Ruth A. David

Credited with encouraging the CIA to pursue partnerships with the private sector, Ruth A. David also designed a proposal to procure technology at the stage of development from private industry. Her work earned...

Charles Ingerham Peddle

Main designer of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, the KIM-1 SBC, and the Commodore PET personal computer, Peddle was an American electrical engineer. Born in Bangor, Maine, he worked in a radio...

David Andrew Patterson

One of the innovators of Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID), Patterson is an American computer pioneer and academic. A native of Evergreen Park, Illinois, he attended UCLA, receiving his B.A. in...

Jonathan J. Rubinstein

Instrumental in the development of the iPod, Rubinstein is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer who played a central role in creating the portable music and video device first sold by...

Jozef Gruska

A pioneer in the theory of quantum computing and organizing activities in the field, Gruska graduated in mathematics from Commenius University in Bratislava and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the...

Francis (Fran) O. Underwood

Chief Architect of the IBM 1401, known as the SPACE Machine, Underwood was an engineer, machine designer, and engineering trainer for IBM. Born in Omaha, NE, he came from a line of...

Johannes Georg Bednorz

Co-discoverer, with K. Alex Müller, of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics, Bednorz shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics for this breakthrough. He was born in Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany to elementary-school teacher...

Peter Elias

Known for introducing convolutional codes and establishing the binary erasure channel, Elias also contributed fundamental new concepts and techniques to source coding. His widely cited 1975 paper introduced universal representations of the...

Peter Andreas Grunberg

Peter Andreas Grunberg discovered the Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, which is the basis of all modern magnetic read/write heads. He received the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for this groundbreaking contribution.

Giovanni Poleni

Builder of the first pinwheel design calculating clock, Poleni was a pioneer of mechanical computation. Made of wood, his calculating clock was built in 1709; he destroyed it after hearing that Antonius...

Robert E. Cook

Founder of VM Software (later renamed Systems Center), a provider of software utilities for IBM's VM operating system, Cook built his first company into a firm listed on both the Nasdaq and...

David Michael Ungar

Co-creator of the Self programming language, Ungar developed the prototype-based, object-oriented language with Randall Smith in 1986 while working at Xerox PARC. He described himself as "an out-of-the-box thinker who enjoys the...

Chien-Shiung Wu

Renowned for conducting the Wu experiment, which proved that parity is not conserved, Wu was a Chinese-American particle and experimental physicist whose work reshaped nuclear and particle physics. Her discovery led directly...

Frank Marion Wanlass

Inventor of the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), the technology employed in most modern microchips, Wanlass transformed electronics with a discovery that now touches nearly every digital device. A native of Utah, Wanlass...

Audrey A. Helffrich

Leader of the hardware strategy for IBM's early 1990s transition from bipolar to CMOS microprocessors on its largest mainframes, Helffrich is credited with helping to save the mainframe and keeping the Poughkeepsie...

Richard (Dick) Hedger

Participant in the System 38 and AS/400 Operating System development management teams at IBM Rochester, Hedger brings over 40 years of experience in broad software development, software project management, quality management, and...

Katherine (Kathy) Anne Yelick

Co-inventor of Unified Parallel C (UPC), a programming language extension designed for high-performance computing on large-scale parallel machines, Yelick is an internationally recognized expert in high performance computing. Yelick has served as a...

Karlheinz Brandenburg

Inventor of the MP3 data format, Brandenburg developed the audio compression format together with other researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute at Erlangen. He has served as a Professor at the Technical University...

Matthew J. Szulik

Former Chairman of Red Hat, Szulik led several other technology companies, including Interleaf and MapInfo, for more than 20 years. He has also held the titles of chief executive officer and president...

Robert (Bob) E. Lorenzini

Co-designer and developer of a crystal growing furnace, Lorenzini joined Rheem Semiconductor in 1960, the first spin-off from Fairchild Semiconductor, where he was involved in the design and development of that furnace....