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Learn About Famous Inventors Who Have Changed the World

Browse List of Inductees
Browse List of Inductees
Showing 51 - 75 of 86 results

Clair Lake

Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Mark I)

Already a prolific inventor at IBM in May 1939, Clair Lake was chosen to be chief engineer for the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, also…
Inducted in: 2014
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,616,626
Died:
George Heilmeier headshot

George Heilmeier

Electro-Optic Liquid Crystal Device

George Heilmeier discovered four new electro-optic effects in liquid crystals in the 1960s and pioneered the first liquid crystal displays (LCDs)…
Inducted in: 2009
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,499,112
Died:

H. Gene Slottow

Plasma Display

Gene Slottow was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when he worked with fellow faculty member Don Bitzer and graduate…
Inducted in: 2013
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,559,190
Died:

Louis Marius Moyroud

Photo Composing Machine

Louis Marius Moyroud and Rene Higonnet developed the first practical phototypesetting machine. This, along with Merganthaler's Linotype machine, is…
Inducted in: 1985
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,790,362
Died:

William A. Goddard

Magnetic Disk Drive

William Goddard and John Lynott, together with Louis Stevens and a team of engineers, invented a unique magnetic disk storage device at the IBM Lab…
Inducted in: 2007
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,503,060
Died:

Ching Wan Tang

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED)

Chemists Ching Wan Tang and Steven Van Slyke pioneered the organic light emitting diode, or OLED, an advance in flat-panel displays found in…
Inducted in: 2018
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,356,429
National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee C. Donald Bateman

C. Donald Bateman

Ground Proximity Warning System

C. Donald Bateman invented the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS), one of a series of innovations he developed to dramatically improve aircraft…
Inducted in: 2005
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,922,637
Died:

Dawon Kahng

MOSFET

Dawon Kahng was an inventor of the first practical field-effect transistor, a device that controls electronic signals by switching them on or off or…
Inducted in: 2009
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,102,230
Died:

Jacob Rabinow

Optical Character Reading

Jacob Rabinow invented machines that could recognize text, making it possible to automate vast amounts of routine work formerly done by hand. A…
Inducted in: 2005
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,933,246
Died:
Edmund Schweitzer

Edmund O. Schweitzer III

Digital Protective Relay

Edmund O. Schweitzer III invented the first microprocessor-based digital protective relay, revolutionizing the performance of electric power systems…
Inducted in: 2019
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,300,182

James L. Fergason

Liquid Crystal Display

James Fergason held a series of patents that form the foundation of the multi-billion dollar LCD industry which has been rapidly growing since 1971.…
Inducted in: 1998
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,731,986
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army

Ross Freeman

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)

Ross Freeman invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA), a computer chip full of "open gates" that engineers can reprogram as much as needed…
Inducted in: 2009
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,870,302
Died:
John Pierce headshot

John Pierce

Communications Satellite

John Pierce invented the first communications satellite, enabling radio waves to bounce from one ground-based station to another. Pierce learned from…
Inducted in: 2003
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,719,188
Died:
Robert H. Willson headshot

Robert H. Willson

Plasma Display

While a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Robert Willson and faculty members Don Bitzer and Gene Slottow suggested…
Inducted in: 2013
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,559,190

Amos Joel, Jr.

Mobile Communication System

Amos Joel pioneered the system for cell phones of switching communication links from one cell region to another in response to movement, while…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,663,762
Died:

Eli Harari

Floating Gate EEPROM

Eli Harari invented the Floating Gate EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory). After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton University…
Inducted in: 2017
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 4,115,914, 5,297,148
George E. Smith headshot

George E. Smith

Charge-Coupled Device

Physicists George Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD) while working at Bell Labs in 1969. Smith, working to improve…
Inducted in: 2006
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,858,232
Military Service: U.S. Navy
Stanford R. Ovshinsky headshot

Stanford R. Ovshinsky

Nickel-Metal Hydride Battery

Stanford Ovshinsky was a prolific, self-taught inventor and physicist whose pioneering work in multiple fields had an impact on many aspects of…
Inducted in: 2015
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,623,597
Died:

Steven Van Slyke

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED)

Steven Van Slyke and Ching Wan Tang pioneered the organic light emitting diode, or OLED, an advance in flat-screen displays found in computers, cell…
Inducted in: 2018
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,539,507

Otis Boykin

Electronic Resistors

Otis Boykin's work on improved electrical resistors made possible the steady workings of a wide variety of electrical devices. Variations of his…
Inducted in: 2014
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,891,227
Died:

John Joseph Lynott

Magnetic Disk Drive

John Lynott and William Goddard, together with Louis Stevens and a team of engineers, invented a unique magnetic disk storage device at the IBM Lab…
Inducted in: 2007
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,503,060
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Navy

Harold Stephen Black

Negative Feedback Amplifier

Research engineer Harold S. Black revolutionized telecommunications by inventing systems that eliminated feedback distortion in telephone calls. Born…
Inducted in: 1981
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,102,671
Died:

Willis Whitfield

Clean Room

Willis Whitfield invented the clean room in 1962 at Sandia National Laboratories. To solve problems of dust particles causing reliability and quality…
Inducted in: 2014
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,158,457
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Navy
Frank Wanlass

Frank Wanlass

Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)

Frank Wanlass invented the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), the technology employed in most modern microchips. Wanlass joined…
Inducted in: 2009
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,356,858
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army

John T. Parsons

Numerical Control

John Parsons changed the control of machines and industrial processes from an imprecise craft to an exact science, spawning a second industrial…
Inducted in: 1993
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,820,187
Died: