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Scientific Biographies

Science is a human pursuit. Meet some of the people who have contributed to the history of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences.
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Percy Lavon Julian

The grandson of enslaved people, Julian overcame racial barriers to achieve scientific, business, and personal success.

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Dr. Percy Lavon Julian is pictured at the newly constructed chemistry building named in his honor at MacMurray College, 1972.
Science History Institute
Dr. Percy Lavon Julian honored at MacMurray College

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Signed portrait of a man
Svante August Arrhenius
1859 - 1927
group of noted scientists including William Astbury and Lawrence Bragg
William Astbury
1898 - 1961
portrait of Amedeo Avogadro
Amedeo Avogadro
1776 - 1856
A sepia-toned portrait of a woman with wavy hair, smiling, wearing a dark top.
Florence Ogilvy Bell
1913 - 2000
Solomon A. Berson, 1945. Archives of the Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library
Solomon A. Berson
1918 - 1972
portrait of Jons jokob Brezelius
Jöns Jakob Berzelius
1779 - 1848
Katherin Blodgett at General Electric Research Laboratories, 1938.
Katharine Burr Blodgett
1898 - 1979
painting of Robert Boyle wearing a long wig
Robert Boyle
1627 - 1691
St. Elmo Brady in a chemistry lab at Fisk University. He is pouring a liquid from one beaker into another. There are counters of lab equipment surrounding him.
St. Elmo Brady
1884 - 1966
Rachel Fuller Brown
1898 - 1980
old portrait of two men in suits
Robert Bunsen
1811 - 1899
Black and white photo of Cain in a suit and tie
Gordon A. Cain
1912 - 2002
Undated portrait of Stanislao Cannizzaro
Stanislao Cannizzaro
1826 - 1910
Professional portrait of E. M. A. Chandler, ca. 1930. He looks over his left shoulder and is wearing a suit.
Edward Chandler
1887 - 1973
Mildred Cohn
1913 - 2009
Archibald Scott Couper. Photograph of drawing (not before 1860).
Archibald Scott Couper
1831 - 1892
Marie Sklodowska Curie
1867 - 1934
It's a sepia-toned portrait of a man (John Dalton) wearing glasses, dressed in 19th-century attire.
John Dalton
1766 - 1844
An image of Marie Maynard Daly, a black woman scientist in a lab coat works with test tubes in a laboratory.
Marie Maynard Daly
1921 - 2003
Portrait of Sir Humphrey Davy Bar't., after 1821.
Humphry Davy
1778 - 1829
Michael Faraday
1791 - 1867
Louis Fieser
1899 - 1977
Mary Fieser, fall 1951.
Mary Peters Fieser
1909 - 1997
Fischer wearing pinch nose glasses resting his head on his hand
Emil Fischer
1852 - 1919
Rosalind Franklin
1920 - 1958
sepia-toned portrait of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
1778 - 1850
Mary Lowe Good
1931 - 2019
Autographed etching of Fritz Haber, 1922
Fritz Haber
1868 - 1934
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