Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. He was one of the first Europeans to develop physics as a discipline and is a co-creator of calculus. He developed the three Laws of Motion, the Law of Universal Gravitation, and developed the theory of color based on how prisms separate white light into the rainbow. Newton was a key figure in the Enlightenment.

Mae Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Since leaving NASA, Jemison has been a professor of environmental studies, founded a non-profit organization for students interested in STEM, started a corporation to commercialize the techniques she developed as an astronaut, and collaborated with others to encourage students to understand and pursue agricultural sciences.

Ynes Mexia was a Mexican-American botanist who curated an extensive collection of plants from Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. She also collected specimens in Alaska, especially Mount McKinley National Park. Over her lifetime, she collected nearly 150,000 different specimens. A genus of the sunflower/daisy/aster family has been named after her, along with 50 other new species.