The Pioneers

Honoring the Scientists and Engineers who Advanced Electrical and Related Technology

The accomplishments of many of the technical pioneers profiled here were attained in Schenectady County (external link)or other nearby parts of the New York State Capital District - the original Tech Valleys of the Mohawk-Hudson area. Most of them had an association with General Electric (external link) or Union College (external link) (or both), or in the cases of Alan DuMont and Henry Rowland, within Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (external link) Troy. The emphasis in this Hall of Fame is on engineers and experimental scientists who invented patentable devices or who made discoveries that led to their development. The equally valuable achievements of the more theoretical local scientists are well documented elsewhere. Here, we give tribute to the applied scientists and engineers whose many historic achievements, with the notable exceptions of those of Edison, Steinmetz, and Tesla, are much less known. For a similar Hall of Fame, but one which focuses on electrical engineering in general and microwave development in particular, see the microwaves101 (external link) website. See pioneers for biographies of those for whom physical units are named.