Showing 1 - 25 of 79 results

Elias Howe
Sewing Machine
Elias Howe invented the first practical sewing machine. Born in Spencer, Massachusetts, he spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts…

Henry Ford
Transmission Mechanism
Pioneering automotive engineer Henry Ford held many patents on automotive mechanisms. He is best remembered, however, for helping devise the factory…

Gideon Sundback
Modern Zipper
Swedish-born engineer Gideon Sundback improved on Whitcomb Judson's work, making the zipper practical and commercially successful. Today, thousands…

Rebecca Richards-Kortum
Medical Devices for Low-Resource Settings
Rebecca Richards-Kortum develops low-cost, high-performance medical technologies for poor communities where standard medical equipment isn't an…

Radia Perlman
Robust Network Routing and Bridging
Radia Perlman has played a major role in driving the growth and development of the internet. Her best-known contribution is the Spanning Tree…

Emmanuelle Charpentier
CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing
Microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and biochemist Jennifer Doudna co-invented the gene-editing system CRISPR-Cas9, a versatile technology for…

Ming-Jun Li
Bend-Insensitive Optical Fiber
Ming-Jun Li, Dana Bookbinder and Pushkar Tandon invented bend-insensitive optical fiber. This technology can bend without causing significant signal…
Mary-Dell Chilton
Transgenic Plant
Mary-Dell Chilton is one of the founders of modern plant biotechnology. She led the research team that produced the first transgenic, or genetically…

Philippe Horvath
CRISPR-Enhanced Food Products
Molecular biologists Philippe Horvath and Rodolphe Barrangou discovered that CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and…

Jan Ernst Matzeliger
Shoe-Lasting Machine
Jan Matzeliger invented the automatic shoe-lasting machine, mechanizing the complex process of joining a shoe sole to its upper, and revolutionizing…

Barney Graham
Structure-Based Vaccine Design
Immunologist and virologist Barney Graham and structural biologist Jason McLellan used structure-based vaccine design to stabilize and modify surface…

Virginia Norwood
Multispectral Scanner
Virginia Norwood invented the Multispectral Scanner (MSS), the first in a series of satellite-based instruments that have been continuously imaging…

Margaret E. Knight
Machine for Making Flat-Bottom Paper Bags
Margaret Knight invented a machine that could automatically cut, fold and glue flat-bottomed paper bags. Her revolutionary invention enabled the mass…

Norbert Rillieux
Automated Sugar Refining
Considered one of the earliest chemical engineers, Norbert Rillieux revolutionized the sugar industry when he invented a refining process,…

Joseph Muhler
Stannous Fluoride Toothpaste
During the early 1940s, when dentist and biochemist Joseph Muhler was an Indiana University undergraduate, he began studying fluoride and tooth decay…

J. Paul Hogan
High-Density Polyethylene and Polypropylene Plastics
Paul Hogan was working with Robert Banks at Phillips Petroleum in 1951 when they invented crystalline polypropylene and a breakthrough process for…

Herbert M. Strong
Diamond Synthesis
Herbert Strong, along with Tracy Hall, Francis Bundy, and Robert Wentorf, synthesized diamonds as part of Project Superpressure, as announced by the…

Mary Florence Potts
Cold-Handle Sad Iron
Mary Florence Potts invented an improved sad iron, which was lighter and offered a cooler, more ergonomic handle. Beginning in the 1870s, it was…

John Ericsson
Screw Propeller
John Ericsson invented the ship propeller and incorporated the landmark device into his design for the Civil War ironclad the Monitor. Born in the…

Charles Jenkins
Motion Picture Projector
Charles Jenkins was an innovator of early cinema and one of the first inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic…

Nils I. Bohlin
Safety Belt
Nils Bohlin, while with Volvo, invented the three-point safety belt, a standard in the modern automobile. Early tests showed that the belt was…

Frank Whittle
Jet Engine
By 1929, Frank Whittle had conceptualized the turbojet engine. The 1930s, however, proved challenging as he sought financial support and interest…

Andrew J. Moyer
Method for Production of Penicillin
Andrew J. Moyer's discoveries provided the foundation for the industrial production of penicillin. Born in Star City, Indiana, Moyer received his A.B…

David Crosthwait
Heating and Ventilation System Design
David Crosthwait was a pioneer in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) industry. He devoted his career, which included groundbreaking…

Graham J. Durant
Tagamet - Cimetidine
Graham John Durant, John Emmett, and Robin Ganellin led the SmithKline Beecham Corporation's research team that discovered the H2 receptor class of…