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Engineers and materials scientists

3,787 articles

Robert W. Farquhar

Robert W. Farquhar (1932–2015) was an American astrodynamicist who coined "halo orbit," directed the ISEE-3 mission to the Sun–Earth L1 point, and led NEAR Shoemaker to the first landing on an asteroid.

Robert W. Heath

Robert W. Heath Jr. is an electrical engineer working on wireless communication and signal processing, known for MIMO precoding and hybrid beamforming for millimeter wave 5G.

Robert W. Lucky

Robert W. Lucky (1936–2022) was an American electrical engineer who spent three decades at Bell Labs, invented the automatic adaptive equalizer that enabled high-speed modems, and won the 1987 Marconi Prize.

Robert Warren Erickson Jr.

Robert Warren Erickson Jr., known as Robert W. Erickson, is an American power electronics engineer and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Robert Watson-Watt

Robert Alexander Watson-Watt was a Scottish radio physicist, born in 1892, who led the development of Britain's Chain Home radar network and is known as the father of radar.

Robert Wellesley Mann

Robert Wellesley Mann (1924–2006) was an American mechanical engineer at MIT, a founder of rehabilitation engineering who developed the Boston Arm, the first artificial limb controlled by biology and technology.

Robert Wendell Heath Jr.

Robert Wendell Heath Jr. is an American wireless communications engineer at UC San Diego, elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2025 for MIMO and 5G research.

Robert Wertheim

Robert Halley Wertheim (1922–2020) was an American naval officer and strategic weapons engineer who retired as a rear admiral after leading development of the Navy's Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Robert Whitehead

Robert Whitehead (1823–1905) was a British engineer who invented the Whitehead torpedo, the first effective self-propelled torpedo, developed at Fiume, in the Austrian Empire, in 1866 and adopted by navies worldwide.

Robert Zubrin

Robert Zubrin, also known as Bob Zubrin, is an American aerospace engineer and author, born in 1952, best known for the Mars Direct plan and founding the Mars Society.

Roberta J. Nichols

Roberta J. Nichols was an American aerospace and automotive engineer who led alternative fuel development at Ford, held three flexible-fuel vehicle patents, and joined the National Academy of Engineering in 1997.

Roberto Meli Piralla

Roberto Meli Piralla is an Italian-born Mexican structural engineer and emeritus UNAM researcher who founded Mexico's disaster prevention center Cenapred and worked on the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.

Roberto Padovani

Roberto Padovani is an Italian-born communications engineer who led CDMA development at Qualcomm, serving as chief technology officer from 2002 to 2011 and creating the HDR technology behind 3G data.

Robin B. Nicholson

Sir Robin Buchanan Nicholson was a British metallurgist who pioneered transmission electron microscopy of precipitation in aluminum alloys and later served as Chief Scientific Adviser to Margaret Thatcher.

Robin H. A. Ras

Robin H. A. Ras is a Finnish-based materials chemist who studies droplet behavior and superhydrophobic, super-repellent coatings; he has been a professor at Aalto University in Espoo since 2013.

Robin K. McGuire

Robin K. McGuire is an American civil engineer who helped develop probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, founded Risk Engineering, Inc. in 1984, and wrote the standard monograph Seismic Hazard and Risk Analysis.

Robin Podmore

Robin Podmore is an electric power engineer, educated in New Zealand, who founded IncSys in Bellevue, Washington, and developed PowerSimulator, a training simulator used by grid operators worldwide.

Rocco Petrone

Rocco Petrone was an American mechanical engineer and NASA official who directed the Apollo 11 countdown, headed the Apollo program, and led the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Roddam Narasimha

Roddam Narasimha (1933–2020) was an Indian aerospace scientist and fluid dynamicist who reshaped the study of turbulence transition and relaminarisation, directing the National Aerospace Laboratories from 1984 to 1993.

Roderic S. Lakes

Roderic S. Lakes is a mechanical engineer and Wisconsin Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, known for the first 3D materials with a negative Poisson's ratio.

Rodney C. Ewing

Rodney C. Ewing (1946–2024) was an American mineralogist and materials scientist at Stanford known for research on radiation damage in minerals and nuclear waste disposal.

Rodney Dale Welch Bowersox

Rodney Dale Welch Bowersox is an American aerospace engineer at Texas A&M University known for hypersonic aerodynamics research and election to the National Academy of Engineering in 2025.

Rodney J. Clifton

Rodney J. Clifton is a Brown University engineer elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1989 for pioneering research on materials under extremely rapid loading.

Rodney J. Tabaczynski

Rodney J. Tabaczynski (1945–2025) was an American mechanical engineer who specialized in combustion modeling for spark-ignition engines at General Motors and Ford, retiring as Director of Powertrain and Research.

Roe-Hoan Yoon

Roe-Hoan Yoon is a mineral processing engineer and colloid scientist at Virginia Tech, elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008 and known for the commercial Microcel flotation process.

Roger A. Schmitz

Roger A. Schmitz, also known as Roger Anthony Schmitz, was an American chemical engineer at Notre Dame who first demonstrated multiple steady states and chaos in chemical reactions.

Roger Harrington (electrical engineer)

Roger F. Harrington, born in 1925, is an American electrical engineer and Syracuse University professor regarded as the father of the method of moments, which he named in 1967.

Roger Lacroix

Roger Lacroix (1928–2016) was a French civil engineer, professor at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées, and president of the Fédération internationale de la précontrainte.

Roger Sargent (chemical engineer)

Roger Sargent (1926–2018) was a British chemical engineer at Imperial College London, known as the founding father of process systems engineering, which applies optimization to chemical processes.

Roger W. Staehle

Roger W. Staehle (1934–2017) was an American corrosion scientist who founded the Fontana Corrosion Center at Ohio State and joined the National Academy of Engineering in 1978.