Famous Scientists Who Contributed to Chemistry

These are images of famous chemists or other scientists who made significant contributions to the field of chemistry.  Pictures containing multiple famous chemists appear first.

First Solvay Conference

First Solvay Conference
First Solvay Conference (1911), Marie Curie (seated, 2nd from right) confers with Henri Poincaré. Standing, 4th from right, Ernest Rutherford; 2nd from right, Albert Einstein; far right, Paul Langevin. Benjamin Couprie/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Seated (L-R): Walther Nernst, Marcel Brillouin, Ernest Solvay, Hendrik Lorentz, Emil Warburg, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Wilhelm Wien, Marie Curie, Henri Poincaré.

Standing (L-R): Robert Goldschmidt, Max Planck, Heinrich Rubens, Arnold Sommerfeld, Frederick Lindemann, Maurice de Broglie, Martin Knudsen, Friedrich Hasenöhrl, Georges Hostelet, Edouard Herzen, James Hopwood Jeans, Ernest Rutherford, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Albert Einstein, Paul Langevin.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Chemist and inventor of dynamite. Creator of the Nobel Foundation. Gösta Florman/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

Curie Lab

Curie Lab
Pierre Curie, Pierre's assistant, Petit, and Marie Curie. Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium.

Curie Women

Marie Curie and her sisters
Marie Curie with Meloney, Irène, and Eve shortly after their arrival in the United States.  Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford

J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford
J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford in the 1930s.  Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Lavoisier

Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and his Wife
Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and his Wife (1788). Oil on canvas. 259.7 x 196 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Jacques-Louis David/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Antoine Lavoisier is often considered to be the Father of Chemistry.

Emil Abderhalden

Emil Abderhalden
Emil Abderhalden was a famous Swiss biochemist and physiologist. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Richard Abegg

Richard Wilhelm Heinrich Abegg
Richard Wilhelm Heinrich Abegg was the German chemist who described valence theory. Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Svante A. Arrhenius

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Francis W. Aston

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Amedeo Avogadro

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Avogadro formulated Avogadro's law. Avogadro's number is named in honor of him.

Adolf von Baeyer

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0  

Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley

Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley
Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley was a farmer and hobbyist snow crystal photomicrographer. He took over 5000 images of snowflakes.  Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Friedrich Bergius

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0  

Karl Bosch

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0  

Eduard Buchner

Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0  

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811 - 1899)
Pioneer of spectroscopy and inventor of the bunsen burner. F. J. Moore, 'A History of Chemistry' c.1918

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver at work in his lab. USDA History Collection, Special Collections, National Agricultural Library/Public Domain

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was an American inventor, scientist, and educator. Frances Benjamin Johnston/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

De Chancourtois

De Chancourtois (1820 - 1886)
De Chancourtois was a French geologist who devised a periodic table of the elements in which the elements were grouped according to periodic properties and ordered according to increasing atomic weight. Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Marie Curie

Marie Curie
Marie Curie driving a radiology car in 1917.  Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Marie Curie

The Granger Collection, New York

Marie Curie

Marie Curie
Marie Sklodowska, before she moved to Paris. Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Pierre Curie

Pierre Curie
 Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

John Dalton

John Dalton
John Dalton (September 6, 1766 – July 27, 1844) was an English chemist and physicist. Dalton is best known for his work on atomic theory and research into color blindness.  William Henry Worthington/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Sir Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and physicist. He discovered several alkali and alkaline earth metals and investigated the properties of the elements chlorine and iodine.  Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Sir Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and physicist. He discovered several alkali and alkaline earth metals and investigated the properties of the elements chlorine and iodine. The Life of Sir Humphry Davy by John A. Paris, London: Colburn and Bentley, 1831.

This engraving is circa 1830, based on a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 - 1830).

Sir Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy
Thorpe's 1896 biography of Davy

Fausto D'Elhuyar

Fausto D'Elhuyar
Fausto D'Elhuyar (1755 - 1833) Co-discoverer of tungsten. Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Juan Jose D'Elhuyar

Juan Jose D'Elhuyar
Famous Chemists Juan Jose D'Elhuyar (1754 - 1796) co-discoverer of tungsten. Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0 

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein
This photo was inscribed "To Linus Pauling" from Albert Einstein (1958).  Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 1.0

Einstein's Tongue

Silly (and famous) picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out.
Famous Scientists Silly (and famous) picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out. Public Domain

Albert Einstein

Photograph of Albert Einstein (1947).
Famous Scientists Photograph of Albert Einstein (1947). Library of Congress, Photograph by Oren Jack Turner, Princeton, N.J.

Hans von Euler-Chelpin

Hans Fischer

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin used x-ray crystallography to see the structure of DNA and the tobacco mosaic virus. I believe this is a photo of a portrait in the National Portait Gallery in London.

Victor Grignard

Sir Arthur Harden

Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison is a retired medical doctor and American astronaut. In 1992, she became the first black woman in space. She holds a degree in chemical engineering from Stanford and a degree in medicine from Cornell. NASA

Gilbert N. Lewis

Gilbert N. Lewis isolated heavy water and brought E. O. Lawrence to Berkeley.
Among other contributions to chemistry, Gilbert N. Lewis isolated heavy water and brought E. O. Lawrence to Berkeley. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Shannon Lucid

Shannon Lucid
Shannon Lucid as an American biochemist and US astronaut. For a while, she held the American record for the most time in space. She studies the effects of space on human health, often using her own body as a test subject. NASA

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner studied radioactivity and nuclear physics.
Lise Meitner (November 17, 1878 – October 27, 1968) was an Austrian/Swedish physicist who studied radioactivity and nuclear physics. She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, for which Otto Hahn received a Nobel Prize.

Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Mendeleev is credited with developing the first periodic table of the elements. There were earlier tables, but Mendeleev's table showed the elements exhibited a periodicity of properties when they were arranged according to their atomic weight.

Dmitri Mendeleyev

Dmitri Mendeleyev (or Dmitri Mendeleev) is credited with developing one of the first periodic tables
Dmitri Mendeleyev (or Dmitri Mendeleev) is credited with developing one of the first periodic tables that organized the elements according to increasing atomic weight and accounted for trends in their chemical and physical properties. public domain

Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 - 1907)
Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 - 1907). Library of Congress

Julius Lothar Meyer

Julius Lothar Meyer developed a periodic table of the elements.
Julius Lothar Meyer was a German chemist and contemporary of Dmitri Mendeleev. The scientists independently developed the periodic table in which the elements were ordered according to increasing atomic weight and grouped according to periodic properties. 19th century photograph of Julius Lothar Meyer.

Robert Millikan

Millikan is famous for measuring the charge on the electron.
Famous Scientists Robert Millikan is famous for his measurement of the charge on the electron and his work on the photoelectric effect. Millikan received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics. photograph by Clark Millikan (1891)

Henri Moissan

Gaylord Nelson

Gaylord Nelson was an American Democratic politician from Wisconsin.
Gaylord Anton Nelson (June 4, 1916 – July 3, 2005) was an American Democratic politician from Wisconsin. He is best remembered for founding Earth Day and for calling for Congressional hearings on the safety of combined oral contraceptive pills. US Congress

Walther H. Nernst

Wilhelm Ostwald

Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling - Age 7
Linus Pauling - Age 7. Linus Pauling lived in the rural town of Condon, Oregon.

Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling - age 17 (1918).

Fritz Pregl

Sir William Ramsay

Theodore W. Richards

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen or Roentgen (1845-1923), discoverer of x-rays.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen or Roentgen (1845-1923), discoverer of x-rays. Universität Gießen

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford.

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, oil painting by J. Dunn, 1932. J. Dunn, National Portrait Gallery, London

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford in academic garb. Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection, University of Pennsylvania Library

Sir Ernest Rutherford

Paul Sabatier

Frederick Soddy

Theodor Svedberg

J.J. Thomson

J.J. Thomson
J.J. Thomson. Chemical Heritage Foundation Collections

Sir Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson

Sir Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson
Sir Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson.

Johannes Diderik van der Waals

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837 - 1923)
Famous Chemists Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837 - 1923).

Tuan Vo-Dinh

Professor Dr. Tuan Vo-Dinh is famous chemist and inventor who specializes in the field of photonics.
Famous Chemists - Tuan Vo-Dinh Professor Dr. Tuan Vo-Dinh is famous chemist and inventor who specializes in the field of photonics. Image courtesy of Dr. Tuan Vo-Dinh

James Walker

James Walker (1863 - 1935)
Famous Chemists James Walker (1863 - 1935).

Otto Wallach

Alfred Werner

Heinrich O. Wieland

Richard M. Willstätter

Adolf O. R. Windaus

Richard A. Zsigmondy

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Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Famous Scientists Who Contributed to Chemistry." ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/pictures-of-famous-chemists-4071313. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (2021, February 16). Famous Scientists Who Contributed to Chemistry. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/pictures-of-famous-chemists-4071313 Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Famous Scientists Who Contributed to Chemistry." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/pictures-of-famous-chemists-4071313 (accessed March 28, 2024).