100 Notable alumni of
California Institute of Technology
Updated:
California Institute of Technology is 154th in the world, 69th in North America, and 66th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from California Institute of Technology sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 19 individuals affiliated with California Institute of Technology won Nobel Prizes for Peace, in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine.
-
Howard Hughes
- Occupations
- film producerentrepreneuraerospace engineerproduceraircraft pilot
- Biography
-
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was an American aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, investor, philanthropist, and pilot. He was best known during his lifetime as one of the richest and most influential people in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.
-
Richard Feynman
- Occupations
- quantum physicistpercussionistauthorscience communicatorwriter
- Biography
-
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as his work in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.
-
Bob Lazar
- Occupations
- physicistwriterconferencierentrepreneur
- Biography
-
Robert Scott Lazar is an American conspiracy theorist who claims he was hired in the late 1980s to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology. This work supposedly occurred at a secret site called "S-4", a subsidiary installation allegedly located several kilometers south of the United States Air Force facility popularly known as Area 51.
-
Linus Pauling
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954
- Nobel Peace Prize in 1962
- Born in
-
United States - Years
- 1901-1994 (aged 93)
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1925 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in physical chemistry and mathematical physics
- Occupations
- crystallographerbiochemistuniversity teacherphysicistchemist
- Biography
-
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger and Karl Barry Sharpless). Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.
-
Charlie Munger
- Occupations
- investor
- Biography
-
Charles Thomas Munger was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett; Buffett described Munger as his closest partner and right-hand man. Munger served as chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He was also chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.
-
Frank Capra
- Occupations
- film producertrade unionistproducerscreenwriterdirector
- Biography
-
Frank Russell Capra was an Italian-American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the "American Dream personified".
-
Donald Knuth
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 1960-1963 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics
- Occupations
- writerengineermathematicianuniversity teacheracademic
- Biography
-
Donald Ervin Knuth is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer science. Knuth has been called the "father of the analysis of algorithms".
-
Ahmed Zewail
- Occupations
- physicistinventoruniversity teacherchemist
- Biography
-
Ahmed Hassan Zewail was an Egyptian and American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry". He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Egyptian and Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field, and the second African to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry, a professor of physics, and the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology.
-
Kip S. Thorne
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1962 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistwriteruniversity teacherastronomer
- Biography
-
Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. Along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
-
Benoit Mandelbrot
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 1947-1949 graduated with Master of Science in aeronautics
- Occupations
- computer scientistwritermathematicianuniversity teacherscientist
- Biography
-
Benoit B. Mandelbrot was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of physical phenomena and "the uncontrolled element in life". He referred to himself as a "fractalist" and is recognized for his contribution to the field of fractal geometry, which included coining the word "fractal", as well as developing a theory of "roughness and self-similarity" in nature.
-
Gordon Moore
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- entrepreneurphysicistphilanthropistchemistengineer
- Biography
-
Gordon Earle Moore was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years.
-
Qian Xuesen
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 1936-1939 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- university teacherastronautical engineerengineer
- Biography
-
Qian Xuesen was a Chinese aerospace engineer and cyberneticist who made significant contributions to the field of aerodynamics and established engineering cybernetics.
-
Thomas Hunt Morgan
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1866-1945 (aged 79)
- Occupations
- university teacherphysiologistevolutionary biologistbiologistgeneticist
- Biography
-
Thomas Hunt Morgan was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that the chromosome plays in heredity.
-
Frank Oppenheimer
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- physicistnuclear physicistrancherteacher
- Biography
-
Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
-
William Shockley
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1932 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicistinventor
- Biography
-
William Bradford Shockley Jr. was an American inventor, physicist, and eugenicist. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".
-
Frank Borman
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Graduated with Master of Science
- Occupations
- aerospace engineertest pilotastronautaircraft pilotautobiographer
- Biography
-
Frank Frederick Borman II was an American United States Air Force (USAF) colonel, aeronautical engineer, NASA astronaut, test pilot, and businessman. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, and together with crewmates Jim Lovell and William Anders, became the first of 24 humans to do so, for which he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
-
Harrison Schmitt
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teacherscientistastronautgeologist
- Biography
-
Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person—and only person without a background in military aviation—to have walked on the Moon.
-
David Bohm
- Occupations
- physicistnuclear physicistuniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
-
David Joseph Bohm was an American–Brazilian–British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. Among his many contributions to physics is his causal and deterministic interpretation of quantum theory known as De Broglie–Bohm theory.
-
John McCarthy
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1948 graduated with Bachelor of Science in mathematics
- Occupations
- computer scientistartificial intelligence researcheruniversity teacherengineermathematician
- Biography
-
John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He was one of the founders of the discipline of artificial intelligence. He co-authored the document that coined the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), developed the programming language family Lisp, significantly influenced the design of the language ALGOL, popularized time-sharing, and invented garbage collection.
-
Stephen Wolfram
- Occupations
- artificial intelligence researchermathematicianopinion journalistphysicistpodcaster
- Biography
-
Stephen Wolfram is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
-
Robert A. Millikan
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Robert Andrews Millikan was an American experimental physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect.
-
Murray Gell-Mann
- Occupations
- physicisttheoretical physicistresearchernon-fiction writer
- Biography
-
Murray Gell-Mann was an American physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the fundamental building blocks of the strongly interacting particles, and the renormalization group as a foundational element of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. He played key roles in developing the concept of chirality in the theory of the weak interactions and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the strong interactions, which controls the physics of the light mesons. In the 1970s he was a co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which explains the confinement of quarks in mesons and baryons and forms a large part of the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces.
-
John C. Lilly
- Occupations
- pseudoscientistcetologistpsychotherapistpsychiatristwriter
- Biography
-
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor. He was a member of a group of counterculture thinkers that included Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and Werner Erhard, all frequent visitors to the Lilly home. He often stirred controversy, especially among mainstream scientists.
-
Harry Turtledove
- Occupations
- novelistscience fiction writerhistorianwriter
- Biography
-
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his PhD in Byzantine history. His dissertation was on the period AD 565–582. He lives in Southern California.
-
Fei-Fei Li
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Studied in 2000-2001
- 2001-2005 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- computer scientistuniversity teacherinternational forum participant
- Biography
-
Fei-Fei Li is a China-born American computer scientist, known for establishing ImageNet, the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s. She is Sequoia Capital professor of computer science at Stanford University and former board director at Twitter. Li is a co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and a co-director of the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab. She served as the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 2013 to 2018.
-
Erdal İnönü
- Occupations
- diplomatphysicistuniversity teacheracademicpolitician
- Biography
-
Erdal İnönü was a Turkish theoretical physicist and politician who served as the interim prime minister of Turkey between 16 May and 25 June 1993. He also served as the deputy prime minister of Turkey from 1991 to 1993 and as the minister of foreign affairs from March to October 1995. He served as the leader of the Social Democracy Party (SODEP) from 1983 to 1985 and later the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP) from 1986 to 1993. He was the son of the second president of Turkey, İsmet İnönü.
-
Frances Arnold
- Occupations
- university teacherbiochemistinventorengineerinternational forum participant
- Biography
-
Frances Hamilton Arnold is an American chemical engineer and Nobel Laureate. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the use of directed evolution to engineer enzymes.
-
Eugene Merle Shoemaker
- Occupations
- astronomergeologist
- Biography
-
Eugene Merle Shoemaker was an American geologist. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. This comet hit Jupiter in July 1994: the impact was televised around the world. Shoemaker also studied terrestrial craters, such as Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and along with Edward Chao provided the first conclusive evidence of its origin as an impact crater. He was also the first director of the United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Research Program.
-
Adam D'Angelo
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
-
Adam D'Angelo is an American internet entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as the co-founder and CEO of Quora, based in Mountain View, California.
-
Andrea M. Ghez
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1992 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- astronomermathematicianuniversity teacherscientist
- Biography
-
Andrea Mia Ghez is an American astrophysicist, Nobel laureate, and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
-
Robert L. Behnken
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1997 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- astronautengineermilitary officer
- Biography
-
Robert Louis Behnken is an American engineer, a former NASA astronaut, and former Chief of the Astronaut Office.
-
David Brin
- Occupations
- physicistscience fiction writernovelistastronomerwriter
- Biography
-
Glen David Brin is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted into a 1997 feature film starring Kevin Costner.
-
Pierre Clostermann
- Occupations
- French Resistance fighterwriterpoliticianaircraft pilotengineer
- Biography
-
Pierre-Henri Clostermann DSO, DFC & Bar was a World War II French ace fighter pilot.
-
Herman Kahn
- Occupations
- futuristlobbyistmathematician
- Biography
-
Herman Kahn was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theorist while employed at the RAND Corporation. He analyzed the likely consequences of nuclear war and recommended ways to improve survivability during the Cold War. Kahn posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy film satire Dr. Strangelove. In his commentary for Fail Safe, director Sidney Lumet remarked that the Professor Groeteschele character is also based on Herman Kahn. Kahn's theories contributed to the development of the nuclear strategy of the United States.
-
David Ho
- Occupations
- virologistphysician
- Biography
-
David Da-i Ho is a Taiwanese American AIDS researcher, physician, and virologist who has made a number of scientific contributions to the understanding and treatment of HIV infection. He championed for combination anti-retroviral therapy instead of single therapy, which turned HIV from absolute terminal disease into a chronic disease.
-
Robert C. Merton
- Occupations
- economistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Robert Cox Merton is an American economist, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate, and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, known for his pioneering contributions to continuous-time finance, especially the first continuous-time option pricing model, the Black–Scholes–Merton model. In 1997 Merton together with Myron Scholes were awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for the method to determine the value of derivatives.
-
Ivan Sutherland
- Occupations
- computer scientistuniversity teacherprogrammerinventorengineer
- Biography
-
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subject at the University of Utah in the 1970s was pioneering in the field. Sutherland, Evans, and their students from that era developed several foundations of modern computer graphics. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of the Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the National Academy of Sciences among many other major awards. In 2012, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for "pioneering achievements in the development of computer graphics and interactive interfaces".
-
Charles Francis Richter
- Occupations
- geologistseismologistmathematician
- Biography
-
Charles Francis Richter was an American seismologist and physicist. He is the namesake and one of the creators of the Richter magnitude scale, which, until the development of the moment magnitude scale in 1979, was widely used to quantify the size of earthquakes. Inspired by Kiyoo Wadati's 1928 paper on shallow and deep earthquakes, Richter first used the scale in 1935 after developing it in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg; both worked at the California Institute of Technology.
-
Arthur B. McDonald
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Studied in 1965-1969
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Arthur Bruce McDonald, P.Eng is a Canadian astrophysicist. McDonald is the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration and held the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 2006 to 2013. He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Japanese physicist Takaaki Kajita.
-
L. Sprague de Camp
- Occupations
- science fiction writerhistorianwritermilitary officerjournalist
- Biography
-
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.
-
Roger Sperry
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1981
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1913-1994 (aged 81)
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicianphysiologistpsychologistneurologist
- Biography
-
Roger Wolcott Sperry was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist, cognitive neuroscientist, and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work with split-brain research. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Sperry as the 44th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
-
Vernon L. Smith
- Occupations
- economistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Vernon Lomax Smith is an American economist and professor of business economics and law at Chapman University. He was formerly a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, professor of economics and law at George Mason University, and a board member of the Mercatus Center. Along with Daniel Kahneman, Smith shared the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioral economics and his work in the field of experimental economics. He worked to establish 'laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms'.
-
Robert Wilson
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 1957-1962 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- researcherphysicistastronomer
- Biography
-
Robert Woodrow Wilson is an American astronomer who, along with Arno Allan Penzias, discovered cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in 1964. The pair won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for its discovery.
-
John Clauser
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1964 graduated with Bachelor of Science in physics
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
John Francis Clauser is an American theoretical and experimental physicist known for contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics, in particular the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality. Clauser was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".
-
Charles Hard Townes
- Occupations
- physicistinventornuclear physicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Charles Hard Townes was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with both maser and laser devices. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. Townes was an adviser to the United States Government, meeting every US president from Harry S. Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999).
-
Carl David Anderson
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Carl David Anderson was an American physicist. He is best known for his discovery of the positron in 1932, an achievement for which he received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics, and of the muon in 1936.
-
John S. Chen
- Occupations
- chief executive officerbusinessperson
- Biography
-
John S. Chen is a Hong Kong-American businessman who served as executive chairman and chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd. Previously, he served as the chief executive officer and president of Sybase, a software vendor specializing in data management, analytics, and mobility technology.
-
Barry C. Barish
- Occupations
- physicistastrophysicistexperimental physicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.
-
Peter Shor
- Occupations
- computer scientistuniversity teachermathematician
- Biography
-
Peter Williston Shor is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT. He is known for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical computer.
-
Konstantin Batygin
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 2008-2010 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- astrophysicistuniversity teacherastronomerscience communicatorplanetary scientist
- Biography
-
Konstantin Batygin is an American astronomer and Professor of Planetary Sciences at Caltech.
-
Moshe Arens
- Occupations
- writerengineerdiplomatuniversity teacheraerospace engineer
- Biography
-
Moshe Arens was an Israeli aeronautical engineer, researcher, diplomat, and Likud politician. A member of the Knesset between 1973 and 1992 and again from 1999 until 2003, he served as Minister of Defense three times and once as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Arens also served as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and was a professor at the Technion in Haifa.
-
Ardem Patapoutian
- Occupations
- molecular biologistneuroscientist
- Biography
-
Ardem Patapoutian is an Lebanese-American molecular biologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel Prize laureate of Armenian descent. He is known for his work in characterizing the PIEZO1, PIEZO2, and TRPM8 receptors that detect pressure, menthol, and temperature. Patapoutian is a neuroscience professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. In 2021, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius.
-
Max Delbrück
- Occupations
- university teacherbiophysicistphysicistgeneticistastrophysicist
- Biography
-
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.
-
Stanislav Smirnov
- Occupations
- university teachermathematician
- Biography
-
Stanislav Konstantinovich Smirnov is a Russian mathematician currently working as a professor at the University of Geneva. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010. His research involves complex analysis, dynamical systems and probability theory.
-
Mark Adler
- Occupations
- computer scientistphysicistmathematician
- Biography
-
Mark Adler is an American software engineer. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author together with Jean-loup Gailly of the zlib compression library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission.
-
Seth Neddermeyer
- Occupations
- nuclear physicistuniversity teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Seth Henry Neddermeyer was an American physicist who co-discovered the muon, and later championed the implosion-type nuclear weapon while working on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.
-
Amy Mainzer
- Occupations
- astronomerastrophysicist
- Biography
-
Amy Mainzer is an American astronomer, specializing in astrophysical instrumentation and infrared astronomy. She is the deputy project scientist for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and the principal investigator for the NEOWISE project to study minor planets and the Near Earth Object Surveyor space telescope mission.
-
Michael Gazzaniga
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterphysicianneurologistpsychologist
- Biography
-
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the USA, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
-
Serge Lang
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Studied in 1946
- Occupations
- university teachermathematician
- Biography
-
Serge Lang was a French-American mathematician and activist who taught at Yale University for most of his career. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. He received the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in 1960 and was a member of the Bourbaki group.
-
Eugene Parker
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1951 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- physicistastronomerastrophysicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Eugene Newman Parker was an American solar and plasma physicist. In the 1950s he proposed the existence of the solar wind and that the magnetic field in the outer Solar System would be in the shape of a Parker spiral, predictions that were later confirmed by spacecraft measurements. In 1987, Parker proposed the existence of nanoflares, a leading candidate to explain the coronal heating problem.
-
Martin Karplus
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 1950-1953 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry
- Occupations
- biophysicistuniversity teachertheoretical chemistscientistchemist
- Biography
-
Martin Karplus is an Austrian and American theoretical chemist. He is the Director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a joint laboratory between the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Strasbourg, France. He is also the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, emeritus at Harvard University. Karplus received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".
-
Michael Rosbash
- Occupations
- university teachergeneticist
- Biography
-
Michael Morris Rosbash is an American geneticist and chronobiologist. Rosbash is a professor and researcher at Brandeis University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rosbash's research group cloned the Drosophila period gene in 1984 and proposed the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop for circadian clocks in 1990. In 1998, they discovered the cycle gene, clock gene, and cryptochrome photoreceptor in Drosophila through the use of forward genetics, by first identifying the phenotype of a mutant and then determining the genetics behind the mutation. Rosbash was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. Along with Michael W. Young and Jeffrey C. Hall, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".
-
Garrett Reisman
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1997 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- engineerastronaut
- Biography
-
Garrett Erin Reisman is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was a backup crew member for Expedition 15 and joined Expedition 16 aboard the International Space Station for a short time before becoming a member of Expedition 17. He returned to Earth on June 14, 2008 on board STS-124 on Space Shuttle Discovery. He was a member of the STS-132 mission that traveled to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis from May 14 to 26, 2010. He is a consultant at SpaceX and a Professor of Astronautics Practice at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering.
-
Eric Betzig
- Occupations
- chemistphysicist
- Biography
-
Robert Eric Betzig is an American physicist who works as a professor of physics and professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a senior fellow at the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia.
-
Robert H. Grubbs
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacherautobiographer
- Biography
-
Robert Howard Grubbs ForMemRS was an American chemist and the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He was a co-recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on olefin metathesis.
-
Robin Hanson
- Years
- 1959-.. (age 65)
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1997 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- university teachersocial scientisteconomist
- Biography
-
Robin Dale Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known for his work on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute's Foresight Exchange and DARPA's FutureMAP project. He invented market scoring rules like LMSR (Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule) used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson is Chief Scientist), and has conducted research on signalling.
-
David J. C. MacKay
- Occupations
- computer scientistphysicistprofessor
- Biography
-
Sir David John Cameron MacKay was a British physicist, mathematician, and academic. He was the Regius Professor of Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and from 2009 to 2014 was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). MacKay wrote the book Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.
-
Steven E. Koonin
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
Steven Elliot Koonin is an American theoretical physicist and former director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. He is also a professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. From 2004 to 2009, Koonin was employed by BP as the oil and gas company’s Chief Scientist. From 2009 to 2011, he was Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy, in the Obama administration.
-
Joseph Polchinski
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicisttheoretical physicist
- Biography
-
Joseph Gerard Polchinski Jr. was an American theoretical physicist and string theorist.
-
Bernard Carr
- Years
- 1949-.. (age 75)
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
Bernard J. Carr is a British professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London.
-
Robert Tarjan
- Occupations
- computer scientistuniversity teachermathematician
- Biography
-
Robert Endre Tarjan is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is the discoverer of several graph theory algorithms, including his strongly connected components algorithm, and co-inventor of both splay trees and Fibonacci heaps. Tarjan is currently the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University.
-
Cleve Moler
- Occupations
- computer scientistuniversity teacherprogrammerengineermathematician
- Biography
-
Cleve Barry Moler is an American mathematician and computer programmer specializing in numerical analysis. In the mid to late 1970s, he was one of the authors of LINPACK and EISPACK, Fortran libraries for numerical computing. He invented MATLAB, a numerical computing package, to give his students at the University of New Mexico easy access to these libraries without writing Fortran. In 1984, he co-founded MathWorks with Jack Little to commercialize this program.
-
George M. Whitesides
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
George McClelland Whitesides is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology. A prolific author and patent holder who has received many awards, he received the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists in 2011.
-
Donald Arthur Glaser
- Occupations
- physicistneurobiologistuniversity teacherneuroscientistinventor
- Biography
-
Donald Arthur Glaser was an American physicist, neurobiologist, and the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the bubble chamber used in subatomic particle physics.
-
Rudolf Mössbauer
- Occupations
- nuclear physicistuniversity teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer was a German physicist best known for his 1957 discovery of 'recoilless nuclear resonance fluorescence', for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics. This effect, called the Mössbauer effect, is the basis for Mössbauer spectroscopy.
-
Nergis Mavalvala
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistquantum physicist
- Biography
-
Nergis Mavalvala is a Pakistani-American astrophysicist. She is the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is also the dean of the university's school of science. She was previously the Associate Head of the university's Department of Physics. Mavalvala is best known for her work on the detection of gravitational waves in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project, and for the exploration and experimental demonstration of macroscopic quantum effects such as squeezing in optomechanics. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010.
-
Edwin McMillan
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Edwin Mattison McMillan was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg.
-
Don Page
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
Don Nelson Page is an American-born Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta, Canada.
-
William Alfred Fowler
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistuniversity teacherastronomernuclear physicist
- Biography
-
William Alfred Fowler was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his theoretical and experimental research into nuclear reactions within stars and the energy elements produced in the process and was one of the authors of the influential BFH paper.
-
Carolyn Porco
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1983 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in planetary science
- Occupations
- planetary scientistphotographerastronomer
- Biography
-
Carolyn C. Porco is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging science team on the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus.
-
George Zweig
- Occupations
- neuroscientistphysicist
- Biography
-
George Zweig is an American physicist of Jewish origin. He was trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman. He introduced, independently of Murray Gell-Mann, the quark model (although he named it "aces"). He later turned his attention to neurobiology. He has worked as a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in the financial services industry.
-
Alan Lightman
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistwriternovelistscience fiction writer
- Biography
-
Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
-
Arati Prabhakar
- Occupations
- engineerphysicist
- Biography
-
Arati Prabhakar is an American engineer and public official. Since October 3, 2022, she has served as the 12th director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to the President.
-
Howard Temin
- Occupations
- biochemistgeneticistphysicianvirologist
- Biography
-
Howard Martin Temin was an American geneticist and virologist. He discovered reverse transcriptase in the 1970s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Renato Dulbecco and David Baltimore.
-
Alexei Filippenko
- Occupations
- physicistastronomerastrophysicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Alexei Vladimir "Alex" Filippenko is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Filippenko graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1979 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1984, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow. He was a postdoctoral Miller Fellow at Berkeley from 1984 to 1986 and was appointed to Berkeley's faculty in 1986. In 1996 and 2005, he a Miller Research Professor, and he is currently a Senior Miller Fellow. His research focuses on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths, as well as on black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the expansion of the Universe.
-
Trinh Xuan Thuan
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistwriteruniversity teacherastronomer
- Biography
-
Trịnh Xuân Thuận is a Vietnamese-American astrophysicist.
-
Huck Seed
- Occupations
- poker player
- Biography
-
Huckleberry ''Huck'' Seed is an American professional poker player best known for winning the Main Event of the 1996 World Series of Poker.
-
Po-Shen Loh
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
-
Po-Shen Loh is an American mathematician specializing in combinatorics. Loh teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, and formerly served as the national coach of the United States' International Mathematical Olympiad team. He is the founder of educational websites Expii and Live, and lead developer of contact-tracing app NOVID.
-
Rudolph A. Marcus
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Rudolph Arthur Marcus is a Canadian-born U.S. chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems". Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. He is a professor at Caltech, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.
-
Aza Raskin
- Occupations
- entrepreneurcomputer scientist
- Biography
-
Aza Raskin is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and of the Earth Species Project. He is also a writer, entrepreneur, inventor, and interface designer. He is the son of Jef Raskin, a human–computer interface expert who was the initiator of the Macintosh project at Apple.
-
Virgil Griffith
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- 2007-2014 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy
- Occupations
- programmercomputer scientist
- Biography
-
Virgil Griffith, is an American programmer. He worked extensively on the Ethereum cryptocurrency platform, designed the Tor2web proxy along with Aaron Swartz, and created the Wikipedia indexing tool WikiScanner. He has published papers on artificial life and integrated information theory. Griffith was arrested in 2019 and in 2021 pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. laws relating to money laundering using cryptocurrency and sanctions related to North Korea. On April 12, 2022, Griffith was sentenced to 63 months imprisonment for assisting North Korea with evading sanctions and is currently in a federal low-security prison in Pennsylvania.
-
Barton Zwiebach
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicist
- Biography
-
Barton Zwiebach is a Peruvian string theorist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
-
Jay Obernolte
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Jay Phillip Obernolte is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for California's 23rd district since 2021, when it was numbered as the 8th district. A Republican, he was previously a member of the California State Assembly representing the 33rd district. Before serving in the Assembly, Obernolte served on the city council and was the mayor of Big Bear Lake, California. He is the owner, president, and technical director of FarSight Studios, an American video game developer.
-
Pete McCloskey
- Occupations
- politicianlawyermilitary officer
- Biography
-
Paul Norton McCloskey Jr. is an American politician who represented San Mateo County, California as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983.
-
Edward B. Lewis
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1918-2004 (aged 86)
- Occupations
- biologistgeneticistzoologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Edward Butts Lewis was an American geneticist, a corecipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He helped to found the field of evolutionary developmental biology.
-
Regina E. Dugan
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- Studied mechanical engineering
- Occupations
- engineerbusinessperson
- Biography
-
Regina E. Dugan, is an American businesswoman, inventor, technology developer and government official. She was the first female director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she served from July 2009 until March 2012.
-
Fernando J. Corbató
- Enrolled in California Institute of Technology
- In 1950 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- university teachercomputer scientist
- Biography
-
Fernando José "Corby" Corbató was an American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems.
-
Sidney W. Fox
- Occupations
- clinical chemistrybiologistbiochemist
- Biography
-
Sidney Walter Fox was a Los Angeles-born biochemist responsible for discoveries on the origins of biological systems. Fox explored the synthesis of amino acids from inorganic molecules, the synthesis of proteinous amino acids and amino acid polymers called "proteinoids" from inorganic molecules and thermal energy, and created what he thought was the world's first protocell out of proteinoids and water. He called these globules "microspheres". Fox believed in the process of abiogenesis where life spontaneously organized itself from the colloquially known "primordial soup;" poolings of various simple organic molecules that existed during the time before life on Earth. He also suggested that his experiments possessed conditions that were similar to those of primordial Earth.
-
Sidney Coleman
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicisttheoretical physicist
- Biography
-
Sidney Richard Coleman was an American theoretical physicist noted for his research in high-energy theoretical physics.
-
James M. Bardeen
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
James Maxwell Bardeen was an American physicist, well known for his work in general relativity, particularly his role in formulating the laws of black hole mechanics. He also discovered the Bardeen vacuum, an exact solution of the Einstein field equation.
