Leonardo Torres y Quevedo

Pioneer in remote control technology, Torres y Quevedo developed the Telekino — a robot that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves — presenting it at the Paris Academy of Science in 1903. A...

James Waddell Alexander II

Founder of cohomology theory, Alexander was also a pioneer in algebraic topology who contributed to the beginnings of knot theory by defining the first of the polynomial knot invariants. He was an American...

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Co-founder of CERN and Nobel laureate in Physics, Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist born into a traditional Jewish family in Rymanów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland), and was brought to the United...

Francis Wilton Reichelderfer

Instrumental in bringing modern computerized technology to weather forecasting, Reichelderfer presided over a revolutionary era in the history of the National Weather Service. From 1938 to 1963, he guided the organization through...

Charles Galton Darwin

Known for assisting Henry Moseley on X-ray diffraction, Darwin was an English physicist and the grandson of Charles Darwin who also served as Director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the...

William Seward Burroughs

Inventor of the adding machine, Burroughs was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. An American inventor, born in Rochester, New York, the son of a mechanic, he worked with...

David Hilbert

One of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, Hilbert's work laid the basis for recursion theory and later theoretical computer science. He was recognized as one of the most influential...

Christopher Latham Sholes

Inventor of the QWERTY keyboard and one of the first practical typewriters, Sholes transformed written communication. Born in Mooresburg, Pennsylvania, he moved to nearby Danville as a teenager, where he worked as...

Jagadish Chandra Bose

Named by IEEE as one of the fathers of radio science, Bose pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations of...

Arnold A. Cohen

Developer of selectively alterable digital storage on magnetic drums, Cohen held a patent that proved basic to the field. Born in Duluth, MN, he was a renowned physicist noted for his significant...

Allan Marquand

Builder of a mechanical logical machine that is still extant, Marquand is described as having created "…mills into which the premises are fed and which turn out the conclusions by the revolution...

Martin Wiberg

Inventor of a machine that could print logarithmic tables, Wiberg is known as a computer pioneer for his 1875 invention of a device the size of a sewing machine. The tables were...

Francis (Frank) E. Hamilton

Responsible for the primary organization, design, and construction of the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Mark I) and the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), Hamilton was a pivotal figure in early computing....

Ruth Teitelbaum (née Lichterman)

One of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer, Teitelbaum played a pivotal role in the rise of computers. She graduated from Hunter College with a B.Sc. in Mathematics and was hired...

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege

Considered one of the founders of modern logic, Frege made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. As a philosopher, he is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for...

Arnold Meyer Spielberg

Inventor of the first computer-controlled point-of-sale cash register, Spielberg is recognized as a pioneer in the computer industry, credited with a number of breakthroughs during his professional career, among them early guidance...

Federico Luigi Conte Menabrea

Author of the landmark 1842 "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, Esq." — translated and annotated by Ada Lovelace — which described many aspects of computer architecture and programming,...

John C. Freeman

Co-developer of numerical models used in making the first successful computer weather forecasts, Freeman is recognized as a pioneer whose work made today's computer models for weather prediction possible. A native Houstonian and...

Edvard Georg Raphael Scheutz

Co-developer of the Scheutzian calculation engine that produced the first tables calculated and printed by machinery, Scheutz made pioneering contributions to mechanical computation alongside his father, Pehr George Scheutz. He began his...

Mary Lee Woods (aka Berners-Lee)

Member of the team that developed programs for the Manchester University Mark 1, Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers, Woods was a British mathematician and computer programmer who was married...