Forgotten Scientists
Discover the hidden heroes of science from around the world
Explore the archive
Discover overlooked researchers and the ideas that changed our world.
Explore Scientists
Browse scientists by field, country, or century. Click on a card to learn more.
Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards
Ellen Swallow Richards was the first woman to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a pioneer of sanitary chemistry and home economics.
Chien - Shiung Wu
Chien - Shiung Wu was a Chinese - American experimental physicist whose 1956 "Wu experiment" definitively showed that weak interactions violate parity symmetry - a breakthrough that reshaped particle physics. She also contributed to the uranium - enrichment process during the Manhattan Project.
Nettie Maria Stevens
Nettie Stevens was a pioneering American geneticist. In 1905 she published research showing that in mealworms (and later in other insects), the presence of a small "Y" chromosome - paired with a larger one - determined male sex, while two larger chromosomes produced female offspring. This was the first clear link between chromosomes and sex determination.
Julius Robert von Mayer
Julius Robert von Mayer (1814-1878) was a German physician and physicist whose 1842 work laid down one of the earliest clear statements of energy conservation - the idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
Elizabeth Langdon Williams
Elizabeth Langdon Williams (1879-1981) - American human computer and astronomer. Her complex orbit - calculations under Lowell Observatory's Planet X search contributed to the eventual discovery of Pluto.
Ida Eva Noddack (née Tacke)
Ida Noddack (1896-1978) was a German chemist who - together with her colleagues - discovered rhenium in 1925, and in 1934 became the first scientist to publicly hypothesize that atomic nuclei, when bombarded with neutrons, might split - a conceptual precursor to nuclear fission.
Florence Bascom
Florence Bascom (1862-1945) was a pioneering American geologist - the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in geology from an American university (Johns Hopkins University, 1893), and the first woman to be hired by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Her work on petrography, crystalline rocks, and geological mapping of the Appalachian/Piedmont region laid foundations for modern U.S. regional geology and trained many early women geologists.
Josephine Garis Cochran
Josephine Cochran (1839-1913) was an American inventor who created and built the first commercially successful dishwasher.