The Inventor Database
People who designed, engineered, patented and discovered.
Every profile records what the person actually did, what obstacles stood in the way, and which archives hold the documentation. Where the record is thin, the profile says so.
Norbert Rillieux
Engineer who made industrial evaporation efficient
Explore profileElijah McCoy
Mechanical engineer of automatic machine lubrication
Explore profileLewis Howard Latimer
Draftsman and electrical pioneer who made light bulbs last
Explore profileJan Ernst Matzeliger
Inventor of the automatic shoe-lasting machine
Explore profileGranville T. Woods
Electrical engineer of railway communication
Explore profileSarah E. Goode
Among the first Black women to receive a US patent
Explore profileSarah Boone
Dressmaker who redesigned the ironing board
Explore profileAlexander Miles
Patented automatic elevator doors
Explore profileGeorge Washington Carver
Agricultural scientist of soil restoration
Explore profileGarrett A. Morgan
Inventor of the three-position traffic signal and safety hood
Explore profileMadam C. J. Walker
Built a manufacturing and distribution system from nothing
Explore profileDaniel Hale Williams
Early successful pericardial surgery; founder of Provident Hospital
Explore profileAlice Augusta Ball
Chemist who made the first effective leprosy treatment injectable
Explore profileCharles R. Drew
Built the science and logistics of blood banking
Explore profilePercy Lavon Julian
Synthetic chemist who made steroid medicines affordable
Explore profileFrederick McKinley Jones
Invented practical mobile refrigeration
Explore profileKatherine Johnson
Computed the trajectories that put Americans in orbit
Explore profileJames E. West
Co-inventor of the electret microphone
Explore profileGeorge R. Carruthers
Built the ultraviolet camera that went to the Moon
Explore profileMarie Van Brittan Brown
Patented the first home video security system
Explore profilePatricia E. Bath
Ophthalmologist who invented laser cataract surgery apparatus
Explore profileValerie L. Thomas
NASA scientist who patented the illusion transmitter
Explore profileGladys West
Mathematician behind the geodetic Earth model used by GPS
Explore profileLonnie G. Johnson
Nuclear engineer, Galileo mission veteran, inventor of the Super Soaker
Explore profileMark E. Dean
Co-architect of the IBM PC and the ISA bus
Explore profileShirley Ann Jackson
Theoretical physicist in condensed matter and telecommunications research
Explore profileMarian Croak
Engineer of voice over IP and text-to-donate
Explore profileThomas O. Mensah
Chemical engineer in fibre-optic manufacturing and nanotechnology
Explore profileManley West
Co-developed Canasol, a glaucoma treatment derived from cannabis
Explore profileAndré Rebouças
Brazilian military engineer and abolitionist
Explore profileArthur Zang
Created the CardioPad, a tablet-based cardiac diagnostic device
Explore profileHadiyah-Nicole Green
Physicist developing laser-activated nanoparticle cancer therapy
Explore profileOnesimus
Carried West African inoculation practice into colonial Boston
Explore profileBenjamin Banneker
Self-taught astronomer and almanac author
Explore profileThomas L. Jennings
First African American known to hold a United States patent
Explore profileHenry Blair
Farmer who patented seed and cotton planters in the 1830s
Explore profileRebecca Lee Crumpler
First African American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States
Explore profileErnest Everett Just
Cell biologist who argued that life happens at the cell surface
Explore profileLloyd Augustus Hall
Food chemist who made curing and sterilisation reliable
Explore profileVivien Thomas
Surgical technician who developed the blue baby operation
Explore profileJane Cooke Wright
Oncologist who moved chemotherapy from last resort to protocol
Explore profileMarie Maynard Daly
First African American woman to earn a chemistry doctorate in the United States
Explore profileOtis Frank Boykin
Electronics inventor of precision wire resistors
Explore profileDavid Harold Blackwell
Statistician whose theorems underpin modern decision theory
Explore profileDorothy Vaughan
NACA's first Black supervisor, who taught her unit to program
Explore profileMary Winston Jackson
NASA's first Black female engineer
Explore profileAnnie Easley
Rocket scientist and programmer of the Centaur upper stage
Explore profileBessie Blount Griffin
Physical therapist who built a feeding device for amputee veterans
Explore profileAlexa Irene Canady
First Black woman neurosurgeon in the United States
Explore profileMae Carol Jemison
Physician, engineer and the first Black woman in space
Explore profileAnderson Ruffin Abbott
First Black Canadian-born licensed physician
Explore profileTeodoro Sampaio
Brazilian engineer, geographer and historian born to an enslaved mother
Explore profileArlie Petters
Mathematical physicist of gravitational lensing
Explore profileJohn Edmonstone
Taxidermist who trained Charles Darwin in specimen preservation
Explore profileMaggie Aderin-Pocock
Space scientist and instrument engineer
Explore profileWangari Maathai
Biologist who turned reforestation into a national method
Explore profileCheikh Anta Diop
Physicist who built Africa's radiocarbon dating laboratory
Explore profileTebello Nyokong
Chemist developing light-activated cancer therapy
Explore profileSegenet Kelemu
Molecular plant pathologist working on crop resilience and insect science
Explore profileFrancisca Nneka Okeke
Geophysicist of the equatorial ionosphere
Explore profileKwabena Boahen
Neuromorphic engineer building circuits that compute like neurons
Explore profileVictor B. Lawrence
Signal-processing engineer behind high-speed data over ordinary lines
Explore profileWilliam Kamkwamba
Built a working wind turbine from salvage at fourteen
Explore profileCardinal Warde
Optical-computing researcher and builder of Caribbean science capacity
Explore profile