Scientists From Indiana

Credited with coining the term software engineering, computer scientist and systems engineer, Margaret Heafield Hamilton served as the Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, overseeing the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program.  A prolific writer, she is also the founder of two software companies; Higher Order Software and Hamilton Technologies.

Harold Urey was an American physical chemist best remembered for his pioneering work on isotopes. He is credited with the discovery of deuterium, for which he received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934. Harold Urey also played a key role in the development of the infamous atom bomb.

Ferid Murad is an American pharmacologist and physician. He achieved popularity in 1998, when he received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ferid Murad is the recipient of several other prominent awards, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.

Famous for creating and maintaining MathWorld, the most widely accessed internet site for mathematical resources, Eric W. Weisstein is an encyclopedist who began compiling scientific encyclopedias as a high school student. Author of the bestselling book, CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics, he is also credited with creating ScienceWorld website.

Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Wendell Meredith Stanley is remembered for his pathbreaking research on viruses. He revealed the molecular structure of viruses by purifying and crystallizing them. He also penned a Pulitzer-nominated book, Chemistry: A Beautiful Thing, and was associated with the Rockefeller Institute and the University of California, Berkeley.

Maclyn McCarty was an American geneticist who became the first person to illustrate that genes were made of DNA. McCarty served as the Rockefeller University Hospital's physician-in-chief for 14 years. He also served as the vice president and a trusted adviser of Rockefeller University.

Microbiologist Thomas Francis, Jr. is best remembered for identifying the influenza A and influenza B strains and creating a vaccine effective against both. He also contributed to the research on the treatment of pneumonia. His medical research won his many accolades and awards, such as the Medal of Freedom.

Initially a professor of geology and biology at Butler University, Oliver Perry Hay later contributed immensely to catalogs on North American fossil vertebrates. He had also served as the associate curator of New York’s American Museum of Natural History. His son, too, grew up to be a zoologist.