tiffany

Designer famous for glowing stained-glass lamps and windows.

Alexander Calder

Inventor of the mobile, sculptures that move with the air.

Louise Nevelson

Sculptor who built walls of found objects painted one color.

Art1800s

Mary Cassatt

American Impressionist known for tender mother-and-child scenes.

Edward Hopper

Painter of quiet, lonely scenes of modern American life.

Grant Wood

Painter of rural America and the famous 'American Gothic.'

Ray Eames

Designer who shaped modern furniture, film, and exhibits.

Charles Eames

Designer of beloved modern chairs and creative films.

Paul Rand

Graphic designer behind iconic company logos.

Saul Bass

Designer who reinvented movie titles and famous logos.

Milton Glaser

Designer of the famous 'I ❤ NY' logo.

Tyrus Wong

Artist whose paintings inspired the look of Disney's 'Bambi.'

Isamu Noguchi

Sculptor and designer who blended art with gardens and furniture.

Ruth Asawa

Sculptor of airy, looping wire forms and art teacher.

Chuck Jones

Animator behind Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and more.

Stan Lee

Comics writer who co-created many famous superheroes.

Jack Kirby

Comics artist who drew dynamic, powerful superheroes.

Julie Mehretu

Painter of huge, layered abstracts full of lines and maps.

Shepard Fairey

Street artist behind the 'OBEY' and 'HOPE' images.

Mary Blair

Disney artist who brought bold color to classic films and rides.