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Engineering
Building, inventing, and solving practical problems with technology — from steam engines to bridges and electronic systems.
12 scientists
Beatrice Shilling
1909–1990 · Aeronautical and mechanical engineering
Beatrice Shilling devised a small fuel-flow restrictor that helped Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engines keep running during steep wartime manoeuvres.
Charles K. Kao
1933–2018 · Optical fibre communications and electrical engineering
Charles Kao helped make long-distance optical-fibre communications practical by identifying the need for exceptionally pure glass and guiding a 1966 breakthrough.
George Stephenson
1781–1848 · Engineer and Inventor
Developed successful early steam locomotives and engineered pioneering public railways that helped establish steam-powered rail transport.
Gustave Eiffel
1832–1923 · Civil Engineer
Building the Eiffel Tower with engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier and architect Stephen Sauvestre, and designing the Statue of Liberty's internal iron support structure.
Hedy Lamarr
1914–2000 · Inventor & Actress
Co-inventing a frequency-hopping radio communication system with George Antheil to make radio-guided weapons harder to jam.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
1806–1859 · Civil and Marine Engineer
Brunel was chief engineer of the Great Western Railway and designed major bridges, tunnels and ships including Great Western, Great Britain and Great Eastern. His work pushed nineteenth-century railway and ship engineering into new territory.
James Watt
1736–1819 · Engineer & Inventor
Watt's separate condenser greatly reduced the fuel needed by Newcomen-type steam engines. Working with Matthew Boulton and others, he developed engines capable of supplying rotary power for factories and other machinery, making steam power far more useful during the Industrial Revolution.
John Harrison
1693–1776 · Precision clockmaking and navigation
John Harrison developed marine timekeepers that made accurate sea-going longitude measurements increasingly practical after decades of engineering work.
Mária Telkes
1900–1995 · Solar energy engineering and thermal storage
Mária Telkes developed ways to collect and store solar heat, helped create an experimental solar-heated house and invented a solar-powered water still.
Mary Winston Jackson
1921–2005 · Aerospace engineering
Became NASA’s first Black female engineer and researched airflow and boundary-layer behaviour around aircraft at supersonic speeds.
Nikola Tesla
1856–1943 · Inventor & Engineer
Developing the polyphase alternating-current system and induction motor, and pioneering high-frequency and wireless technologies.
Robert Goddard
1882–1945 · Engineer and Physicist
Built and launched the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket, laying the groundwork for spaceflight.