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Chemists

25 people, across 5 fields.

George Washington Carver 1864–1943Environment, Agriculture & FoodAgricultural scientist whose research on crop rotation and alternative crops transformed Southern farming.Gordon Moore 1929–2023Technology & InventionCo-founder of Intel whose observation became Moore's Law, driving decades of semiconductor progress.Linus Pauling 1901–1994Science & MathematicsChemist and peace activist who won two unshared Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace.Jennifer Doudna b. 1964Science & MathematicsBiochemist who co-developed CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, revolutionizing genetics and medicine.Glenn T. Seaborg 1912–1999Science & MathematicsCo-discovered plutonium and nine other transuranium elements and chaired the Atomic Energy Commission.Edwin Land 1909–1991Technology & InventionScientist and co-founder of Polaroid who invented instant photography.Katalin Karikó b. 1955Medicine & Public HealthBiochemist whose work on modified messenger RNA enabled highly effective mRNA vaccines and new therapeutic platforms.Charles W. Eliot 1834–1926EducationRebuilt Harvard into the first modern American research university and gave undergraduates the elective system.Charles David Keeling 1928–2005Science & MathematicsMeasured atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa from 1958 until his death, producing the Keeling Curve.Harold Urey 1893–1981Science & MathematicsDiscovered deuterium and founded cosmochemistryJames Bryant Conant 1893–1978EducationPresident of Harvard, chairman of the wartime NDRC, and champion of the SATSelman Waksman 1888–1973Medicine & Public HealthRan the soil-screening programme that produced streptomycin, the first effective treatment for tuberculosis.Charles Goodyear 1800–1860Technology & InventionSelf-taught chemist who discovered the vulcanization process that made rubber commercially viable.Stanley Miller 1930–2007Science & MathematicsThe 1953 experiment that made amino acids from a simulated early atmosphereJames Smithson 1765–1829Science & MathematicsBritish scientist whose bequest founded the Smithsonian Institution, America's museum complex.Josiah Willard Gibbs 1839–1903Science & MathematicsFounded chemical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics through his work on heterogeneous equilibrium at Yale.Harvey Washington Wiley 1844–1930Environment, Agriculture & FoodChemist whose adulteration studies produced the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the agency that became the FDA.Percy Lavon Julian 1899–1975Science & MathematicsPioneered synthesis of cortisone and other steroids from plant sterols.Frances Arnold b. 1956Science & MathematicsChemical engineer who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for directed evolution of enzymes.Stephanie Kwolek 1923–2014Science & MathematicsInvented Kevlar aramid fiber while working as a DuPont research chemist.Gerty Cori 1896–1957Medicine & Public HealthBiochemist and first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science, honored for discoveries about carbohydrate metabolism.Wallace Carothers 1896–1937Science & MathematicsLed the DuPont research that produced neoprene and nylon and established polymer science.Gertrude B. Elion 1918–1999Medicine & Public HealthPharmacologist whose rational drug-design work produced treatments for leukemia, infections, gout, and organ rejection.Willard Libby 1908–1980Science & MathematicsDeveloped radiocarbon dating — transforming archaeology and geology — and won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.Peggy Whitson b. 1960Exploration, Aviation & SpaceNASA astronaut who holds the American record for most cumulative days in space.