20th-century American engineers

Alice Percilla Chancellor (September 2, 1912 – June 22, 1985) was an American electronics engineer, recipient of the 1970 Outstanding Handicapped Federal Employee of the Year award.

John Henry Geiger (June 19, 1926 – January 10, 2011) was an American architect and engineer who served as the National Commander of The American Legion from 1971 to 1972.

Gordon Wagner (1915–1987) was an American artist. He was born and raised in Redondo Beach, California.
Wagner became an orphan at a young age. He received a degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked in the Aerospace industry as a mechanical engineer.

Lloyd Viel Berkner (February 1, 1905 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – June 4, 1967 in Washington, D.C.) was an American physicist and engineer. He was one of the inventors of the measuring device that since has become standard at ionospheric stations because it measures the height and electron density of the ionosphere. The data obtained in the worldwide net of such instruments were important for the developing theory of short wave radio propagation to which Berkner himself gave important contributions.
Berkner was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1948.Later he investigated the development of the Earth's atmosphere. Since he needed data from the whole world, he proposed the International Geophysical Year in 1950. At that time, the IGY was the largest cooperative study of the Earth ever undertaken.
Berkner was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1956. The IGY was carried out by the International Council of Scientific Unions while he was president in 1957–1959. He was also a member of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee in 1958 while he was president of Associated Universities Inc.
In 1963, Berkner, with L.C. Marshall, advanced a theory to describe the way in which the atmospheres of the Solar System's inner planets had evolved.
Beginning in 1926, as a naval officer, Berkner assisted in the development of radar and navigation systems, naval aircraft electronics engineering, and studies that led to the construction of the Distant Early Warning system, a chain of radar stations designed to give the United States advance warning in the event of a missile attack across the North Pole. In the 50s and 60s, Berkner held intelligence clearances in the Atomic Energy Commission and other agencies. He worked with the CIA in some capacity as well, but any activities are wholly classified as of 2015.Berkner worked with Dallas community leaders to establish the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (later renamed the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, which would eventually become The University of Texas at Dallas).He wrote more than 100 papers and several books, including Rockets and Satellites (1958), Science in Space (1961), and The Scientific Age (1964).
In 1961, Berkner was president of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

Kitty O'Brien Joyner (July 11, 1916 – August 16, 1993) was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) upon its replacement of NACA in 1958. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program in 1939, receiving the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award upon graduation. When she was hired by NACA the same year, she became the first woman engineer at the organization, eventually rising to the title of Branch Head and managing several of its wind tunnels. Her work contributed to research on aeronautics, supersonic flight, airfoils, and aircraft design standards.

Daniel J. Terra (June 8, 1911 – June 28, 1996) was a scientist, businessman, and art collector. A first-generation Italian-American, Terra earned a chemical engineering degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1931, and founded Lawter Chemicals in Chicago in 1940. The success of his global enterprise enabled him to pursue his cultural interests, assembling an art collection and participating in several Chicago arts institutions.

Clarence Walton Musser (April 5, 1909, Mount Joy, Pennsylvania – June 8, 1998) inventor of strain wave gearing and also credited with over 250 major inventions and discoveries.Some of his inventions were the Army recoilless rifle, aircraft personnel catapults, instrumentation for underwater detonation testing. His varied career includes experience in many diverse fields. He was research advisor to the Department of Defense for 15 years. With other industrial and government organizations, he has served as chief engineer, director of research, and consultant. He held professional engineering licences in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. As a research adviser to United Shoe Machinery Corp., he explored nonrigid-body mechanics, using controlled deflection as an operating medium. In 1957 Musser announced invention of strain wave gearing also known as harmonic gearing (U. S. patent 2,906,143). He is also the inventor of first fluidic stepper actuators

James Graham Stewart (May 21, 1907 in Homewood, Pennsylvania – March 22, 1997 in Los Angeles, California) was an American pioneer in the field of sound recording and re-recording. His career spanned more than five decades (1928–1980), during which he made substantial contributions to the evolution of the art and science of film and television sound.

John Peter Costas (1923 in Wabash, Indiana – August 9, 2008) was an American electrical engineer. Costas invented, among other things, the Costas loop and Costas arrays.

Abraham "Abe" Silverstein (September 15, 1908 – June 1, 2001) was an American engineer who played an important part in the United States space program. He was a longtime manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He was instrumental in the planning of the Apollo, Ranger, Mariner, Surveyor, and Voyager missions, and named the Apollo program after the Greek and Roman God.