Famous Austrian Engineers

Ferdinand Porsche was an Austrian-German automotive engineer. He is credited with founding one of the most popular car companies in the world, Porsche AG. He is also credited with creating the Lohner-Porsche mixed hybrid, the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle. During World War II, Porsche was a prominent contributor to the German war effort.

Remembered widely as the grandson of Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche, Ferdinand Piech later joined Audi. He is also known for converting Volkswagen from a loss-making firm to one of the world leaders in the global automobile scene. He had apparently fathered 12 children with several women.

The grandson of Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, nicknamed Butzi, was surprisingly dismissed from his industrial design course due to his supposed incompetence. He ended up designing the legendary sports car Porsche 901, later known as the Porsche 911. He also established the Porsche Design Studio.

Austrian racing driver Helmuth Koinigg was from an affluent family but struggled to finance his racing dreams initially. He tragically passed away in a deadly crash at age 25, in what was his second Grand Prix start, the 1974 US Grand Prix, when a suspension failure caused him to be decapitated.

One of the three men who founded the iconic automobile company BMW, Franz Josef Popp was an Austrian engineer. He spearheaded innovative projects such as the production of air-cooled radial engines. Though he later joined the Nazi Party, he was warned for allowing a Jewish doctor treat his family.

Richard von Mises was an Austrian Jewish scientist and mathematician. He is known for his work on solid mechanics, aerodynamics, aeronautics, fluid mechanics, and probability theory. He was the Gordon McKay Professor of Aerodynamics and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. He is the one who proposed the now-famous "birthday problem" in probability theory. He was married to mathematician Hilda Geiringer.  

The pioneer of soil mechanics, Karl Terzaghi was the son of an army lieutenant-colonel and studied in a military boarding school, where he developed his passion for geography. He eventually graduated as a mechanical engineer. He later also taught at MIT and penned iconic works such as Erdbaumechanik.

Born to an automobile designer at Austro-Daimler, Porsche AG CEO Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche, better known as Ferry Porsche, grew up working in auto workshops and racing the cars he and his father designed. Ferry and his father were commissioned by Hitler to build a low-cost "people’s car," the Volkswagen.

Austrian automobile designer and manufacturer Hans Ledwinka is remembered for his numerous patents and inventions, the most prominent of them all being the backbone chassis mechanism, which he incorporated in Tatra vehicles. He was jailed after being accused of collaborating with German forces during World War II.

A fine physician, Ernst Weber, known as the father of experimental psychology, is remembered for his studies on the sense of touch and for his discovery of the just-noticeable difference. His contributions to experimental psychology include Weber’s illusion, while he also contributed immensely to blood circulation research.

Baroque architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt was also a military engineer and influenced 18th-century European architecture to a great extent. Known for his unique architectural decoration, he designed some of the most impactful buildings of his era, such as the Belvedere in Vienna, the Schönborn Castle, and the Mirabell Palace.

Electrical engineer and cosmonaut Franz Viehböck was the first Austrian to travel into space. Trained in Russia, he became part of the Soyuz TM-13 mission and went to the Mir space station, along with two Soviet cosmonauts. He later represented Boeing as its European space and communications representative.

An electrical engineer professor at the Princeton Institute of Materials, Claire F. Gmachi is best known for her research on quantum devices, such as lasers, and their use in the health and environment sectors. She also heads the education program of MIRTHE, a group of 6 universities, as its director.

Austrian engineer and physicist Alexander Meissner made remarkable contributions to the development of the radio telegraphy system with his studies on antenna design. He was the first to design a rotary radio beacon and made pioneering discoveries in the amplification of high-frequency radio signals. He also taught at the Technical University of Berlin.

Austrian hydraulic engineer Philipp Forchheimer is remembered for his remarkable contribution to groundwater hydrology. Apart from introducing the use of mathematical physics models as a means of studying hydraulics, he also taught and worked as a consultant. He was the first to use Laplace’s equation to measure groundwater flow.