Influential Scientists
Many scientists have made significant contributions to the development of science and mathematics from the Middle Ages to today. These scientists include Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Louis Pasteur, Blaise Pascal, André-Marie Ampère, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, Pierre de Fermat, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Alessandro Volta, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Pierre Duhem, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Alois Alzheimer, Georgius Agricola and Christian Doppler, Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Marin Mersenne, Bernard Bolzano, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, Robert Grosseteste, Christopher Clavius, Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, William of Ockham, Nikola Tesla, Beatrix Tinsley, Marie-Anne Lavoisier,
Alphabetized List 1
José de Acosta (1539–1600) – Jesuit missionary and naturalist who wrote one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the new world[5]
François d'Aguilon (1567–1617) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician, architect, and physicist, who worked on optics
Lorenzo Albacete (1941–2014) – priest, physicist, and theologian
Albert of Castile (c. 1460 – 1522) – Dominican priest and historian
Albert of Saxony (philosopher) (c. 1320 – 1390) – German bishop known for his contributions to logic and physics; with Buridan he helped develop the theory that was a precursor to the modern theory of inertia[6]
Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 – 1280) – Dominican friar and Bishop of Regensburg who has been described as "one of the most famous precursors of modern science in the High Middle Ages."[7] Patron saint of natural sciences; Works in physics, logic, metaphysics, biology, and psychology.
Giulio Alenio (1582–1649) – Jesuit theologian, astronomer and mathematician; was sent to the Far East as a missionary and adopted a Chinese name and customs; wrote 25 books, including a cosmography and a Life of Jesus in Chinese.
José María Algué (1856–1930) – priest and meteorologist who invented the barocyclonometer[8]
José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799) – priest, scientist, historian, cartographer, and meteorologist who wrote more than thirty treatises on a variety of scientific subjects
Bartholomeus Amicus (1562–1649) – Jesuit who wrote about include Aristotelian philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the concept of vacuum and its relationship with God
Stefano degli Angeli (1623–1697) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit), philosopher and mathematician, known for his work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus
Pierre Ango (1640–1694) – Jesuit scientist who published a book on optics
Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli (1817–1899) – priest and botanist who was one of the first to introduce microphotography into the study of biology[9]
Giovanni Antonelli (1818–1872) – priest and astronomer who served as director of the Ximenian Observatory of Florence
Archimedes – Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer
Aristotle – Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great
Nicolò Arrighetti (1709–1767) – Jesuit who wrote treatises on light, heat, and electricity
Mariano Artigas (1938–2006) – Spanish physicist, philosopher and theologian
Giuseppe Asclepi (1706–1776) – Jesuit astronomer and physician who served as director of the Collegio Romano observatory; the lunar crater Asclepi is named after him
Nicanor Austriaco – Dominican microbiologist, associate professor of biology and professor of theology at Providence College as well as chief researcher at the Austriaco Laboratory
Roger Bacon (c. 1214 – 1294) – Franciscan friar who made significant contributions to mathematics and optics and has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific method[10]
Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617) – abbot, mathematician, and writer
John Bardeen – American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice
Eugenio Barsanti (1821–1864) – Piarist, possible inventor of the internal combustion engine[11]
Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685) – Bartoli and fellow Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi are credited as probably having been the first to see the equatorial belts on the planet Jupiter[12][13]
Joseph Bayma (1816–1892) – Jesuit known for work in stereochemistry and mathematics
Giovanni Battista Beccaria (1716–1781) – Piarist, physicist, teacher of Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, correspondent of Benjamin Franklin
Giacopo Belgrado (1704–1789) – Jesuit professor of mathematics and physics and court mathematician who did experimental work in electricity
Michel Benoist (1715–1774) – missionary to China and scientist
Mario Bettinus (1582–1657) – Jesuit philosopher, mathematician and astronomer; lunar crater Bettinus named after him
Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named
Jacques de Billy (1602–1679) – Jesuit who has produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him; published several astronomical tables; the crater Billy on the Moon is named after him
Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) – Cistercian botanist who contributed to the fields of medicine and toxicology
Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) – priest, mathematician, and logician whose other interests included metaphysics, ideas, sensation, and truth
Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) – canon who was one of the founders of mineralogy
Theodoric Borgognoni (1205–1298) – Dominican friar, Bishop of Cervia, and medieval Surgeon who made important contributions to antiseptic practice and anaesthetics
Thomas Borgmeier (1892–1975) – German-born priest and entomologist who worked in Brazil
Christopher Borrus (1583–1632) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomy who made observations on the magnetic variation of the compass
Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) – Croatian Jesuit polymath known for his contributions to modern atomic theory and astronomy and for devising perhaps the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position[14]
Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) – Jesuit sinologist and cartographer who did his work in China
Michał Boym (c. 1612 – 1659) – Jesuit who was one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography
Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349) – Archbishop of Canterbury and mathematician who helped develop the mean speed theorem; one of the Oxford Calculators
Martin Stanislaus Brennan (1845–1927) – priest and astronomer who wrote several books about science
Henri Breuil (1877–1961) – priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist
Jan Brożek (1585–1652) – Polish canon, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and physician; the most prominent Polish mathematician of the 17th century
Pádraig de Brún (1889–1960) – Irish priest, mathematician, poet, and classical scholar; served as Professor of Mathematics at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, President of University College Galway, and Chairman of the Council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Louis-Ovide Brunet (1826–1876) – priest, one of the founding fathers of Canadian botany
Ismaël Bullialdus (1605–1694) – priest, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society; the Bullialdus crater is named in his honor
Jean Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) – priest who formulated early ideas of momentum and inertial motion and sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe
Tom Burke (1923-2008) - Irish Carmelite priest, physicist and school teacher, and co-founder of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
Roberto Busa (1913–2011) – Jesuit, wrote a lemmatization of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Index Thomisticus) which was later digitalized by IBM
Niccolò Cabeo (1586–1650) – Jesuit mathematician; the crater Cabeus is named in his honor
Nicholas Callan (1799–1846) – priest and Irish scientist best known for his work on the induction coil
Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi (1764–1852) – archdeacon, mathematician, political economist and inventor of the tonograph
John Cantius (1390–1473) – priest and Buridanist mathematical physicist who further developed the theory of impetus
Jean Baptiste Carnoy (1836–1899) – priest, has been called the founder of the science of cytology[15]
Giovanni di Casali (died c. 1375) – Franciscan friar who provided a graphical analysis of the motion of accelerated bodies
Paolo Casati (1617–1707) – Jesuit mathematician who wrote on astronomy, meteorology, and vacuums; the crater Casatus on the Moon is named after him; published Terra machinis mota (1658), a dialogue between Galileo, Paul Guldin and father Marin Mersenne on cosmology, geography, astronomy and geodesy, giving a positive image of Galileo 25 years after his conviction.
Giovanni Caselli (1815–1891) – priest who developed the pantelegraph, a forerunner of the fax machine
Laurent Cassegrain (1629–1693) – priest who was the probable namesake of the Cassegrain telescope; the crater Cassegrain on the Moon is named after him
Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757) – French Jesuit physicist who worked on gravity and optics in a Cartesian context
Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643) – Benedictine mathematician; long-time friend and supporter of Galileo Galilei, who was his teacher; wrote an important work on fluids in motion
Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598–1647) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit) known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy; his principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus; the lunar crater Cavalerius is named in his honor
Antonio José Cavanilles (1745–1804) – priest and leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century
Francesco Cetti (1726–1778) – Jesuit zoologist and mathematician
Tommaso Ceva (1648–1737) – Jesuit mathematician, poet, and professor who wrote treatises on geometry, gravity, and arithmetic
Christopher Clavius (1538–1612) – German mathematician and astronomer, most noted in connection with the Gregorian calendar, his arithmetic books were used by many mathematicians including Leibniz and Descartes
Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux (1691–1779) – Jesuit ethnologist and philologer who composed the first treatise of Indology.
Guy Consolmagno (1952–) – Jesuit astronomer and planetary scientist, serving as Director of the Vatican Observatory
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) – Renaissance astronomer and canon famous for his heliocentric cosmology that set in motion the Copernican Revolution
Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) – Franciscan cosmographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, and globe-maker
Bonaventura Corti (1729–1813) – Italian biologist and physicist who made microscopic observations on Tremels, rotifers and seaweeds
George Coyne (1933–2020) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory whose research interests have been in polarimetric studies of various subjects, including Seyfert galaxies
James Cullen (mathematician) (1867–1933) – Jesuit mathematician who published what is now known as Cullen numbers in number theory
James Curley (astronomer) (1796–1889) – Jesuit, first director of Georgetown Observatory and determined the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C.
Marie Curie – Polish physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity
Albert Curtz (1600–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who expanded on the works of Tycho Brahe and contributed to early understanding of the moon; the crater Curtius on the Moon is named after him
Johann Baptist Cysat (1587–1657) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, after whom the lunar crater Cysatus is named; published the first printed European book concerning Japan; one of the first to make use of the newly developed telescope; did important research on comets and the Orion nebula
Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche (1722–1769) – priest and astronomer best known for his observations of the transits of Venus
Ignazio Danti (1536–1586) – Dominican mathematician, astronomer, cosmographer, and cartographer
Armand David (1826–1900) – Lazarist priest, zoologist, and botanist who did important work in these fields in China
Francesco Denza (1834–1894) – Barnabite meteorologist, astronomer, and director of Vatican Observatory
Václav Prokop Diviš (1698–1765) – Czech priest who studied electrical phenomenons and constructed, among other inventions, the first electrified musical instrument in history
Johann Dzierzon (1811–1906) – priest and pioneering apiarist who discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis among bees, and designed the first successful movable-frame beehive; has been described as the "father of modern agriculture"
E
Albert Einstein – German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics
Francesco Faà di Bruno (c. 1825–1888) – priest and mathematician beatified by Pope John Paul II
Honoré Fabri (1607–1688) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist
Jean-Charles de la Faille (1597–1652) – Jesuit mathematician who determined the center of gravity of the sector of a circle for the first time
Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) – canon and one of the most important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century; the Fallopian tubes, which extend from the uterus to the ovaries, are named for him
Gyula Fényi (1845–1927) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Haynald Observatory; noted for his observations of the sun; the crater Fényi on the Moon is named after him
Louis Feuillée (1660–1732) – Minim explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist
Kevin T. FitzGerald (1955–) – American molecular biologist and holds the Dr. David Lauler chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics at Georgetown University
Placidus Fixlmillner (1721–1791) – Benedictine priest and one of the first astronomers to compute the orbit of Uranus
Paolo Frisi (1728–1784) – priest, mathematician, and astronomer who did significant work in hydraulics
Paolo Antonio Foscarini (c. 1565-1616) - Carmelite father and scientist who wrote about liberal arts, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics.
José Gabriel Funes (1963–) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory
Lorenzo Fazzini [it] (1787–1837) – priest and physicist born in Vieste and working in Naples
Joseph Galien (1699 – c. 1762) – Dominican professor who wrote on aeronautics, hailstorms, and airships
Jean Gallois (1632–1707) – French scholar, abbot, and member of Académie des Sciences
Leonardo Garzoni (1543–1592) – Jesuit natural philosopher; author of the first known example of a modern treatment of magnetic phenomena
Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) – French priest, astronomer, and mathematician who published the first data on the transit of Mercury; best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity
Antoine Gaubil (1689–1759) – French astronomer who was the director general of the College of Interpreters at the court of China between 1741 and 1759 and centralized information provided by the Jesuit observatories throughout the world
Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) – Franciscan physician and psychologist; founded Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan
Niccolò Gianpriamo (1686–1759) – Italian Jesuit, missionary and astronomer
Giuseppe Maria Giovene (1753–1837) – Italian archpriest, naturalist, meteorologist, agronomist and entomologist
Johannes von Gmunden (c. 1380 – 1442) – canon, mathematician, and astronomer who compiled astronomical tables; Asteroid 15955 Johannesgmunden named in his honor
Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) – priest, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer; drew the first map of all of New Spain
Gilles-François de Gottignies (1630–1689) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer.
Andrew Gordon (1712–1751) – Benedictine monk, priest, physicist, and inventor who made the first electric motor
Giovanni Antonio Grassi (1775–1849) – Jesuit astronomer who calculated the longitude of Washington, D.C.
Orazio Grassi (1583–1654) – Jesuit mathematician, astronomer and architect; engaged in controversy with Galileo on the subject of comets
Christoph Grienberger (1561–1636) – Jesuit astronomer after whom the crater Gruemberger on the Moon is named; verified Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons.
Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) – Jesuit who discovered the diffraction of light (indeed coined the term "diffraction"), investigated the free fall of objects, and built and used instruments to measure geological features on the moon
Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 – 1253) – bishop who was one of the most knowledgeable men of the Middle Ages; has been called "the first man ever to write down a complete set of steps for performing a scientific experiment"[16]
Johann Grueber (1623–1680) – Jesuit missionary and astronomer in China
Paul Guldin (1577–1643) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who discovered the Guldinus theorem to determine the surface and the volume of a solid of revolution
Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724) – Jesuit known for his early work on lighter-than-air airship design
Johann Georg Hagen (1847–1930) – Jesuit director of the Georgetown and Vatican Observatories; the crater Hagen on the Moon is named after him
Frank Haig (1928–) – American physics professor
Nicholas Halma (1755–1828) – French abbot, mathematician, and translator
Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706) – French priest, natural philosopher, and secretary of the Academie Royale des Sciences
René Just Haüy (1743–1822) – priest known as the father of crystallography
Maximilian Hell (1720–1792) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory who wrote astronomy tables and observed the Transit of Venus; the crater Hell on the Moon is named after him
Michał Heller (1936–) – Polish priest, Templeton Prize winner, and prolific writer on numerous scientific topics
Lorenz Hengler (1806–1858) – priest often credited as the inventor of the horizontal pendulum
Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) – Benedictine historian, music theorist, astronomer, and mathematician
Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809) – Jesuit philologer and discoverer of the Austronesian language family.
Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) – Jesuit missionary and zoologist who studied the natural history of Eastern Asia
Franz von Paula Hladnik (1773–1844) – priest and botanist who discovered several new kinds of plants, and certain genera have been named after him
Giovanni Battista Hodierna (1597–1660) – priest and astronomer who catalogued nebulous objects and developed an early microscope
Johann Baptiste Horvath (1732–1799) – Hungarian physicist who taught physics and philosophy at the University of Tyrnau, later of Buda, and wrote many Newtonian textbooks
Victor-Alphonse Huard (1853–1929) – priest, naturalist, educator, writer, and promoter of the natural sciences
Alexander von Humboldt – German geographer, naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
Maximus von Imhof (1758–1817) – German Augustinian physicist and director of the Munich Academy of Sciences
Giovanni Inghirami (1779–1851) – Italian Piarist astronomer who has a valley on the moon named after him as well as a crater
Frans Alfons Janssens (1865–1924) – Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during meiosis, which he called 'chiasmatypie'
François Jacquier (1711–1788) – Franciscan mathematician and physicist; at his death he was connected with nearly all the great scientific and literary societies of Europe
Stanley Jaki (1924–2009) – Benedictine priest and prolific writer who wrote on the relationship between science and theology
Ányos Jedlik (1800–1895) – Benedictine engineer, physicist, and inventor; considered by Hungarians and Slovaks to be the unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor
Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706) – Jesuit missionary and botanist who established the first pharmacy in the Philippines; the genus Camellia is named for him
Johannes Kepler – German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
Eusebio Kino (1645–1711) – Jesuit missionary, mathematician, astronomer and cartographer; drew maps based on his explorations first showing that California was not an island, as then believed; published an astronomical treatise in Mexico City of his observations of the Kirsch comet
Otto Kippes (1905–1994) – priest acknowledged for his work in asteroid orbit calculations; the main belt asteroid 1780 Kippes was named in his honour
Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) – Jesuit who has been called the father of Egyptology and "Master of a hundred arts"; wrote an encyclopedia of China; one of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope; in his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658 he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that the disease was caused by micro-organisms; this is antecedent to germ theory
Wenceslas Pantaleon Kirwitzer (1588–1626) – Jesuit astronomer and missionary to China who published observations of comets
Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739–1796) – priest, naturalist agronomist, and entomologist who wrote a multi-volume work on Polish animal life
Marian Wolfgang Koller (1792–1866) – Benedictine professor who wrote on astronomy, physics, and meteorology
Franz Xaver Kugler (1862–1929) – Jesuit chemist, mathematician, and Assyriologist who is most noted for his studies of cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy
Ramon Llull (c. 1232 – c. 1315) – Majorcan writer and philosopher, logician and a Franciscan tertiary considered a pioneer of computation theory
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) – French deacon and astronomer noted for cataloguing stars, nebulous objects, and constellations
Joseph-Clovis-Kemner Laflamme (1849–1910) – chair of mineralogy and geology at Université Laval, president of the Royal Society of Canada from 1891 to 1892, and chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
Eugene Lafont (1837–1908) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and founder of the first Scientific Society in India
Antoine de Laloubère (1600–1664) – Jesuit and first mathematician to study the properties of the helix
Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) – Oratorian philosopher and mathematician who wrote on the parallelogram of forces
Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga (1771–1848) – Uruguayan priest, naturalist and botanist who made important contributions to these scientific disciplines. He was a decisive influence behind the foundation of the National Library of Uruguay and the National University of Uruguay. His face appears on the 2000 Uruguayan peso banknotes.
Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) – priest and entomologist whose works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today
Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) – Belgian priest and father of the Big Bang theory
Émile Licent (1876–1952) – French Jesuit trained as a natural historian; spent more than 25 years researching in Tianjin, China
Joseph Liesganig (1719–1799) – Austrian astronomer and geodesist who managed the Jesuit observatory in Vienna between 1756 and 1773
Thomas Linacre (c. 1460 – 1524) – English priest, humanist, translator, and physician
Francis Line (1595–1675) – Jesuit magnetic clock and sundial maker who disagreed with some of the findings of Newton and Boyle
Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606–1682) – Cistercian who wrote on a variety of scientific subjects, including probability theory
João de Loureiro (1717–1791) – Portuguese mathematician and botanist active in Cochinchina
Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) – Benedictine monk and scholar, considered the founder of palaeography and diplomatics
James B. Macelwane (1883–1956) – Jesuit seismologist who contributed a volume to the first textbook on seismology in America
John MacEnery (1797–1841) – archaeologist who investigated the Palaeolithic remains at Kents Cavern
Manuel Magri (1851–1907) – Jesuit ethnographer, archaeologist and writer; one of Malta's pioneers in archaeology
Emmanuel Maignan (1601–1676) – Minim physicist and professor of medicine who published works on gnomonics and perspective
Christopher Maire (1697–1767) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician who collaborated with Roger Boscovich on calculations of the arc of the meridian
Pál Makó [de] (1724–1793) – Hungarian mathematician and physicist who taught mathematics, experimental physics and mechanics at the Vienna Theresianum and had a part in the preparation of the Ratio educationis (1777), which reformed the imperial teaching system in the spirit of Enlightenment
Charles Malapert (1581–1630) – Jesuit writer, astronomer, and proponent of Aristotelian cosmology; also known for observations of sunpots, the lunar surface, and the southern sky; the crater Malapert on the Moon is named after him
Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) – Oratorian philosopher who studied physics, optics, and the laws of motion and disseminated the ideas of Descartes and Leibniz
Marcin of Urzędów (c. 1500 – 1573) – priest, physician, pharmacist, and botanist
Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944) – Jesuit philosopher and psychologist
Edme Mariotte (c. 1620 – 1684) – priest and physicist who recognized Boyle's Law and wrote about the nature of color
Francesco Maurolico (1494–1575) – Benedictine who made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy, and gave the first known proof by mathematical induction
Christian Mayer (astronomer) (1719–1783) – Jesuit astronomer most noted for pioneering the study of binary stars
James Robert McConnell (1915–1999) – Irish theoretical physicist, pontifical academician, Monsignor
Michael C. McFarland (1948–) – American computer scientist and president of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts
Paul McNally (1890–1955) – Jesuit astronomer and director of Georgetown Observatory; the crater McNally on the Moon is named after him
William W. Meissner (1931–2010) – Jesuit psychiatrist and psychoanalytic theorist, recipient of the Oskar Pfister Award and William C. Bier Award
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) – Augustinian friar and father of genetics
Pietro Mengoli (1626–1686) – priest and mathematician who first posed the famous Basel Problem
Giuseppe Mercalli (1850–1914) – priest, volcanologist, and director of the Vesuvius Observatory who is best remembered today for his Mercalli scale for measuring earthquakes which is still in use
Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) – Minim philosopher, mathematician, and music theorist, so-called "father of acoustics"
Paul of Middelburg (1446–1534) – Bishop who wrote on the reform of the calendar
Maciej Miechowita (1457–1523) – canon who wrote the first accurate geographical and ethnographical description of Eastern Europe, as well as two medical treatises
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno (1804–1884) – Jesuit physicist and mathematician; was an expositor of science and translator rather than an original investigator
Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829) – Jesuit naturalist, historian, botanist, ornithologist and geographer
Gerald Molloy (1834–1906) – Irish priest, professor of natural philosophy at (and later Rector of) the Catholic University of Ireland, and expert on electricity
Louis Moréri (1643–1680) – 17th-century priest and encyclopaedist
Theodorus Moretus (1602–1667) – Jesuit mathematician and author of the first mathematical dissertations ever defended in Prague; the lunar crater Moretus is named after him
Roberto Landell de Moura (1861–1928) – Brazilian Jesuit, developing long-distance audio transmissions, using a variety of technologies, including an improved megaphone device. photophone (using light beams) and radio signals.
Gabriel Mouton (1618–1694) – abbot, mathematician, astronomer, and early proponent of the metric system
Jozef Murgaš (1864–1929) – priest who contributed to wireless telegraphy and helped develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice
José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808) – canon, botanist, and mathematician who led the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New World
Bienvenido Nebres (1940–) – Filipino mathematician, president of Ateneo de Manila University, and an honoree of the National Scientist of the Philippines award
John Needham (1713–1781) – English biologist and Catholic priest
Antonio Neri (1576–1614) – Italian priest who wrote the first major treatise on the science of glassmaking
Isaac Newton – English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived"
Jean François Niceron (1613–1646) – Minim mathematician who studied geometrical optics
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) – cardinal, philosopher, jurist, mathematician, astronomer, and one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century
Julius Nieuwland (1878–1936) – Holy Cross priest, known for his contributions to acetylene research and its use as the basis for one type of synthetic rubber, which eventually led to the invention of neoprene by DuPont
Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) – abbot and physicist who discovered the phenomenon of osmosis in natural membranes
Hugo Obermaier (1877–1946) – priest, prehistorian, and anthropologist who is known for his work on the diffusion of mankind in Europe during the Ice Age, as well as his work with north Spanish cave art
William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348) – Franciscan Scholastic who wrote significant works on logic, physics, and theology; known for Occam's razor-principle
Nicole Oresme (c. 1323 – 1382) – one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the later Middle Ages; economist, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, theologian and Bishop of Lisieux, and competent translator; one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century
Barnaba Oriani (1752–1832) – Barnabite geodesist, astronomer and scientist whose greatest achievement was his detailed research of the planet Uranus; also known for Oriani's theorem
Tadeusz Pacholczyk (1965–) – priest, neuroscientist and writer
Luca Pacioli (c. 1446–1517) – Franciscan friar who published several works on mathematics; often regarded as the "father of accounting"
Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) – Jesuit physicist known for his correspondence with Newton and Descartes
Franciscus Patricius (1529–1597) – priest, cosmic theorist, philosopher, and Renaissance scholar
John Peckham (1230–1292) – Archbishop of Canterbury and early practitioner of experimental science
Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) – abbot and astronomer who discovered the Orion Nebula; lunar crater Peirescius named in his honor
Stephen Joseph Perry (1833–1889) – Jesuit astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society; made frequent observations of Jupiter's satellites, of stellar occultations, of comets, of meteorites, of sun spots, and faculae
Giambattista Pianciani (1784–1862) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist who established the electric nature of aurora borealis
Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) – Theatine mathematician and astronomer who discovered Ceres, today known as the largest member of the asteroid belt; also did important work cataloguing stars
Jean Picard (1620–1682) – priest and first person to measure the size of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy; also developed what became the standard method for measuring the right ascension of a celestial object; the PICARD mission, an orbiting solar observatory, is named in his honor
Edward Pigot (1858–1929) – Jesuit seismologist and astronomer
Alexandre Guy Pingré (1711–1796) – French priest astronomer and naval geographer; the crater Pingré on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 12719 Pingré
Andrew Pinsent (1966–) – priest whose current research includes the application of insights from autism and social cognition to 'second-person' accounts of moral perception and character formation; his previous scientific research contributed to the DELPHI experiment at CERN
Jean Baptiste François Pitra (1812–1889) – Benedictine cardinal, archaeologist and theologian who noteworthy for his great archaeological discoveries
Charles Plumier (1646–1704) – Minim friar who is considered one of the most important botanical explorers of his time
Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt (1728–1810) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; granted the title of the King's Astronomer; the crater Poczobutt on the Moon is named after him; taught astronomy at Vilna University (1764–1808), managed its observatory and was the rector of Vilna University between 1777 and 1808
Léon Abel Provancher (1820–1892) – priest and naturalist devoted to the study and description of the fauna and flora of Canada; his pioneer work won for him the appellation of the "father of natural history in Canada"
Claude Rabuel (1669–1729) – Jesuit mathematician who analyzed Descartes's Géométrie
Louis Receveur (1757–1788) – Franciscan naturalist and astronomer; described as being as close as one could get to being an ecologist in the 18th century
Franz Reinzer (1661–1708) – Jesuit who wrote an in-depth meteorological, astrological, and political compendium covering topics such as comets, meteors, lightning, winds, fossils, metals, bodies of water, and subterranean treasures and secrets of the earth
Louis Rendu (1789–1859) – bishop who wrote an important book on the mechanisms of glacial motion; the Rendu Glacier, Alaska, US and Mount Rendu, Antarctica are named for him
Vincenzo Riccati (1707–1775) – Italian Jesuit mathematician and physicist
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) – one of the founding fathers of the Jesuit China Mission and co-author of the first European-Chinese dictionary
Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who authored Almagestum novum, an influential encyclopedia of astronomy; the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body; created a selenograph with Father Grimaldi that now adorns the entrance at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.; first to note that Mizar was a "double star"
Richard of Wallingford (1292–1336) – abbot, renowned clockmaker, and one of the initiators of western trigonometry
Lluís Rodés i Campderà [ca] (1881–1939) – Spanish astronomer and director of Observatorio del Ebro, wrote El Firmamento
Johannes Ruysch (c. 1460 – 1533) – priest, explorer, cartographer, and astronomer who created the second oldest known printed representation of the New World
Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri (1667–1733) – Jesuit mathematician and geometer who was perhaps the first European to write about Non-Euclidean geometry
Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) – Irish monk and astronomer who wrote the authoritative medieval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera; his Algorismus was the first text to introduce Hindu-Arabic numerals and procedures into the European university curriculum; the lunar crater Sacrobosco is named after him
Gregoire de Saint-Vincent (1584–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who made important contributions to the study of the hyperbola
Anthony Ichiro Sanda (1944–) – deacon and particle physicist; co-awarded the 2004 Sakurai Prize for his work on CP violation and B meson decays
Frederick Sanger – English biochemist and a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry, the only person to have been so
Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa (1618–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who contributed to the understanding of logarithms
Christoph Scheiner (c. 1573 – 1650) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and inventor of the pantograph; wrote on a wide range of scientific subjects, including sunspots, leading to a dispute with Galileo Galilei
Wilhelm Schmidt (linguist) (1868–1954) – Austrian priest and missionary of The Society of the Divine Word; linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist
Hermann Schmitz (entomologist) (1878–1960) – German Jesuit and entomologist who specialised in Hymenoptera and Diptera.
George Schoener (1864–1941) – priest who became known in the United States as the "Padre of the Roses" for his experiments in rose breeding
Gaspar Schott (1608–1666) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and natural philosopher who is most widely known for his works on hydraulic and mechanical instruments
Franz Paula von Schrank (1747–1835) – priest, botanist, entomologist, and prolific writer
Berthold Schwarz (c. 14th century) – Franciscan friar and reputed inventor of gunpowder and firearms
Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita (1604–1660) – Capuchin astronomer and optician who built Kepler's telescope
George Mary Searle (1839–1918) – Paulist astronomer and professor who discovered six galaxies
Angelo Secchi (1818–1878) – Jesuit pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy and one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the sun is a star; discovered the existence of solar spicules and drew an early map of Mars
Alessandro Serpieri (1823–1885) – priest, astronomer, and seismologist who studied shooting stars, and was the first to introduce the concept of the seismic radiant
Serafino Serrati (18th century) – Benedictine monk, attributed the invention of a steamboat, also made observations about aerostatic globes
Gerolamo Sersale (1584–1654) – Jesuit astronomer and selenographer; his map of the moon can be seen in the Naval Observatory of San Fernando; the lunar crater Sirsalis is named after him
Benedict Sestini (1816–1890) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician and architect; studied sunspots and eclipses; wrote textbooks on a variety of mathematical subjects
Mihalj Šilobod Bolšić (1724–1787) – Roman Catholic priest, mathematician, writer, and musical theorist primarily known for writing the first Croatian arithmetic textbook Arithmatika Horvatzka (published in Zagreb, 1758)
René François Walter de Sluse (1622–1685) – canon and mathematician with a family of curves named after him
Domingo de Soto (1494–1560) – Spanish Dominican priest and professor at the University of Salamanca; in his commentaries to Aristotle he proposed that free-falling bodies undergo constant acceleration
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799) – priest, biologist, and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation; his research of biogenesis paved the way for the investigations of Louis Pasteur
Valentin Stansel (1621–1705) – Jesuit astronomer in Brazil, who discovered a comet, which, after accurate positions were made via F. de Gottignies in Goa, became known as the Estancel-Gottignies comet
Johan Stein (1871–1951) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, which he modernized and relocated to Castel Gandolfo; the crater Stein on the far side of the Moon is named after him
Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) – bishop beatified by Pope John Paul II who is often called the father of geology[17] and stratigraphy,[7] and is known for Steno's principles
Joseph Stepling (1716–1778) – Bohemian astronomer, physicist and mathematician who managed the Jesuit observatory in Prague between 1751 and 1778
Antonio Stoppani (1824–1891) – Italian priest, geologist, and palaeontologist
Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 – 1003) – prolific scholar who endorsed and promoted Arabic knowledge of arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy in Europe, reintroducing the abacus and armillary sphere which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era
Alexius Sylvius Polonus (1593 – c. 1653) – Jesuit astronomer who studied sunspots and published a work on calendariography
Ignacije Szentmartony (1718–1793) – Croatian Jesuit cartographer and royal mathematician and astronomer, who became a member of the expedition that worked on the rearrangement of the frontiers among colonies in South America, especially Brazil
André Tacquet (1612–1660) – Jesuit mathematician whose work laid the groundwork for the eventual discovery of calculus
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) – Jesuit paleontologist and geologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man
Francesco Lana de Terzi (c. 1631 – 1687) – Jesuit referred to as the Father of Aviation[18] for his pioneering efforts; he also developed a blind writing alphabet prior to Braille.
Matthew Pothen Thekaekara (1914–1974) – Jesuit priest who published the Thekaekara spectrum
Theodoric of Freiberg (c. 1250 – c. 1310) – Dominican theologian and physicist who gave the first correct geometrical analysis of the rainbow
Joseph Tiefenthaler (1710–1785) – Jesuit who was one of the earliest European geographers to write about India
Giuseppe Toaldo (1719–1797) – priest and physicist who studied atmospheric electricity and did important work with lightning rods; the asteroid 23685 Toaldo is named for him
José Torrubia (c. 1700 – 1768) – Franciscan linguist, scientist, collector of fossils and books, and writer on historical, political and religious subjects
Franz de Paula Triesnecker (1745–1817) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory; published a number of treatises on astronomy and geography; the crater Triesnecker on the Moon is named after him
Basil Valentine – priest chemistry
Luca Valerio (1552–1618) – Jesuit mathematician who developed ways to find volumes and centers of gravity of solid bodies
Pierre Varignon (1654–1722) – priest and mathematician whose principle contributions were to statics and mechanics; created a mechanical explanation of gravitation
Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–1782) – French Minim friar inventor and artist who was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata and machines such as the first completely automated loom
Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746–1822) – priest who discovered the Venturi effect
Fausto Veranzio (c. 1551 – 1617) – bishop, polymath, inventor, and lexicographer
Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; designed what some claim to be the first ever self-propelled vehicle, which many claim this as the world's first automobile
Francesco de Vico (1805–1848) – Jesuit astronomer who discovered or co-discovered a number of comets; also made observations of Saturn and the gaps in its rings; the lunar crater De Vico and the asteroid 20103 de Vico are named after him
Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190 – c. 1264) – Dominican who wrote the most influential encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
Benito Vines (1837–1893) – Jesuit meteorologist known as "Father Hurricane" who made the first weather model to predict the trajectory of a hurricane[19][20][21]
Vitello (1230–1280/1314)
János Vitéz (archbishop) (c. 1405 – 1472) – Cardinal Archbishop of Esztergom, astronomer, and mathematician
Giovanni Serafino Volta (1764–1842) – priest and paleontologist who wrote the first treatise on fossil ichthyology in Italy
Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 1520) – German priest and cartographer who, along with Matthias Ringmann, is credited with the first recorded usage of the word America
Erich Wasmann (1859–1931) – Austrian entomologist known for Wasmannian mimicry
Godefroy Wendelin (1580–1667) – priest and astronomer who recognized that Kepler's third law applied to the satellites of Jupiter; the lunar crater Vendelinus is named in his honor
Johannes Werner (1468–1522) – priest, mathematician, astronomer, and geographer
Witelo (c. 1230 – after 1280, before 1314) – friar, physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician; lunar crater Vitello named in his honor; his Perspectiva powerfully influenced later scientists, in particular Johannes Kepler
Julian Tenison Woods (1832–1889) – Passionist geologist and mineralogist
Theodor Wulf (1868–1946) – Jesuit physicist who was one of the first experimenters to detect excess atmospheric radiation
Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) – Jesuit botanist, mineralogist, and alpinist
Leonardo Ximenes (1711–1786) – Italian physicist and astronomer, specialist of hydraulics, creator and director of the Observatory San Giovanino in Florence
John Zahm (1851–1921) – Holy Cross priest and South American explorer
Giuseppe Zamboni (1776–1846) – priest and physicist who invented the Zamboni pile, an early electric battery similar to the Voltaic pile
Francesco Zantedeschi (1797–1873) – priest who was among the first to recognize the marked absorption by the atmosphere of red, yellow, and green light; published papers on the production of electric currents in closed circuits by the approach and withdrawal of a magnet, thereby anticipating Michael Faraday's classical experiments of 1831[22]
Thomas Żebrowski (1714–1758) – Jesuit architect, mathematician, and astronomer; instrumental in establishing and funding the Observatory of Vilnius University.
Casimir Zeglen (1869–after 1927) – Polish American priest, invented a type of silk bulletproof vest
Niccolò Zucchi (1586–1670) – claimed to have tried to build a reflecting telescope in 1616 but abandoned the idea (maybe due to the poor quality of the mirror);[23] may have been the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter (1630)[24]
Godefroy Zumoffen (1848–1928) – French Jesuit archaeologist and geologist notable for his work on prehistory in Lebanon
Giovanni Battista Zupi (c. 1590 – 1650) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and first person to discover that the planet Mercury had orbital phases; the crater Zupus on the Moon is named after him
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799) – mathematician who wrote on differential and integral calculus
Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) – father of mineralogy[1]
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) – father of natural history
Rudolf Allers (1883–1963) – Austrian psychiatrist; the only 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[2]
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[3]
Jacques Babinet (1794–1872) – French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for his contributions to optics [4]
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 [5]
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[6]
Pierre-Joseph van Beneden (1809–1894) – Belgian zoologist and paleontologist who established one of the world's first marine laboratories and aquariums[7]
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[8]
Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) – zoologist and anatomist who coined the term paleontology and described several new species of reptiles[9]
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[10][11]
Marcella Boveri (1863–1950) – biologist and first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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[12]
Hermann Brück (1905–2000) – Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1957–1975; honored by Pope John Paul II
Albert Brudzewski (c. 1445–c. 1497) – first to state that the Moon moves in an ellipse
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 blackfoot disease [zh], etc.[13]
Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) – considered one of the major figures in the early development of organic chemistry;[14] 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"[15]
Mateo Realdo Colombo (1516–1559) – discovered the pulmonary circuit,[16] 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[17]
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)[18]
Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis (1792–1843) – formulated laws regarding rotating systems, which later became known as the Corialis 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[19]
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[20]
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."[21]
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[22]
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[23]
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[24]
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[25]
Charles Dupin (1784–1873) – mathematician who discovered the Dupin cyclide and the Dupin indicatrix[26]
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[27]
Lawrence Flick (1856–1938) – American physician who pioneered research and treatment of tuberculosis
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[28]
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[29]
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[30]
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[31]
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[32]
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[33]
Karl Kreil (1798–1862) – meteorologist and astronomer who conducted important studies of terrestrial magnetism [34]
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[35]
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[36]
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[37]
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[38]
M
William James MacNeven (1763–1841) – Irish-American physician and chemist who was an early proponent of atomic theory[39]
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[40]
Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) – father of comparative physiology[41]
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[42]
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) – known for the Maupertuis principle and for being the first president of the Berlin Academy of Science
Michele Mercati (1541–1593) – one of the first to recognize prehistoric stone tools as man-made
Charles W. Misner (1932–) – American cosmologist dedicated to the study of general relativity
Kenneth R. Miller (1948–) – American cell biologist and molecular biologist who teaches at Brown University[43]
Mario J. Molina (1943–2020) – Mexican chemist, one of the precursors to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole (1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
Peter Joseph Moloney (1891–1989) – Canadian immunologist and pioneering vaccine researcher, who worked out the first large-scale purification of insulin in 1922; International Gairdner Award, 1967)[44]
John J. Montgomery (1858–1911) – American physicist and inventor of gliders and aerodynamics
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) – father of modern anatomical pathology[45]
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[46]
Joseph Murray (1919–2012) – Nobel Prize in Medicine laureate[47]
N
John von Neumann (1903–1957) – Hungarian-born American mathematician and polymath[48] who converted to Catholicism[49]
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[38]
O
Niall Ó Glacáin (c. 1563–1653) – Irish physician who worked to treat victims of bubonic plague outbreaks in various places throughout Europe. He was a pioneer in pathological anatomy.
Karin Öberg (1982–) – her Öberg Astrochemistry Group discovered the first complex organic molecule in a protoplanetary disk; serves on the board of the Society of Catholic Scientists[38]
Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) – created the first modern atlas and theorized on continental drift
Jean-Michel Oughourlian (1940–) – Armenian-French neuropsychiatrist and psychologist; President of the Association of Doctors of the American Hospital of Paris; honorary member of the Association Recherches Mimétiques
P
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) – French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and philosopher
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) – father of bacteriology[50][51]
Christopher J. Payne (1988–) – biology professor at Malone University and long-term forest ecologist[52]
Pierre Joseph Pelletier (1788–1842) – co-discovered strychnine, caffeine, quinine, cinchonine, among many other discoveries in chemistry[53]
Georg von Peuerbach (1423–1461) – called the father of mathematical and observational astronomy in the West[54]
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[55]
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[56]
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–) – mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of science
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[57]
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[58]
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[59]
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[60]
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[61]
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 [62]
E. T. Whittaker (1873–1956) – English mathematician who made contributions to applied mathematics and mathematical physics
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 [63]
X
Y
Z
Antonino Zichichi (1929–) – Italian nuclear physicist, former President of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare[64][65]
Gregory Zilboorg (1890–1959) – Ukrainian-American psychiatrist and historian of psychiatry[66]
LIST 1
José de Acosta (1539–1600) – Jesuit missionary and naturalist who wrote one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the new world[5]
François d'Aguilon (1567–1617) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician, architect, and physicist, who worked on optics
Lorenzo Albacete (1941–2014) – priest, physicist, and theologian
Albert of Castile (c. 1460 – 1522) – Dominican priest and historian
Albert of Saxony (philosopher) (c. 1320 – 1390) – German bishop known for his contributions to logic and physics; with Buridan he helped develop the theory that was a precursor to the modern theory of inertia[6]
Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 – 1280) – Dominican friar and Bishop of Regensburg who has been described as "one of the most famous precursors of modern science in the High Middle Ages."[7] Patron saint of natural sciences; Works in physics, logic, metaphysics, biology, and psychology.
Giulio Alenio (1582–1649) – Jesuit theologian, astronomer and mathematician; was sent to the Far East as a missionary and adopted a Chinese name and customs; wrote 25 books, including a cosmography and a Life of Jesus in Chinese.
José María Algué (1856–1930) – priest and meteorologist who invented the barocyclonometer[8]
José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799) – priest, scientist, historian, cartographer, and meteorologist who wrote more than thirty treatises on a variety of scientific subjects
Bartholomeus Amicus (1562–1649) – Jesuit who wrote about include Aristotelian philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the concept of vacuum and its relationship with God
Stefano degli Angeli (1623–1697) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit), philosopher and mathematician, known for his work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus
Pierre Ango (1640–1694) – Jesuit scientist who published a book on optics
Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli (1817–1899) – priest and botanist who was one of the first to introduce microphotography into the study of biology[9]
Giovanni Antonelli (1818–1872) – priest and astronomer who served as director of the Ximenian Observatory of Florence
Nicolò Arrighetti (1709–1767) – Jesuit who wrote treatises on light, heat, and electricity
Mariano Artigas (1938–2006) – Spanish physicist, philosopher and theologian
Giuseppe Asclepi (1706–1776) – Jesuit astronomer and physician who served as director of the Collegio Romano observatory; the lunar crater Asclepi is named after him
Nicanor Austriaco – Dominican microbiologist, associate professor of biology and professor of theology at Providence College as well as chief researcher at the Austriaco Laboratory
Roger Bacon (c. 1214 – 1294) – Franciscan friar who made significant contributions to mathematics and optics and has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific method[10]
Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617) – abbot, mathematician, and writer
Eugenio Barsanti (1821–1864) – Piarist, possible inventor of the internal combustion engine[11]
Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685) – Bartoli and fellow Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi are credited as probably having been the first to see the equatorial belts on the planet Jupiter[12][13]
Joseph Bayma (1816–1892) – Jesuit known for work in stereochemistry and mathematics
Giovanni Battista Beccaria (1716–1781) – Piarist, physicist, teacher of Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, correspondent of Benjamin Franklin
Giacopo Belgrado (1704–1789) – Jesuit professor of mathematics and physics and court mathematician who did experimental work in electricity
Michel Benoist (1715–1774) – missionary to China and scientist
Mario Bettinus (1582–1657) – Jesuit philosopher, mathematician and astronomer; lunar crater Bettinus named after him
Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named
Jacques de Billy (1602–1679) – Jesuit who has produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him; published several astronomical tables; the crater Billy on the Moon is named after him
Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) – Cistercian botanist who contributed to the fields of medicine and toxicology
Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) – priest, mathematician, and logician whose other interests included metaphysics, ideas, sensation, and truth
Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) – canon who was one of the founders of mineralogy
Theodoric Borgognoni (1205–1298) – Dominican friar, Bishop of Cervia, and medieval Surgeon who made important contributions to antiseptic practice and anaesthetics
Thomas Borgmeier (1892–1975) – German-born priest and entomologist who worked in Brazil
Christopher Borrus (1583–1632) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomy who made observations on the magnetic variation of the compass
Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) – Croatian Jesuit polymath known for his contributions to modern atomic theory and astronomy and for devising perhaps the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position[14]
Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) – Jesuit sinologist and cartographer who did his work in China
Michał Boym (c. 1612 – 1659) – Jesuit who was one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography
Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349) – Archbishop of Canterbury and mathematician who helped develop the mean speed theorem; one of the Oxford Calculators
Martin Stanislaus Brennan (1845–1927) – priest and astronomer who wrote several books about science
Henri Breuil (1877–1961) – priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist
Jan Brożek (1585–1652) – Polish canon, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and physician; the most prominent Polish mathematician of the 17th century
Pádraig de Brún (1889–1960) – Irish priest, mathematician, poet, and classical scholar; served as Professor of Mathematics at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, President of University College Galway, and Chairman of the Council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Louis-Ovide Brunet (1826–1876) – priest, one of the founding fathers of Canadian botany
Ismaël Bullialdus (1605–1694) – priest, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society; the Bullialdus crater is named in his honor
Jean Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) – priest who formulated early ideas of momentum and inertial motion and sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe
Tom Burke (1923-2008) - Irish Carmelite priest, physicist and school teacher, and co-founder of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
Roberto Busa (1913–2011) – Jesuit, wrote a lemmatization of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Index Thomisticus) which was later digitalized by IBM
Niccolò Cabeo (1586–1650) – Jesuit mathematician; the crater Cabeus is named in his honor
Nicholas Callan (1799–1846) – priest and Irish scientist best known for his work on the induction coil
Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi (1764–1852) – archdeacon, mathematician, political economist and inventor of the tonograph
John Cantius (1390–1473) – priest and Buridanist mathematical physicist who further developed the theory of impetus
Jean Baptiste Carnoy (1836–1899) – priest, has been called the founder of the science of cytology[15]
Giovanni di Casali (died c. 1375) – Franciscan friar who provided a graphical analysis of the motion of accelerated bodies
Paolo Casati (1617–1707) – Jesuit mathematician who wrote on astronomy, meteorology, and vacuums; the crater Casatus on the Moon is named after him; published Terra machinis mota (1658), a dialogue between Galileo, Paul Guldin and father Marin Mersenne on cosmology, geography, astronomy and geodesy, giving a positive image of Galileo 25 years after his conviction.
Giovanni Caselli (1815–1891) – priest who developed the pantelegraph, a forerunner of the fax machine
Laurent Cassegrain (1629–1693) – priest who was the probable namesake of the Cassegrain telescope; the crater Cassegrain on the Moon is named after him
Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757) – French Jesuit physicist who worked on gravity and optics in a Cartesian context
Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643) – Benedictine mathematician; long-time friend and supporter of Galileo Galilei, who was his teacher; wrote an important work on fluids in motion
Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598–1647) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit) known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy; his principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus; the lunar crater Cavalerius is named in his honor
Antonio José Cavanilles (1745–1804) – priest and leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century
Francesco Cetti (1726–1778) – Jesuit zoologist and mathematician
Tommaso Ceva (1648–1737) – Jesuit mathematician, poet, and professor who wrote treatises on geometry, gravity, and arithmetic
Christopher Clavius (1538–1612) – German mathematician and astronomer, most noted in connection with the Gregorian calendar, his arithmetic books were used by many mathematicians including Leibniz and Descartes
Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux (1691–1779) – Jesuit ethnologist and philologer who composed the first treatise of Indology.
Guy Consolmagno (1952–) – Jesuit astronomer and planetary scientist, serving as Director of the Vatican Observatory
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) – Renaissance astronomer and canon famous for his heliocentric cosmology that set in motion the Copernican Revolution
Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) – Franciscan cosmographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, and globe-maker
Bonaventura Corti (1729–1813) – Italian biologist and physicist who made microscopic observations on Tremels, rotifers and seaweeds
George Coyne (1933–2020) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory whose research interests have been in polarimetric studies of various subjects, including Seyfert galaxies
James Cullen (mathematician) (1867–1933) – Jesuit mathematician who published what is now known as Cullen numbers in number theory
James Curley (astronomer) (1796–1889) – Jesuit, first director of Georgetown Observatory and determined the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C.
Albert Curtz (1600–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who expanded on the works of Tycho Brahe and contributed to early understanding of the moon; the crater Curtius on the Moon is named after him
Johann Baptist Cysat (1587–1657) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, after whom the lunar crater Cysatus is named; published the first printed European book concerning Japan; one of the first to make use of the newly developed telescope; did important research on comets and the Orion nebula
Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche (1722–1769) – priest and astronomer best known for his observations of the transits of Venus
Ignazio Danti (1536–1586) – Dominican mathematician, astronomer, cosmographer, and cartographer
Armand David (1826–1900) – Lazarist priest, zoologist, and botanist who did important work in these fields in China
Francesco Denza (1834–1894) – Barnabite meteorologist, astronomer, and director of Vatican Observatory
Václav Prokop Diviš (1698–1765) – Czech priest who studied electrical phenomenons and constructed, among other inventions, the first electrified musical instrument in history
Johann Dzierzon (1811–1906) – priest and pioneering apiarist who discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis among bees, and designed the first successful movable-frame beehive; has been described as the "father of modern apiculture"
Francesco Faà di Bruno (c. 1825–1888) – priest and mathematician beatified by Pope John Paul II
Honoré Fabri (1607–1688) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist
Jean-Charles de la Faille (1597–1652) – Jesuit mathematician who determined the center of gravity of the sector of a circle for the first time
Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) – canon and one of the most important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century; the Fallopian tubes, which extend from the uterus to the ovaries, are named for him
Gyula Fényi (1845–1927) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Haynald Observatory; noted for his observations of the sun; the crater Fényi on the Moon is named after him
Louis Feuillée (1660–1732) – Minim explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist
Kevin T. FitzGerald (1955–) – American molecular biologist and holds the Dr. David Lauler chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics at Georgetown University
Placidus Fixlmillner (1721–1791) – Benedictine priest and one of the first astronomers to compute the orbit of Uranus
Paolo Frisi (1728–1784) – priest, mathematician, and astronomer who did significant work in hydraulics
Paolo Antonio Foscarini (c. 1565-1616) - Carmelite father and scientist who wrote about liberal arts, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics.
José Gabriel Funes (1963–) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory
Lorenzo Fazzini [it] (1787–1837) – priest and physicist born in Vieste and working in Naples
Joseph Galien (1699 – c. 1762) – Dominican professor who wrote on aeronautics, hailstorms, and airships
Jean Gallois (1632–1707) – French scholar, abbot, and member of Académie des Sciences
Leonardo Garzoni (1543–1592) – Jesuit natural philosopher; author of the first known example of a modern treatment of magnetic phenomena
Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) – French priest, astronomer, and mathematician who published the first data on the transit of Mercury; best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity
Antoine Gaubil (1689–1759) – French astronomer who was the director general of the College of Interpreters at the court of China between 1741 and 1759 and centralized information provided by the Jesuit observatories throughout the world
Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) – Franciscan physician and psychologist; founded Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan
Niccolò Gianpriamo (1686–1759) – Italian Jesuit, missionary and astronomer
Giuseppe Maria Giovene (1753–1837) – Italian archpriest, naturalist, meteorologist, agronomist and entomologist
Johannes von Gmunden (c. 1380 – 1442) – canon, mathematician, and astronomer who compiled astronomical tables; Asteroid 15955 Johannesgmunden named in his honor
Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) – priest, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer; drew the first map of all of New Spain
Gilles-François de Gottignies (1630–1689) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer.
Andrew Gordon (1712–1751) – Benedictine monk, priest, physicist, and inventor who made the first electric motor
Giovanni Antonio Grassi (1775–1849) – Jesuit astronomer who calculated the longitude of Washington, D.C.
Orazio Grassi (1583–1654) – Jesuit mathematician, astronomer and architect; engaged in controversy with Galileo on the subject of comets
Christoph Grienberger (1561–1636) – Jesuit astronomer after whom the crater Gruemberger on the Moon is named; verified Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons.
Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) – Jesuit who discovered the diffraction of light (indeed coined the term "diffraction"), investigated the free fall of objects, and built and used instruments to measure geological features on the moon
Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 – 1253) – bishop who was one of the most knowledgeable men of the Middle Ages; has been called "the first man ever to write down a complete set of steps for performing a scientific experiment"[16]
Johann Grueber (1623–1680) – Jesuit missionary and astronomer in China
Paul Guldin (1577–1643) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who discovered the Guldinus theorem to determine the surface and the volume of a solid of revolution
Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724) – Jesuit known for his early work on lighter-than-air airship design
Johann Georg Hagen (1847–1930) – Jesuit director of the Georgetown and Vatican Observatories; the crater Hagen on the Moon is named after him
Frank Haig (1928–) – American physics professor
Nicholas Halma (1755–1828) – French abbot, mathematician, and translator
Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706) – French priest, natural philosopher, and secretary of the Academie Royale des Sciences
René Just Haüy (1743–1822) – priest known as the father of crystallography
Maximilian Hell (1720–1792) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory who wrote astronomy tables and observed the Transit of Venus; the crater Hell on the Moon is named after him
Michał Heller (1936–) – Polish priest, Templeton Prize winner, and prolific writer on numerous scientific topics
Lorenz Hengler (1806–1858) – priest often credited as the inventor of the horizontal pendulum
Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) – Benedictine historian, music theorist, astronomer, and mathematician
Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809) – Jesuit philologer and discoverer of the Austronesian language family.
Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) – Jesuit missionary and zoologist who studied the natural history of Eastern Asia
Franz von Paula Hladnik (1773–1844) – priest and botanist who discovered several new kinds of plants, and certain genera have been named after him
Giovanni Battista Hodierna (1597–1660) – priest and astronomer who catalogued nebulous objects and developed an early microscope
Johann Baptiste Horvath (1732–1799) – Hungarian physicist who taught physics and philosophy at the University of Tyrnau, later of Buda, and wrote many Newtonian textbooks
Victor-Alphonse Huard (1853–1929) – priest, naturalist, educator, writer, and promoter of the natural sciences
Maximus von Imhof (1758–1817) – German Augustinian physicist and director of the Munich Academy of Sciences
Giovanni Inghirami (1779–1851) – Italian Piarist astronomer who has a valley on the moon named after him as well as a crater
Frans Alfons Janssens (1865–1924) – Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during meiosis, which he called 'chiasmatypie'
François Jacquier (1711–1788) – Franciscan mathematician and physicist; at his death he was connected with nearly all the great scientific and literary societies of Europe
Stanley Jaki (1924–2009) – Benedictine priest and prolific writer who wrote on the relationship between science and theology
Ányos Jedlik (1800–1895) – Benedictine engineer, physicist, and inventor; considered by Hungarians and Slovaks to be the unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor
Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706) – Jesuit missionary and botanist who established the first pharmacy in the Philippines; the genus Camellia is named for him
Eusebio Kino (1645–1711) – Jesuit missionary, mathematician, astronomer and cartographer; drew maps based on his explorations first showing that California was not an island, as then believed; published an astronomical treatise in Mexico City of his observations of the Kirsch comet
Otto Kippes (1905–1994) – priest acknowledged for his work in asteroid orbit calculations; the main belt asteroid 1780 Kippes was named in his honour
Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) – Jesuit who has been called the father of Egyptology and "Master of a hundred arts"; wrote an encyclopedia of China; one of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope; in his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658 he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that the disease was caused by micro-organisms; this is antecedent to germ theory
Wenceslas Pantaleon Kirwitzer (1588–1626) – Jesuit astronomer and missionary to China who published observations of comets
Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739–1796) – priest, naturalist agronomist, and entomologist who wrote a multi-volume work on Polish animal life
Marian Wolfgang Koller (1792–1866) – Benedictine professor who wrote on astronomy, physics, and meteorology
Franz Xaver Kugler (1862–1929) – Jesuit chemist, mathematician, and Assyriologist who is most noted for his studies of cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy
Ramon Llull (c. 1232 – c. 1315) – Majorcan writer and philosopher, logician and a Franciscan tertiary considered a pioneer of computation theory
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) – French deacon and astronomer noted for cataloguing stars, nebulous objects, and constellations
Joseph-Clovis-Kemner Laflamme (1849–1910) – chair of mineralogy and geology at Université Laval, president of the Royal Society of Canada from 1891 to 1892, and chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
Eugene Lafont (1837–1908) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and founder of the first Scientific Society in India
Antoine de Laloubère (1600–1664) – Jesuit and first mathematician to study the properties of the helix
Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) – Oratorian philosopher and mathematician who wrote on the parallelogram of forces
Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga (1771–1848) – Uruguayan priest, naturalist and botanist who made important contributions to these scientific disciplines. He was a decisive influence behind the foundation of the National Library of Uruguay and the National University of Uruguay. His face appears on the 2000 Uruguayan peso banknotes.
Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) – priest and entomologist whose works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today
Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) – Belgian priest and father of the Big Bang theory
Émile Licent (1876–1952) – French Jesuit trained as a natural historian; spent more than 25 years researching in Tianjin, China
Joseph Liesganig (1719–1799) – Austrian astronomer and geodesist who managed the Jesuit observatory in Vienna between 1756 and 1773
Thomas Linacre (c. 1460 – 1524) – English priest, humanist, translator, and physician
Francis Line (1595–1675) – Jesuit magnetic clock and sundial maker who disagreed with some of the findings of Newton and Boyle
Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606–1682) – Cistercian who wrote on a variety of scientific subjects, including probability theory
João de Loureiro (1717–1791) – Portuguese mathematician and botanist active in Cochinchina
Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) – Benedictine monk and scholar, considered the founder of palaeography and diplomatics
James B. Macelwane (1883–1956) – Jesuit seismologist who contributed a volume to the first textbook on seismology in America
John MacEnery (1797–1841) – archaeologist who investigated the Palaeolithic remains at Kents Cavern
Manuel Magri (1851–1907) – Jesuit ethnographer, archaeologist and writer; one of Malta's pioneers in archaeology
Emmanuel Maignan (1601–1676) – Minim physicist and professor of medicine who published works on gnomonics and perspective
Christopher Maire (1697–1767) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician who collaborated with Roger Boscovich on calculations of the arc of the meridian
Pál Makó [de] (1724–1793) – Hungarian mathematician and physicist who taught mathematics, experimental physics and mechanics at the Vienna Theresianum and had a part in the preparation of the Ratio educationis (1777), which reformed the imperial teaching system in the spirit of Enlightenment
Charles Malapert (1581–1630) – Jesuit writer, astronomer, and proponent of Aristotelian cosmology; also known for observations of sunpots, the lunar surface, and the southern sky; the crater Malapert on the Moon is named after him
Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) – Oratorian philosopher who studied physics, optics, and the laws of motion and disseminated the ideas of Descartes and Leibniz
Marcin of Urzędów (c. 1500 – 1573) – priest, physician, pharmacist, and botanist
Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944) – Jesuit philosopher and psychologist
Edme Mariotte (c. 1620 – 1684) – priest and physicist who recognized Boyle's Law and wrote about the nature of color
Francesco Maurolico (1494–1575) – Benedictine who made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy, and gave the first known proof by mathematical induction
Christian Mayer (astronomer) (1719–1783) – Jesuit astronomer most noted for pioneering the study of binary stars
James Robert McConnell (1915–1999) – Irish theoretical physicist, pontifical academician, Monsignor
Michael C. McFarland (1948–) – American computer scientist and president of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts
Paul McNally (1890–1955) – Jesuit astronomer and director of Georgetown Observatory; the crater McNally on the Moon is named after him
William W. Meissner (1931–2010) – Jesuit psychiatrist and psychoanalytic theorist, recipient of the Oskar Pfister Award and William C. Bier Award
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) – Augustinian friar and father of genetics
Pietro Mengoli (1626–1686) – priest and mathematician who first posed the famous Basel Problem
Giuseppe Mercalli (1850–1914) – priest, volcanologist, and director of the Vesuvius Observatory who is best remembered today for his Mercalli scale for measuring earthquakes which is still in use
Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) – Minim philosopher, mathematician, and music theorist, so-called "father of acoustics"
Paul of Middelburg (1446–1534) – Bishop who wrote on the reform of the calendar
Maciej Miechowita (1457–1523) – canon who wrote the first accurate geographical and ethnographical description of Eastern Europe, as well as two medical treatises
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno (1804–1884) – Jesuit physicist and mathematician; was an expositor of science and translator rather than an original investigator
Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829) – Jesuit naturalist, historian, botanist, ornithologist and geographer
Gerald Molloy (1834–1906) – Irish priest, professor of natural philosophy at (and later Rector of) the Catholic University of Ireland, and expert on electricity
Louis Moréri (1643–1680) – 17th-century priest and encyclopaedist
Theodorus Moretus (1602–1667) – Jesuit mathematician and author of the first mathematical dissertations ever defended in Prague; the lunar crater Moretus is named after him
Roberto Landell de Moura (1861–1928) – Brazilian Jesuit, developing long-distance audio transmissions, using a variety of technologies, including an improved megaphone device. photophone (using light beams) and radio signals.
Gabriel Mouton (1618–1694) – abbot, mathematician, astronomer, and early proponent of the metric system
Jozef Murgaš (1864–1929) – priest who contributed to wireless telegraphy and helped develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice
José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808) – canon, botanist, and mathematician who led the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New World
Bienvenido Nebres (1940–) – Filipino mathematician, president of Ateneo de Manila University, and an honoree of the National Scientist of the Philippines award
John Needham (1713–1781) – English biologist and Catholic priest
Antonio Neri (1576–1614) – Italian priest who wrote the first major treatise on the science of glassmaking
Jean François Niceron (1613–1646) – Minim mathematician who studied geometrical optics
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) – cardinal, philosopher, jurist, mathematician, astronomer, and one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century
Julius Nieuwland (1878–1936) – Holy Cross priest, known for his contributions to acetylene research and its use as the basis for one type of synthetic rubber, which eventually led to the invention of neoprene by DuPont
Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) – abbot and physicist who discovered the phenomenon of osmosis in natural membranes
Hugo Obermaier (1877–1946) – priest, prehistorian, and anthropologist who is known for his work on the diffusion of mankind in Europe during the Ice Age, as well as his work with north Spanish cave art
William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348) – Franciscan Scholastic who wrote significant works on logic, physics, and theology; known for Occam's razor-principle
Nicole Oresme (c. 1323 – 1382) – one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the later Middle Ages; economist, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, theologian and Bishop of Lisieux, and competent translator; one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century
Barnaba Oriani (1752–1832) – Barnabite geodesist, astronomer and scientist whose greatest achievement was his detailed research of the planet Uranus; also known for Oriani's theorem
Tadeusz Pacholczyk (1965–) – priest, neuroscientist and writer
Luca Pacioli (c. 1446–1517) – Franciscan friar who published several works on mathematics; often regarded as the "father of accounting"
Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) – Jesuit physicist known for his correspondence with Newton and Descartes
Franciscus Patricius (1529–1597) – priest, cosmic theorist, philosopher, and Renaissance scholar
John Peckham (1230–1292) – Archbishop of Canterbury and early practitioner of experimental science
Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) – abbot and astronomer who discovered the Orion Nebula; lunar crater Peirescius named in his honor
Stephen Joseph Perry (1833–1889) – Jesuit astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society; made frequent observations of Jupiter's satellites, of stellar occultations, of comets, of meteorites, of sun spots, and faculae
Giambattista Pianciani (1784–1862) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist who established the electric nature of aurora borealis
Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) – Theatine mathematician and astronomer who discovered Ceres, today known as the largest member of the asteroid belt; also did important work cataloguing stars
Jean Picard (1620–1682) – priest and first person to measure the size of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy; also developed what became the standard method for measuring the right ascension of a celestial object; the PICARD mission, an orbiting solar observatory, is named in his honor
Edward Pigot (1858–1929) – Jesuit seismologist and astronomer
Alexandre Guy Pingré (1711–1796) – French priest astronomer and naval geographer; the crater Pingré on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 12719 Pingré
Andrew Pinsent (1966–) – priest whose current research includes the application of insights from autism and social cognition to 'second-person' accounts of moral perception and character formation; his previous scientific research contributed to the DELPHI experiment at CERN
Jean Baptiste François Pitra (1812–1889) – Benedictine cardinal, archaeologist and theologian who noteworthy for his great archaeological discoveries
Charles Plumier (1646–1704) – Minim friar who is considered one of the most important botanical explorers of his time
Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt (1728–1810) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; granted the title of the King's Astronomer; the crater Poczobutt on the Moon is named after him; taught astronomy at Vilna University (1764–1808), managed its observatory and was the rector of Vilna University between 1777 and 1808
Léon Abel Provancher (1820–1892) – priest and naturalist devoted to the study and description of the fauna and flora of Canada; his pioneer work won for him the appellation of the "father of natural history in Canada"
Claude Rabuel (1669–1729) – Jesuit mathematician who analyzed Descartes's Géométrie
Louis Receveur (1757–1788) – Franciscan naturalist and astronomer; described as being as close as one could get to being an ecologist in the 18th century
Franz Reinzer (1661–1708) – Jesuit who wrote an in-depth meteorological, astrological, and political compendium covering topics such as comets, meteors, lightning, winds, fossils, metals, bodies of water, and subterranean treasures and secrets of the earth
Louis Rendu (1789–1859) – bishop who wrote an important book on the mechanisms of glacial motion; the Rendu Glacier, Alaska, US and Mount Rendu, Antarctica are named for him
Vincenzo Riccati (1707–1775) – Italian Jesuit mathematician and physicist
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) – one of the founding fathers of the Jesuit China Mission and co-author of the first European-Chinese dictionary
Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who authored Almagestum novum, an influential encyclopedia of astronomy; the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body; created a selenograph with Father Grimaldi that now adorns the entrance at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.; first to note that Mizar was a "double star"
Richard of Wallingford (1292–1336) – abbot, renowned clockmaker, and one of the initiators of western trigonometry
Lluís Rodés i Campderà [ca] (1881–1939) – Spanish astronomer and director of Observatorio del Ebro, wrote El Firmamento
Johannes Ruysch (c. 1460 – 1533) – priest, explorer, cartographer, and astronomer who created the second oldest known printed representation of the New World
Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri (1667–1733) – Jesuit mathematician and geometer who was perhaps the first European to write about Non-Euclidean geometry
Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) – Irish monk and astronomer who wrote the authoritative medieval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera; his Algorismus was the first text to introduce Hindu-Arabic numerals and procedures into the European university curriculum; the lunar crater Sacrobosco is named after him
Gregoire de Saint-Vincent (1584–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who made important contributions to the study of the hyperbola
Anthony Ichiro Sanda (1944–) – deacon and particle physicist; co-awarded the 2004 Sakurai Prize for his work on CP violation and B meson decays
Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa (1618–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who contributed to the understanding of logarithms
Christoph Scheiner (c. 1573 – 1650) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and inventor of the pantograph; wrote on a wide range of scientific subjects, including sunspots, leading to a dispute with Galileo Galilei
Wilhelm Schmidt (linguist) (1868–1954) – Austrian priest and missionary of The Society of the Divine Word; linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist
Hermann Schmitz (entomologist) (1878–1960) – German Jesuit and entomologist who specialised in Hymenoptera and Diptera.
George Schoener (1864–1941) – priest who became known in the United States as the "Padre of the Roses" for his experiments in rose breeding
Gaspar Schott (1608–1666) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and natural philosopher who is most widely known for his works on hydraulic and mechanical instruments
Franz Paula von Schrank (1747–1835) – priest, botanist, entomologist, and prolific writer
Berthold Schwarz (c. 14th century) – Franciscan friar and reputed inventor of gunpowder and firearms
Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita (1604–1660) – Capuchin astronomer and optician who built Kepler's telescope
George Mary Searle (1839–1918) – Paulist astronomer and professor who discovered six galaxies
Angelo Secchi (1818–1878) – Jesuit pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy and one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the sun is a star; discovered the existence of solar spicules and drew an early map of Mars
Alessandro Serpieri (1823–1885) – priest, astronomer, and seismologist who studied shooting stars, and was the first to introduce the concept of the seismic radiant
Serafino Serrati (18th century) – Benedictine monk, attributed the invention of a steamboat, also made observations about aerostatic globes
Gerolamo Sersale (1584–1654) – Jesuit astronomer and selenographer; his map of the moon can be seen in the Naval Observatory of San Fernando; the lunar crater Sirsalis is named after him
Benedict Sestini (1816–1890) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician and architect; studied sunspots and eclipses; wrote textbooks on a variety of mathematical subjects
Mihalj Šilobod Bolšić (1724–1787) – Roman Catholic priest, mathematician, writer, and musical theorist primarily known for writing the first Croatian arithmetic textbook Arithmatika Horvatzka (published in Zagreb, 1758)
René François Walter de Sluse (1622–1685) – canon and mathematician with a family of curves named after him
Domingo de Soto (1494–1560) – Spanish Dominican priest and professor at the University of Salamanca; in his commentaries to Aristotle he proposed that free-falling bodies undergo constant acceleration
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799) – priest, biologist, and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation; his research of biogenesis paved the way for the investigations of Louis Pasteur
Valentin Stansel (1621–1705) – Jesuit astronomer in Brazil, who discovered a comet, which, after accurate positions were made via F. de Gottignies in Goa, became known as the Estancel-Gottignies comet
Johan Stein (1871–1951) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, which he modernized and relocated to Castel Gandolfo; the crater Stein on the far side of the Moon is named after him
Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) – bishop beatified by Pope John Paul II who is often called the father of geology[17] and stratigraphy,[7] and is known for Steno's principles
Joseph Stepling (1716–1778) – Bohemian astronomer, physicist and mathematician who managed the Jesuit observatory in Prague between 1751 and 1778
Antonio Stoppani (1824–1891) – Italian priest, geologist, and palaeontologist
Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 – 1003) – prolific scholar who endorsed and promoted Arabic knowledge of arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy in Europe, reintroducing the abacus and armillary sphere which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era
Alexius Sylvius Polonus (1593 – c. 1653) – Jesuit astronomer who studied sunspots and published a work on calendariography
Ignacije Szentmartony (1718–1793) – Croatian Jesuit cartographer and royal mathematician and astronomer, who became a member of the expedition that worked on the rearrangement of the frontiers among colonies in South America, especially Brazil
André Tacquet (1612–1660) – Jesuit mathematician whose work laid the groundwork for the eventual discovery of calculus
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) – Jesuit paleontologist and geologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man
Francesco Lana de Terzi (c. 1631 – 1687) – Jesuit referred to as the Father of Aviation[18] for his pioneering efforts; he also developed a blind writing alphabet prior to Braille.
Matthew Pothen Thekaekara (1914–1974) – Jesuit priest who published the Thekaekara spectrum
Theodoric of Freiberg (c. 1250 – c. 1310) – Dominican theologian and physicist who gave the first correct geometrical analysis of the rainbow
Joseph Tiefenthaler (1710–1785) – Jesuit who was one of the earliest European geographers to write about India
Giuseppe Toaldo (1719–1797) – priest and physicist who studied atmospheric electricity and did important work with lightning rods; the asteroid 23685 Toaldo is named for him
José Torrubia (c. 1700 – 1768) – Franciscan linguist, scientist, collector of fossils and books, and writer on historical, political and religious subjects
Franz de Paula Triesnecker (1745–1817) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory; published a number of treatises on astronomy and geography; the crater Triesnecker on the Moon is named after him
Basil Valentine – priest chemistry
Luca Valerio (1552–1618) – Jesuit mathematician who developed ways to find volumes and centers of gravity of solid bodies
Pierre Varignon (1654–1722) – priest and mathematician whose principle contributions were to statics and mechanics; created a mechanical explanation of gravitation
Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–1782) – French Minim friar inventor and artist who was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata and machines such as the first completely automated loom
Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746–1822) – priest who discovered the Venturi effect
Fausto Veranzio (c. 1551 – 1617) – bishop, polymath, inventor, and lexicographer
Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; designed what some claim to be the first ever self-propelled vehicle, which many claim this as the world's first automobile
Francesco de Vico (1805–1848) – Jesuit astronomer who discovered or co-discovered a number of comets; also made observations of Saturn and the gaps in its rings; the lunar crater De Vico and the asteroid 20103 de Vico are named after him
Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190 – c. 1264) – Dominican who wrote the most influential encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
Benito Vines (1837–1893) – Jesuit meteorologist known as "Father Hurricane" who made the first weather model to predict the trajectory of a hurricane[19][20][21]
Vitello (1230–1280/1314)
János Vitéz (archbishop) (c. 1405 – 1472) – Cardinal Archbishop of Esztergom, astronomer, and mathematician
Giovanni Serafino Volta (1764–1842) – priest and paleontologist who wrote the first treatise on fossil ichthyology in Italy
Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 1520) – German priest and cartographer who, along with Matthias Ringmann, is credited with the first recorded usage of the word America
Erich Wasmann (1859–1931) – Austrian entomologist known for Wasmannian mimicry
Godefroy Wendelin (1580–1667) – priest and astronomer who recognized that Kepler's third law applied to the satellites of Jupiter; the lunar crater Vendelinus is named in his honor
Johannes Werner (1468–1522) – priest, mathematician, astronomer, and geographer
Witelo (c. 1230 – after 1280, before 1314) – friar, physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician; lunar crater Vitello named in his honor; his Perspectiva powerfully influenced later scientists, in particular Johannes Kepler
Julian Tenison Woods (1832–1889) – Passionist geologist and mineralogist
Theodor Wulf (1868–1946) – Jesuit physicist who was one of the first experimenters to detect excess atmospheric radiation
Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) – Jesuit botanist, mineralogist, and alpinist
Leonardo Ximenes (1711–1786) – Italian physicist and astronomer, specialist of hydraulics, creator and director of the Observatory San Giovanino in Florence
John Zahm (1851–1921) – Holy Cross priest and South American explorer
Giuseppe Zamboni (1776–1846) – priest and physicist who invented the Zamboni pile, an early electric battery similar to the Voltaic pile
Francesco Zantedeschi (1797–1873) – priest who was among the first to recognize the marked absorption by the atmosphere of red, yellow, and green light; published papers on the production of electric currents in closed circuits by the approach and withdrawal of a magnet, thereby anticipating Michael Faraday's classical experiments of 1831[22]
Thomas Żebrowski (1714–1758) – Jesuit architect, mathematician, and astronomer; instrumental in establishing and funding the Observatory of Vilnius University.
Casimir Zeglen (1869–after 1927) – Polish American priest, invented a type of silk bulletproof vest
Niccolò Zucchi (1586–1670) – claimed to have tried to build a reflecting telescope in 1616 but abandoned the idea (maybe due to the poor quality of the mirror);[23] may have been the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter (1630)[24]
Godefroy Zumoffen (1848–1928) – French Jesuit archaeologist and geologist notable for his work on prehistory in Lebanon
Giovanni Battista Zupi (c. 1590 – 1650) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and first person to discover that the planet Mercury had orbital phases; the crater Zupus on the Moon is named after him