Curated category
National Medal of Science laureates
- John Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on the 9th of July 1911. He grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, but spent a year from 1921 to 1922 on a…
- Charles David KeelingCharles David Keeling was born on the 20th of April 1928 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father Ralph worked as an investment banker and sparked a…
- Allen NewellAllen Newell stood at Stanford University in 1949 holding a bachelor's degree in physics. He moved to Princeton University that same year to study…
- Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman was born on the 31st of July 1912 in Brooklyn, New York City. His parents were Jewish working-class immigrants from Beregszász in Carpathian…
- Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson was born in Gary, Indiana, on the 15th of May 1915. His family consisted of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland who had prospered…
- Edward TellerEde Teller was born on the 15th of January 1908, in Budapest, then part of Austria-Hungary. He grew up in a Jewish family where his father Miksa worked as an…
- Eugene WignerEugene Paul Wigner was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on the 17th of November 1902. He grew up as the son of Elisabeth Elsa Einhorn and Antal Anton…
- George LowGeorg Michael Löw was born near Vienna, Austria, on the 10th of June 1926. His parents Artur and Gertrude Löw ran a prosperous manufacturing business before…
- Claude ShannonClaude Elwood Shannon was born on the 30th of April 1916 in a hospital near Petoskey, Michigan. His family lived in the small town of Gaylord where he spent…
- Herbert A. SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the 15th of June 1916. His father Arthur Simon arrived from Germany in 1903 after earning an…
- B. F. SkinnerBurrhus Frederic Skinner was born on the 20th of March 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. His father William Skinner worked as a lawyer while his mother…
- Gary BeckerGary Stanley Becker was born on the 2nd of December 1930 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a Jewish family within that small coal-mining town.
- Igor SikorskyIgor Sikorsky was born on the 25th of May 1889 in Kiev, Russian Empire. He grew up as the youngest of five children in a household filled with intellectual…
- Kurt GödelKurt Friedrich Gödel, born on the 28th of April 1906 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary, died in Princeton Hospital on the 14th of January 1978, weighing so little…
- Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun was born on the 23rd of March 1912, in the small town of Wirsitz within the Province of Posen. His father served as Minister of Agriculture…
- John McCarthy (computer scientist)John McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 4th of September 1927. His father came from Cromane, a small fishing village in County Kerry, Ireland.
- Roger RevelleRoger Randall Dougan Revelle entered the world on the 7th of March 1909 in Seattle. He grew up in southern California and graduated from Pomona College in…
- Linus PaulingLinus Carl Pauling was born on the 28th of February 1901, in Portland, Oregon. His father Herman Henry William Pauling worked as a traveling salesman for the…
- Peter DebyePeter Joseph William Debye was born on the 24th of March 1884 in Maastricht, Netherlands. He enrolled at Aachen University of Technology in 1901 to study…
- Theodosius DobzhanskyTheodosius Dobzhansky entered the world on the 25th of January 1900 in Nemirov within the Russian Empire. His parents were Grigory and Sophia Voinarsky.