A •
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799) – mathematician who wrote on differential and integral calculus •
Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) – father of mineralogy •
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) – father of natural history •
Rudolf Allers (1883–1963) – Austrian psychiatrist; the only Catholic member of
Sigmund Freud's first group, later a critic of Freudian psychoanalysis •
Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915) – credited with identifying the first published case of presenile dementia, which is now known as Alzheimer's disease •
André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) – one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism •
Leopold Auenbrugger (1722–1809) – first to use percussion as a diagnostic technique in medicine •
Adrien Auzout (1622–1691) – astronomer who contributed to the development of the telescopic micrometer •
Amedeo Avogadro (1776–1856) – Italian scientist noted for contributions to molecular theory and Avogadro's Law
B •
Jacques Babinet (1794–1872) – French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for his contributions to optics •
Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) Swedish physicist and first female docent in Sweden •
Stefan Banach (1892–1945) – Polish mathematician, founder of modern
functional analysis •
Stephen M. Barr (1953–) – professor emeritus in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the
University of Delaware and a member of its Bartol Research Institute; founding president of the
Society of Catholic Scientists •
Joachim Barrande (1799–1883) – French geologist and paleontologist who studied fossils from the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Bohemia •
Laura Bassi (1711–1778) – physicist at the
University of Bologna and Chair in experimental physics at the
Bologna Institute of Sciences, the first woman to be offered a professorship at a European university •
Antoine César Becquerel (1788–1878) – pioneer in the study of electric and luminescent phenomena •
Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) – awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his co-discovery of radioactivity •
Carlo Beenakker (1960–) – professor at Leiden University and leader of the university's
mesoscopic physics group, established in 1992. •
Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823) – prolific Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities •
Pierre-Joseph van Beneden (1809–1894) – Belgian zoologist and paleontologist who established one of the world's first marine laboratories and aquariums •
Claude Bernard (1813–1878) – physiologist who helped to apply scientific methodology to medicine •
Jacques Philippe Marie Binet (1786–1856) – mathematician known for Binet's formula and his contributions to number theory •
Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774–1862) – physicist who established the reality of meteorites and studied polarization of light •
Evelyn Livingston Billings (1918–2013) – Australian pediatrician; co-developed the
Billings ovulation method with her husband, John Billings •
John Billings (1918–2007) – Australian neurologist; co-developed the
Billings ovulation method with his wife, Evelyn Livingston Billings •
John Birmingham (astronomer) (1816–1884) – Irish astronomer who discovered the recurrent nova T Coronae Borealis and revised and extended Schjellerup's Catalogue of Red Stars •
Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) – zoologist and anatomist who coined the term paleontology and described several new species of reptiles •
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679) – often referred to as the father of modern biomechanics •
Raoul Bott (1923–2005) – mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense •
Marcella Boveri (née O'Grady; 1863–1950) – biologist and first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, husband of Theodor Boveri •
Theodor Boveri (1862–1915) – first to hypothesize the cellular processes that cause cancer •
Louis Braille (1809–1852) – inventor of the Braille reading and writing system •
Edouard Branly (1844–1940) – inventor and physicist known for his involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the Branly coherer •
James Britten (1846–1924) – botanist, member of the
Catholic Truth Society and Knight Commander of the
Order of St. Gregory the Great •
Hermann Brück (1905–2000) – Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1957–1975; honored by Pope John Paul II •
Mary Brück (1925–2008) – Irish astronomer and historian of astronomy •
Albert Brudzewski () – first to state that the Moon moves in an ellipse
C •
Nicola Cabibbo (1935–2010) – Italian physicist, discoverer of the universality of weak interactions (
Cabibbo angle), President of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 1993 until his death •
Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) – awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for pioneering vascular suturing techniques •
John Casey (mathematician) (1820–1891) – Irish geometer known for Casey's theorem •
Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625–1712) – first to observe four of Saturn's moons and the co-discoverer of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter •
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789–1857) – mathematician who was an early pioneer in analysis •
Andrea Cesalpino (c. 1525 – 1603) – botanist who also theorized on the circulation of blood •
Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) – published the first translation of the Rosetta Stone •
Michel Chasles (1793–1880) – mathematician who elaborated on the theory of modern projective geometry and was awarded the Copley Medal •
Guy de Chauliac (c. 1300 – 1368) – most eminent surgeon of the Middle Ages •
Chien-jen Chen (1951–) – Taiwanese epidemiologist researching hepatitis B, liver cancer risk of people with hepatitis B, link of arsenic to , etc. •
Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) – considered one of the major figures in the early development of organic chemistry; stated "Those who know me also know that born a Catholic, the son of Christian parents, I live and I mean to die a Catholic" •
Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907) – Irish astronomer and science educator •
Mateo Realdo Colombo (1516–1559) – discovered the pulmonary circuit, which paved the way for Harvey's discovery of circulation •
Arthur W. Conway (1876–1950) – remembered for his application of biquaternion algebra to the special theory of relativity •
E. J. Conway (1894–1968) – Irish biochemist known for works pertaining to electrolyte physiology and analytical chemistry •
Carl Ferdinand Cori (1896–1984) – shared the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with his wife for their discovery of the Cori cycle •
Gerty Cori (1896–1957) – biochemist who was the first American woman win a Nobel Prize in science (1947) •
Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis (1792–1843) – formulated laws regarding rotating systems, which later became known as the Coriolis effect •
Domenico Cotugno (1736–1822) – Italian anatomist who discovered the nasopalatine nerve, demonstrated the existence of the labyrinthine fluid, and formulated a theory of resonance and hearing, among other important contributions •
Angélique du Coudray (c. 1712 – 1794) – head midwife at the
Hôtel-Dieu, Paris, inventor of the first lifesize obstetrical mannequin, and author of an early midwifery textbook; commissioned by
Louis XV to teach midwifery to rural women, she taught over 30,000 students over almost three decades •
Maurice Couette (1858–1943) – best known for his contributions to rheology and the theory of fluid flow; appointed a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Pius XI in 1925 •
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) – physicist known for developing Coulomb's law •
Clyde Cowan (1919–1974) – co-discoverer of the neutrino •
Jean Cruveilhier (1791–1874) – made important contributions to the study of the nervous system and was the first to describe the lesions associated with multiple sclerosis; originally planned to enter the priesthood •
Endre Czeizel (1935–2015) – discovered that folic acid prevents or reduces the formation of more serious developmental disorders, such as neural tube defects like spina bifida
D •
Gabriel Auguste Daubrée (1814–1896) – pioneer in the application of experimental methods to the study of diverse geologic phenomena •
Peter Debye (1884–1966) – awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1936 "for his contributions to our knowledge of molecular structure through his investigations on dipole moments and on the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases." • Piedad de la Cierva (1903–2007) – Spanish scientist, pioneer in the study of artificial radiation in Spain and in the industrialization of optical glass. •
Charles Enrique Dent (1911–1976) – British biochemist who defined new amino-acid diseases such as various forms of Fanconi syndrome, Hartnup disease, argininosuccinic aciduria and homocystinuria •
César-Mansuète Despretz (1791–1863) – chemist and physicist who investigated latent heat, the elasticity of vapors, the compressibility of liquids, and the density of gases •
Máirin de Valéra (1912–1984) Irish botanist; deeply Catholic, attending daily Mass whenever possible •
Peter Dodson (1946–) – American paleontologist at the
University of Pennsylvania; co-editor of
The Dinosauria, widely considered the definitive scholarly reference on dinosaurs •
Ignacy Domeyko (1802–1889) – Polish scientist who made major contributions to the study of Chile's geography, geology, and mineralogy •
Christian Doppler (1803–1853) – Austrian physicist and mathematician who enunciated the
Doppler effect •
Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) – historian of science who made important contributions to hydrodynamics, elasticity, and thermodynamics •
Félix Dujardin (1801–1860) – biologist remembered for his research on protozoans and other invertebrates; became a devout Catholic later in life and was known to read
The Imitation of Christ •
Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800–1884) – chemist who established new values for the atomic mass of thirty elements •
André Dumont (1809–1857) – Belgian geologist who prepared the first geological map of Belgium and named many of the subdivisions of the Cretaceous and Tertiary •
Charles Dupin (1784–1873) – mathematician who discovered the Dupin cyclide and the Dupin indicatrix
E •
Stephan Endlicher (1804–1849) – botanist who formulated a major system of plant classification •
Bartolomeo Eustachi (c. 1500 – 1574) – one of the founders of human anatomy
F •
Jean-Henri Fabre (1823–1915) – naturalist, entomologist, and science writer; "The Homer of Insects" •
Hieronymus Fabricius (1537–1619) – father of embryology •
Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) – pioneering Italian anatomist who studied the human ear and reproductive organs •
Mary Celine Fasenmyer (1906–1996) – religious sister and mathematician, founder of
Sister Celine's polynomials •
Hervé Faye (1814–1902) – astronomer whose discovery of the periodic comet
4P/Faye won him the 1844
Lalande Prize and membership in the
French Academy of Sciences •
Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) – number theorist who contributed to the early development of calculus •
Jean Fernel (1497–1558) – physician who introduced the term physiology •
Fibonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1250) – popularized Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe and discovered the Fibonacci sequence •
Hippolyte Fizeau (1819–1896) – first person to determine experimentally the velocity of light •
Lawrence Flick (1856–1938) – American physician who pioneered research and treatment of tuberculosis •
Emily Fortey (1866–1946) – British chemist and politician who investigated synthetic cyclohexane and cyclohexane in fractions of crude oil; converted to Catholicism in 1884 •
Philip G. Fothergill FRSE (1908–1967) – British biologist and historian of science •
Léon Foucault (1819–1868) – invented the Foucault pendulum to measure the effect of the Earth's rotation •
Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826) – discovered Fraunhofer lines in the Sun's spectrum •
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) – made significant contributions to the theory of wave optics •
Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs (1774–1856) – confirmed the stoichiometric laws and observed isomorphism and the cation exchange of zeolites
G ] •
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) – Considered a father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science. •
Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) – formulated the theory of animal electricity •
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (1892–1968) – archaeologist specialised in the Palaeolithic period •
William Gascoigne (1610–1644) – developed the first micrometer •
Paula González (1932–2016) – religious sister and professor of biology •
Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 – 1468) – inventor of the printing press •
Paul Guthnick (1879–1947) – astronomer who pioneered the application of photoelectric methods to the measurement of the brightness of celestial bodies
H •
Samuel Stehman Haldeman (1812–1880) – American naturalist and convert to Catholicism who researched fresh-water mollusks, the human voice, Amerindian dialects, and the organs of sound of insects •
Jean Baptiste Julien d'Omalius d'Halloy (1783–1875) – one of the pioneers of modern geology •
Morgan Hebard (1887–1946) – American entomologist who described over 800 new species of orthopteroids and compiled an entomological collection of over 250,000 specimens •
Eduard Heis (1806–1877) – astronomer who contributed the first true delineation of the Milky Way •
Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579–1644) – founder of pneumatic chemistry •
Karl Herzfeld (1892–1978) – Austrian-American physicist who provided the first fundamental explanation of the mechanism of the absorption of sound by molecules •
Victor Franz Hess (1883–1964) – Austrian-American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics, who discovered cosmic rays. •
George de Hevesy (1885–1966) – Hungarian radiochemist and Nobel laureate •
Charles Hermite (1822–1901) – mathematician who did research on number theory, quadratic forms, elliptic functions, and algebra •
John Philip Holland (1840–1914) – developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the US Navy
I J •
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836) – first to propose a natural classification of flowering plants
K •
Karl Kehrle (1898–1996) – Benedictine Monk of Buckfast Abbey, England; beekeeper; world authority on bee breeding, developer of the Buckfast bee •
Mary Kenneth Keller (c. 1914 – 1985) – Sister of Charity and first American woman to earn a PhD in computer science •
Annie Chambers Ketchum (1824–1904) – convert to Catholicism and botanist who published
Botany for academies and colleges: consisting of plant development and structure from seaweed to clematis •
Marie-Victorin Kirouac (1885–1944) – Christian Brother and botanist best known as the father of the
Jardin botanique de Montréal •
Brian Kobilka (1955–) – American
Nobel Prize winning professor who teaches at
Stanford University School of Medicine •
Karl Kreil (1798–1862) – meteorologist and astronomer who conducted important studies of terrestrial magnetism •
Stephanie Kwolek (1923–2014) – chemist who developed Kevlar at DuPont in 1965
L •
René Laennec (1781–1826) – physician who invented the stethoscope •
Laurent Lafforgue (1966–) – mathematician, winner of
Fields Medal •
Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) – mathematician and astronomer known for Lagrangian points and Lagrangian mechanics •
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) – French naturalist, biologist and academic whose theories on evolution preceded those of Darwin •
Johann von Lamont (1805–1879) – astronomer and physicist who studied the magnetism of the Earth and was the first to calculate the mass of Uranus •
Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943) – Nobel Prize winner who identified and classified the human blood types •
Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) – pioneer in entomology •
Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) – father of modern chemistry •
Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier (1758–1836) – working with her husband, she was instrumental to the standardization of the scientific method. •
Claude-Nicolas Le Cat (1700–1768) – invented or perfected several instruments for lithotomy and was one of the first adherents of a mechanistic approach to physiology •
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) – one of the pioneers of natural history, especially through his monumental
Histoire Naturelle •
Xavier Le Pichon (1937– ) – French geophysicist; known for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics, helping create the field of plate tectonics •
Jérôme Lejeune (1926–1994) – pediatrician and geneticist, best known for his discovery of the link of diseases to chromosome abnormalities •
Jacques Jean Lhermitte (1877–1959) – French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist; clinical director at the
Salpêtrière Hospital •
André Lichnerowicz (1915–1998) – French differential geometer and mathematical physicist considered the founder of modern Poisson geometry •
Karl August Lossen (1841–1893) – geologist who mapped and described the Harz Mountains •
Jonathan Lunine (1959–) – planetary scientist at the forefront of research into planet formation, evolution, and habitability; serves as vice-president of the Society of Catholic Scientists
M •
William James MacNeven (1763–1841) – Irish-American physician and chemist who was an early proponent of atomic theory •
Juan Martín Maldacena (1968–) – Argentine theoretical physicist, first Carl P. Feinberg Professor of Theoretical Physics in the
Institute for Advanced Study's School of Natural Sciences, and first proponent of
AdS/CFT correspondence •
Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) – father of comparative physiology •
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714–1774) – anatomist and anatomical wax artist who lectured at the
University of Bologna •
Giovanni Manzolini (1700–1755) – anatomical wax artist and Professor of anatomy at the
University of Bologna •
Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) – father of wireless technology and radio transmission •
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658–1730) – one of the founders of modern oceanography •
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) – known for the Maupertuis principle and for being the first president of the Berlin Academy of Science •
Agnes McLaren (1837–1913) – Scottish physician who inspired other women to dedicate their medical knowledge to the care of the poor. First female to graduate as medical doctor from the University of Montpellier. •
Michele Mercati (1541–1593) – one of the first to recognize prehistoric stone tools as man-made •
Charles W. Misner (1932–2023) – American cosmologist dedicated to the study of general relativity •
Kenneth R. Miller (1948–) – American
cell biologist and
molecular biologist who teaches at
Brown University •
Mario J. Molina (1943–2020) – Mexican chemist, one of the precursors to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole (1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) •
John J. Montgomery (1858–1911) – American physicist and inventor of gliders and aerodynamics •
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) – father of modern anatomical pathology •
Helmut Moritz (1933–2022) – Austrian physical geodesist internationally known for fundamental work on error propagation in geodesy •
Marston Morse (1892–1977) – inventor of Morse Theory, one of the original members of the Institute for Advanced Study •
Johannes Peter Müller (1801–1858) – founder of modern physiology •
Joseph Murray (1919–2012) –
Nobel Prize in Medicine laureate
N •
John von Neumann (1903–1957) – Hungarian-born American
mathematician and
polymath who
converted to Catholicism •
Charles Nicolle (1866–1936) – French bacteriologist who received the 1928 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus; came back to the Catholic Church at the end of his life •
Martin Nowak (1965–) – evolutionary theorist and Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University; serves on the board of the Society of Catholic Scientists •
Pierre Joseph Pelletier (1788–1842) – co-discovered strychnine, caffeine, quinine, cinchonine, among many other discoveries in chemistry •
Georg von Peuerbach (1423–1461) – called the father of mathematical and observational astronomy in the West •
Gabrio Piola (1794–1850) – Italian physicist and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to continuum mechanics •
Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615) – Italian polymath, made contributions to agriculture, hydraulics, military engineering, and pharmacology •
Pierre Puiseux (1855–1928) – French astronomer who created a photographic atlas of the Moon
Q R •
Giancarlo Rastelli (1933–1970) – pioneering cardiac surgeon at the
Mayo Clinic who developed the
Rastelli procedure; he is a
Servant of God in the Catholic Church •
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757) – scientific polymath known especially for his study of insects •
Francesco Redi (1626–1697) – his experiments with maggots were a major step in overturning the idea of spontaneous generation •
Henri Victor Regnault (1810–1878) – chemist with two laws governing the specific heat of gases named after him •
Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro (1853–1925) – one of the founders of tensor calculus •
Norbert Rillieux (1806–1894) – French-speaking
Creole, one of the earliest chemical engineers and inventory of the
multiple-effect evaporator •
Gilles de Roberval (1602–1675) – mathematician who studied the geometry of infinitesimals and was one of the founders of kinematic geometry •
Clemens C. J. Roothaan (1918–2019) – physicist known for developing the Roothaan equations •
Frederick Rossini (1899–1990) –
Priestley Medal and
Laetare Medal-winning chemist •
Paolo Ruffini (1765–1822) – Italian mathematician who contributed to the
Abel–Ruffini theorem and described
Ruffini's rule S •
Paul Sabatier (chemist) (1854–1941) – awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work improving the hydrogenation of organic species in the presence of metals •
Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant (1797–1886) – remembered for
Saint-Venant's principle,
Saint-Venant's theorem, and
Saint-Venant's compatibility condition; given the title Count by Pope Pius IX in 1869 •
Theodor Schwann (1810–1882) – founder of the theory of the cellular structure of animal organisms •
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865) – early pioneer of antiseptic procedures, discoverer of the cause of puerperal fever •
J. Wolfgang Smith (1930–2024) – mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of science •
Anne-Marie Staub (1914–2012) – French biochemist and chemist. Worked on Bacillus anthracis, the pathogen causing Anthrax. •
George Sperti (1900–1991) – inventor of
Preparation H hemorrhoid medication, the Sperti
Ultraviolet Lamp, and
Aspercreme; co-founder of the Institutum Divi-Thomae and of the Basic Science Research Laboratory of the
University of Cincinnati •
Horatio Storer (1830–1922) – physician; founder of the Gynaecological Society of Boston, the first medical society devoted exclusively to gynecology; leader of the "physicians' crusade against abortion" •
Karl Stern (1906–1975) – German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist; lecturer in neuropathology and assistant neuropathologist at the
Montreal Neurological Institute •
Miriam Michael Stimson (1913–2002) – American Adrian Dominican Sister, chemist, and the second woman to lecture at the
Sorbonne; played a role in the history of understanding
DNA •
Jadwiga Szeptycka (1883–1939) – Polish archeologist and writer
T •
Louis Jacques Thénard (1777–1857) – discovered hydrogen peroxide and contributed to the discovery of boron •
Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852–1936) – Spanish civil engineer, inventor and mathematician who was a pioneer in automatic calculating machines and
remote control. •
Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) – inventor of the barometer •
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482) – Italian mathematician, astronomer and cosmographer •
Richard Towneley (1629–1707) – mathematician and astronomer whose work contributed to the formulation of Boyle's Law •
Louis René Tulasne (1815–1885) – biologist with several genera and species of fungi named after him
U V •
Máirin de Valéra (1912–1984) – Irish botanist, expert in phycology •
Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829) – discovered the chemical element beryllium •
Urbain Le Verrier (1811–1877) – mathematician who predicted the discovery of Neptune •
Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) – father of modern human anatomy •
François Viète (1540–1603) – father of modern algebra •
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) – Renaissance anatomist, scientist, mathematician, and painter •
Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703) – mathematician known for Viviani's theorem, Viviani's curve and his work in determining the speed of sound •
Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) – physicist known for the invention of the battery
W •
Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen (1841–1900) – geologist and paleontologist who provided the first example of evolution described from the geologic record, after studying Jurassic ammonites •
James Joseph Walsh (1865–1942) – dean and professor of nervous diseases and of the history of medicine at
Fordham University;
Laetare Medal recipient •
Karl Weierstrass (1815–1897) – often called the father of modern
analysis •
Anna Wierzbicka (1938–) – linguist, founder of the
Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), based at the Australian National University (ANU), her research was cited more than 41,000 times •
E. T. Whittaker (1873–1956) – English mathematician who made contributions to applied mathematics and mathematical physics •
Fr. Thomas Van Winkle (1922-1988)- American nuclear scientist who helped on the Manhattan project then later became a priest. •
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) – one of the founders of scientific archaeology •
Bertram Windle (1858–1929) – anthropologist, physician, and former president of University College Cork •
Jacob B. Winslow (1669–1760) – convert to Catholicism who was regarded as the greatest European anatomist of his day
X Y Z •
Antonino Zichichi (1929–2026) –
Italian nuclear physicist, former President of the
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare •
Gregory Zilboorg (1890–1959) – Ukrainian-American psychiatrist and historian of psychiatry == See also ==