American astronomer J. Allen Hynek is best known for investigations of unidentified flying objects and efforts to promote "ufology" as a legitimate scientific pursuit.

Stephen Hawking was a scientist known for his work with black holes and relativity, and the author of popular science books like 'A Brief History of Time.'

Larry Page is an internet entrepreneur and computer scientist who teamed up with grad school buddy Sergey Brin to launch the search engine Google in 1998.

Alice Ball was an African American chemist who developed the first successful treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy).

Jane Goodall created one of the most trailblazing studies of primates in modern times when she dwelled with Tanzanian chimps to observe their behavior.

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice. Her efforts with her husband Pierre led to the discovery of polonium and radium, and she championed the development of X-rays.

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States. She became a leading public health activist during her lifetime.

Florence Nightingale was a trailblazing figure in nursing who greatly affected 19th- and 20th-century policies around proper care. She was known for her night rounds to aid the wounded, establishing her image as the 'Lady with the Lamp.'

Mathematician Mary Jackson was one of a small group of African American women who worked as aeronautical engineers, called "human computers," at NASA during the Space Age.

Dorothy Johnson Vaughan worked as a mathematician on the SCOUT Launch Vehicle Program that sent America’s first satellites into space.

Daniel Hale Williams was one of the first physicians to perform open-heart surgery in the United States and founded a hospital with an interracial staff.

African American chemist Percy Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs such as cortisone, steroids and birth control pills.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist who hosted 'NOVA ScienceNow' and makes media appearances to encourage science and space exploration.

Earnest Everett Just was an African-American biologist and educator best known for his pioneering work in the physiology of development, especially in fertilization.

Henrietta Lacks is best known as the source of cells that form the HeLa line, used extensively in medical research since the 1950s.

Marie M. Daly is best known for being the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States.

Ralph Bunche was a Nobel Peace Prize–winning academic and U.N. diplomat known for his peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean.

Prussian physician Robert Koch is best known for isolating the bacterium which causes tuberculosis, the cause of numerous deaths in the mid-19th century.

Charles Darwin was a British naturalist who developed a theory of evolution based on natural selection. His views and “social Darwinism” remain controversial.

Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was instrumental in establishing the concept of a heliocentric solar system, in which the sun, rather than the earth, is the center of the solar system.

Biologist Alfred Kinsey wrote Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which was based on research he and his colleagues conducted at the Institute for Sex Research.

Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who discovered the basic principles of heredity through experiments in his garden. Mendel's observations became the foundation of modern genetics and the study of heredity, and he is widely considered a pioneer in the field of genetics.

George Washington Carver was an African American scientist and educator. Carver is famous for many inventions including a number of uses for the peanut.

James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.