Showing 101 - 125 of 240 results
Peter Wurman
Mobile Robotic Material Handling for Order Fulfillment
Peter Wurman, Mick Mountz and Raffaello D’Andrea created the Kiva system, a mobile robotic system for material handling in distribution centers that…
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)…
Marshall Jones
Industrial Lasers
Marshall Jones, a mechanical engineer at General Electric (GE), pioneered the use of lasers for industrial materials processing. He invented novel…
Howard Head
Laminate Ski; Oversized Tennis Racket
Technical revolutions by Howard Head impacted the playing, performance and economics of two major sports industries: skiing and tennis. Head's…
Carl Benz
Modern Automobile
German engineer Carl Benz was the first to design a car around the internal combustion engine rather than adding an engine to an existing wagon or…
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…
James A. Parsons Jr.
Durimet 20 (Alloy 20) Stainless Steel Alloy
Metallurgist James A. Parsons Jr. invented Durimet 20, also known as Alloy 20, stainless steel alloy. Developed in the 1930s, this corrosion-…
Tom Leighton
Content Delivery Network
In the late 1990s, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Mathematics Professor Tom Leighton and his graduate student Danny Lewin recognized…
Ken Thompson
UNIX Operating System
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bell Labs colleagues Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed UNIX, a multi-tasking, multi-user operating…
Ernest Orlando Lawrence
Cyclotron
Ernest Orlando Lawrence invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator that uses a strong magnetic field to bend the path of charged particles, or…
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…
Mildred Dresselhaus
Superlattice Structures for Thermoelectric Devices
Renowned physicist Mildred Dresselhaus led pioneering work on carbon and its thermal and electrical properties. Known as the "Queen of Carbon Science…
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…
Richard Schatz
Palmaz-Schatz Coronary Stent
Cardiologist Richard Schatz collaborated with fellow National Inventors Hall of Fame® Inductee Julio Palmaz to invent a vascular stent suitable for…
William J. Warner
Digital Nonlinear Editing System
Television and film both must be edited to create a final program. Film editing always involved manually cutting and pasting strips of film, a simple…
Frederick McKinley Jones
Mobile Refrigeration
Frederick McKinley Jones invented the first successful system for mobile refrigeration. His invention eliminated the far less effective use of ice…
Mick Mountz
Mobile Robotic Material Handling for Order Fulfillment
Mick Mountz, Peter Wurman and Raffaello D’Andrea invented the Kiva system, a mobile robotic material handling system that has revolutionized order…
Frances Ligler
Portable Optical Biosensors
Frances Ligler invented portable optical biosensors, benefiting fields from health care to food production to military operations.
Ligler’s lifelong…
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…
James E. West
Electret Microphone
James West and Gerhard Sessler invented the electret microphone, which has advanced the sound industry and become the standard microphone used in…
Virginia Holsinger
Dairy Product Innovations
Virginia Holsinger made healthier dairy products accessible worldwide. Her research on enzymes and digestion not only advanced the dairy industry but…
Gottlieb Daimler
Design of Automobile and Motorcycle Engines
In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler, with the help of Wilhelm Maybach, developed the forerunner of the modern gas engine by advancing Nicolaus Otto's oil-…
Ole Evinrude
Outboard Motor
Ole Evinrude conceived, designed, and manufactured the first practical, commercially successful outboard motor. His first design, a 1 1/2 horsepower…
Henry Phillips
Phillips Screw
The significance of the crosshead or Phillips screw lies in its self-centering property. In 1933, Henry Phillips purchased the rights to a socket…
Leroy Grumman
Retractable Landing Gear; Folding Wing
Leroy Grumman invented a unique folding-wing mechanism that advanced the safety and versatility of carrier-based naval aircraft, and more than…