Knowingly facing the end of her life, she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for underrepresented students in higher education.

Gardner famously claimed to have taught chimpanzees to communicate with people using American Sign Language by raising them as if they were human children.

He famously identified the genetic mutation that causes the condition in 1991.

Fischer was recognized for his work with reversible protein phosphorylation.

A former academic and consultant, Hodge cofounded the CrisiScience Collective to help combat the pandemic.

Taieb recognized the potential importance of the Hadar Formation, where remains of the hominin Australopithecus afarensis were found only a few years later.

His work centered on the mechanisms of glucose transport into cells.

He famously contradicted Sigmund Freud’s views on the meaning of dreams.

Choppin drastically expanded the institute during his tenure in the 1980s and ’90s.

The Harvard University evolutionary biologist pioneered the use of protein gel electrophoresis to study molecular genetics.  

Her work led to more predictable outcomes for kidney transplants.

The University of Texas Southwestern professor’s research focused on the androgen hormones that cause male sexual differentiation and may also lead to prostate disease.

The Yale School of Medicine cancer researcher doggedly pursued the question of how cancer spreads.

The chemist refined nuclear magnetic resonance technology, giving rise to the development of MRI.

The high-yield variety of rice he produced in the 1970s prevented countless people from dying of starvation.

Throughout his career, the University of California, Berkeley, herpetologist named 144 species of salamanders.

Free’s dip-and-read urinalysis allowed diabetics to monitor glucose levels at home, rather than at a hospital.

Dyck was widely respected for working alongside indigenous groups as he studied polar bears on their ancestral lands.

In addition to isolating the first protein-coding gene from a eukaryote, Kedes furthered scientists’ understanding of actin genes and also laid the foundations for modern DNA databases such as GenBank.