Capricorn Engineers

John DeLorean was an American inventor and engineer. Highly regarded for his work at General Motors, John DeLorean was an influential figure in the US automobile industry. He is credited with founding the popular American automobile manufacturer, The DeLorean Motor Company. DeLorean’s life inspired a couple of documentary films, including Framing John DeLorean where he was played by Alec Baldwin.

Computer programmer and entrepreneur Kevin Systrom is one of the co-founders of the photo-sharing app Instagram. He resigned as the Instagram CEO in 2018. He was named to Forbes’s 30 under 30 list in 2014 and was one of the U.S’s richest entrepreneurs below 40 in 2016.

Best known for designing the Golden Gate Bridge, engineer Joseph Strauss specialized in movable bridges and developed the concepts of the bascule bridge and the vertical-lift bridge. Born to a pianist mother and a painter-writer father, he later also penned poems such as The Mighty Task is Done.

Sergei Korolev was a Soviet spacecraft designer and rocket engineer who played an important role during the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America in the 1950s and 1960s. He was largely responsible for developing the R-7 Rocket and launching Yuri Gagarin into space. Sergei Korolev also launched Belka, Strelka, and Laika into space.

George Meade was a civil engineer and United States Army officer best remembered for decisively defeating Robert E. Lee in the American Civil War. After the war, he played an important role during the Reconstruction era. As a civil engineer, George Meade was involved in the construction of many lighthouses. 

Tony Hoare is a British computer scientist who is credited with developing the sorting algorithm quicksort. He is also credited with developing Hoare logic, a formal system for verifying program correctness. Over the years, Tony Hoare has received several prestigious awards for his contribution to computer science.

A Stanford engineer and a Cambridge PhD, Ray Dolby had first experimented with electronic gadgets while working part-time for Ampex in his teenage years. The Dolby Laboratories founder later pioneered the surround sound technology in movies and the noise-reduction system in tapes. His honors include an Emmy and two Academy Awards.

Owsley Stanley was an American clandestine chemist and audio engineer. During the 1960s Stanley played an important role in the Bay Area hippie movement and the counterculture of the decade. As the sound engineer of the Grateful Dead, Stanley developed the band's famous Wall of Sound, one of the largest transportable public address systems ever built.

British engineer and inventor George Cayley was a pioneer of aeronautics and aviation. He designed the world’s first glider that could successfully carry a human being. He was also a prominent Whig and had contributed to the formation of what is now known as the University of Westminster.

Known as the Big Daddy of drag racing, Don Garlits was not just a race-car driver but also a qualified automotive engineer. After his right foot was severed in a major car explosion, he perfected the safety standards of racing, creating the first fire-resistant bodysuit and the Top Fuel dragster rear engine.

John Bradfield was an Australian engineer remembered for envisioning the Sydney Harbour Bridge; he oversaw the design and the construction of the bridge, which is now considered a major landmark in Sydney. He was also associated with many other notable projects, such as the Cataract Dam, Brisbane's Story Bridge, and Burrinjuck Dam. He received many prestigious awards during his lifetime.

Born to a bricklayer in London’s East End, Tommy Flowers completed his studies in electrical engineering attending night classes while working as an apprentice during the day. He developed Max Newman’s model of a machine that had the potential to decipher German codes and turned it into his Colossus computer.

Initially an audio engineer, Martin Birch, known as a master of hard rock, later produced 10 Iron Maiden albums. He also worked with artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple. Interestingly, the cause of his death, at age 71, was not disclosed to the public.

Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian-French engineer. He is credited with developing the internal combustion engine which was commercialized in sufficient quantities. Lenoir is also credited with inventing such electrical devices as an improved electric telegraph which played a key role during the Franco-Prussian War. 

Wael Ghonim is an Egyptian computer engineer and Internet activist best known for his work in the field of social entrepreneurship. In 2011, Ghonim achieved international fame when his emotional interview led to the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The same year, Ghonim was named in Time magazine's 100 most influential people list. He also received the JFK Profile in Courage Award.   

Andrew Coyne is a Canadian columnist who has worked with popular publications like Maclean's and National Post. He is currently working for The Globe and Mail. In 1994, Andrew Coyne was honored by the Public Policy Forum with the prestigious Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism.

Born to a physicist, David Braben was naturally fond of math and science in childhood. He later turned his childhood love for video games into the video-game company Frontier Developments, best known for its Elite series of games. He has also earned honors such as the OBE.

Camille Jordan was a French mathematician best remembered for his influential Cours d'analyse and his foundational work in group theory. He also served as an educator, teaching at prestigious institutions like the Collège de France and École Polytechnique. The asteroid 25593 Camillejordan is named in his honor.

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.

Abraham-Louis Breguet was a French horologist who made several innovations in watchmaking in the course of his illustrious career. Widely regarded as the leading watchmaker of his generation, Breguet's clients included members of the European nobility and leading public figures in France. Counted among the greatest horologists of all time, Abraham-Louis Breguet is credited with founding the popular Breguet company.

Agner Krarup Erlang was a Danish mathematician, statistician, and engineer. he graduated from the University of Copenhagen with distinction and worked as a teacher for many years. He is best known for inventing the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory. He is also credited with the creation of the field of telephone networks analysis.   

Greek-origin Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin is a trained mechanical engineer who initially worked for Energia. He has been on 5 spaceflights and has been named a Hero of the Russian Federation. He and 4 other Russian cosmonauts raised the Russian flag at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

Before starting his career as a cosmonaut, Sergei Avdeyev was an engineer for NPO Energiya. He is also an amateur radio operator, with the call sign RV3DW. A Hero of the Russian Federation, he once held the world record for time dilation by a human being.

Born into an affluent military family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Herman Potočnik became a military engineer. His struggle with tuberculosis made him leave the army, after which he delved into rocket science. His only book, The Problem of Space Travel, contained illustrated descriptions on everything from space capsules to spacesuits.

Deeply connected with Indian innovation movement, Raghunath Anant Mashelkar is especially known for his contributions to transport phenomena. Throughout his career, he had held important positions, including the post of the Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He also chaired many important national committees, investigating diverse issues like drug regulatory system and national auto fuel policy.