A pioneer in early hormonal and reproductive research, Gregory Pincus and his team of scientists are credited with formulating the first oral contraceptive for birth control.
1903-1967
1733-1804
Czech experimental physiologist Johannes Purkinje discovered the Purkinje effect, Purkinje cells and Purkinje fibers and first introduced the term protoplasm.
1787-1869
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish histologist and professor whose work led to the discovery of neurons.
1852-1934
1851-1902
Chemist, sanitation engineer, and home economist Ellen Richards opened scientific education and professions to women when she started teaching at MIT in 1884.
1842-1911
In 1983, astronaut and astrophysicist Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger. Ride died on July 23, 2012 at the age of 61, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
1951-2012
1779-1869
Al Roker is a television personality, a weatherman for NBC's Today show, and a nine-time Emmy winner.
1954-
1908-2005
Physicist Ernest Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity who led the exploration of nuclear physics.
1871-1937
1845-1923
1871-1953
1933-
1934-1996
Jonas Salk was an American physician and medical researcher who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for polio.
1914-1995
1918-
Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics.
1887-1961
William Shockley was an engineer and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his development of the transistor.
1910-1989
1943-2005
Roger W. Sperry was a 20th century scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on brain hemispheres.
1913-1994
1915-1980
A student of such famed physicists as Albert Einstein and Max Planck, Leo Szilard was key in getting the United States to work on the atomic bomb.
1898-1964
1800-1877
1909-1975
1915-2005
American radio astronomer and physicist Joseph H. Taylor Jr. was the co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the first binary pulsar.
1941-
1903-1982
J.J. Thomson was a Nobel Prize winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.
1856-1940
1824-1907
1837-1923
J. Craig Venter is a scientist and businessperson whose gene-sequencing process led to a decoding of the human genome.
1946-
Rudolf Virchow was a German pathologist and statesman, widely credited for his advancements in public health, particularly with his cell theory.
1821-1902
Wernher von Braun was a German engineer who worked on rocket technology, first for Germany and then for the United States.
1912-1977
1947-
J. Robin Warren is a Nobel Prize-winning pathologist who, with Barry J. Marshall, identified the bacteria that causes ulcers.
1937-
James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.
1928-
1933-
James West is an American inventor who developed the foil electret microphone, now used in 90 percent of all contemporary microphones, in 1962.
1931-
1846-1914
1906-2004
Jeffrey Wigand became famous in the 1990s when he took public his knowledge that cigarette companies had tried to conceal the dangers of smoking.
1942-
Harvey Washington Wiley was an American chemist known as the "Father of the FDA." Throughout much of his career, Wiley campaigned for reforms in food manufacturing and in food labeling.
1844-1930
1929-
1936-
Rosalyn S. Yalow was a Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist who conducted groundbreaking research on type II diabetes.
1921-
1922-
1946-