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STEM History

Meet the trailblazers whose discoveries and inventions changed everything—from the laws of physics to the tech in your pocket. STEM History dives into the stories of brilliant scientists, engineers, and innovators across centuries, with a special spotlight on pioneers from marginalized communities whose contributions deserve the world’s attention.
STEM History

Ben Barres 

Ben Barres’s research focused on the interaction between neurons and glial cells in the nervous system. In 2008, he became the chair of the Neurobiology Department at Stanford University School of Medicine. He transitioned to male in 1997 and became the first openly transgender scientist in the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
STEM History

Vivienne Ming

Vivienne Ming is an American theoretical neuroscientist and artificial intelligence expert. She is also a trans woman. In 2017, Ming was named one of the BBC’s Top 100 Women and one of the Financial Times' "LGBT leaders and allies today."
STEM History

Lynn Ann Conway 

Lynn Conway is a famed pioneer of microelectronics chip design. Her innovations during the 1970s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have impacted chip design worldwide. Her work has also influenced many high-tech companies and computing methods.
STEM History

Allan V. Cox

Cox significantly contributed to the theory of plate tectonics. Cox won many awards, including the prestigious Vetlesen Prize, and was the president of the American Geophysical Union
STEM History

Peter Thiel

Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is gay and married his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, in October 2017.
STEM History

Sally Ride

Sally was the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space and was also the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, at the age of 32.
STEM History

Chris Hughes

Hughes co-founded Facebook in 2002, while a Harvard student, with business partners Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Andrew McCollum. In 2016, Hughes co-founded the Economic Security Project (ESP), a non-profit that advocates for basic income for all Americans. In 2018, he published Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn. Hughes is openly gay and is married to Sean Eldridge.
STEM History

Martine Rothblatt

Rothblatt is a trans woman who co-founded Sirius Satellite Radio in 1990 and later founded he board of United Therapeutics.
STEM History

Alan Turing

Turing’s inventions were instrumental in defeating the Nazis during WWII. He devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bomba method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.
STEM History

Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal

Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal was the first scientist to clone HIV and determine the function of its genes, which was a significant step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
STEM History

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla was a NASA astronaut and the first woman of Indian heritage to go to space. She was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003.
STEM History

Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga

In 2013, Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, along with Dr. Hannah Gay and Dr. Deborah Persaud, was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in The World” for functionally curing a newborn with HIV infection.
STEM History

Peter Tsai 

Peter Tsai, an expert in nonwoven fabric, invented the essential technology in N95 mask filters. The technique was initially designed to block the dangerous microparticles from dust and gas encountered by construction workers but proved indispensable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
STEM History

Isabella Aiona Abbott 

Isabella Aiona Abbott was the first native Hawaiian woman to earn a doctoral degree in science with a Ph.D. in botany. She became a leading expert on Pacific marine algae.
STEM History

Ted Fujita  

Ted Fujita’s research on severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons at the University of Chicago was revolutionary. He is best known for creating the Fujita scale of tornado intensity and damage, but he also discovered downbursts and microbursts and was an instrumental figure in advancing modern understanding of many severe weather phenomena and how they affect people and communities, primarily through his work exploring the relationship between wind speed and damage.
STEM History

Steven Chen  

Steven Chen was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States with his family when he was eight. He is one of three co-founders and the first Chief Technology Officer of the video-sharing website YouTube. Additionally, he co-founded the business incubator Avos Systems, creators of the mobile video platform MixBit, and worked as an entrepreneur in residence at Google Ventures. 
STEM History

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu  

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu played an essential role in the development of atomic physics. In 1944, she joined the Manhattan Project, a code name for research in atomic bombs during World War II. There, she contributed to advancing existing technology used for uranium enrichment and radiation detection. 
STEM History

Ajay Bhatt  

Ajay Bhatt is responsible for one of the most iconic pieces of computer technology: the Universal Series Bus (USB) flash drive. He joined Intel in 1990 and developed this technology there as a senior staff architect. The USB device has a distinct advantage over optic discs: it is smaller, more durable, rewritable, and easy to transport.
STEM History

Giuliana Tesoro

Giuliana Tesoro was a renowned fabric innovator who developed flame-resistant fibers and found ways to prevent static in synthetic fibers and boost permanent-press properties for various textiles. Her training as an organic chemist enabled her to become a high-tech fabric pioneer, making fabrics more comfortable, practical, wearable, and safe.
STEM History

Ann Tsukamoto  

Ann Tsukamoto co-patented a process that allowed the human stem cell to be isolated in 1991. Her research and contributions in the medical field have led to groundbreaking advancements in stem cell research to help cancer patients.
STEM History

Josephine Garis Cochran

Josephine Cochrane invented the first successful hand-powered dishwasher. She designed and constructed it with the assistance of mechanic George Butters, who became one of her first employees.
STEM History

Patricia Era Bath 

As an ophthalmologist and laser scientist, Patricia Bath advocated for blindness prevention, treatment, and cure. She invented a device known as the Laserphaco Probe and a technique for cataract surgery known as Laserphaco.
STEM History

Mary Elizabeth Anderson  

Mary Elizabeth Anderson invented the windshield wiper!
STEM History

Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz 

Melitta Bentz was a German entrepreneur who invented the paper coffee filter in 1908. She founded the Melitta company, which still operates today under family control.
STEM History

Grace Brewster Hopper 

Grace Hopper was a pioneer of computer programming and the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages. Others later expanded upon the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still used today.
STEM History

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was known for her pioneering research on radioactivity and for discovering the elements polonium and radium. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
STEM History

Alexander Miles

Alexander Miles is best known for his patented innovation that made the automatic opening and closing of elevator doors possible.
STEM History

Janet Rita Emerson Bashen (née Emerson) 

Janet Rita Emerson Bashen is the founder, president, and CEO of Bashen Corporation, a consulting firm that pioneered end-to-end Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) compliance administration services.
STEM History

Marjorie Joyner (née Stewart)

Marjorie Joyner was the first African American woman to create and patent a permanent hair-wave machine. She was highly visible in the African American community in Chicago, once serving as head of the Chicago Defender Charity network, helping organize the Bud Billiken Day Parade and fundraiser for various schools.
STEM History

Garrett Augustus Morgan Sr. 

Garrett Augustus Morgan Sr.’s most notable inventions were a three-way traffic light and a protective smoke hood notably used in a 1916 tunnel construction disaster rescue.
STEM History

Lewis Howard Latimer

Lewis Latimer’s many inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved process for manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars.
STEM History

Marie Van Brittan Brown

In 1966, Brown invented a video home security system. Her idea, which has expanded beyond just security for homes, has influenced security systems in businesses around the world.
STEM History

Elijah J. McCoy

McCoy is most well-known for inventing an automatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines of locomotives and ships, which was patented in 1872 as "Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines". His numerous other inventions mostly related to lubrication, but there were others, including a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler
STEM History

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.