The SN 10: Meet the scientists making the next big discoveries

In a recent poll, more than four-fifths of U.S. adults could not name a living scientist. Of those who could, the plurality (40 percent) named Stephen Hawking. (The next highest response was Neil deGrasse Tyson, followed by Jane Goodall.) No offense to the rightfully famous Hawking, but at Science News we would like to change these results. Why aren’t more scientists, particularly those who are young and accomplished, household names? Where, we want to know, are the Taylor Swifts of science?

You’ll find some of them below. For the second year in a row, Science News is highlighting 10 early- and mid-career scientists on their way to widespread acclaim. The SN 10: Scientists to Watch includes a laser physicist with laserlike focus, a materials scientist challenging what it means to be alive and a computational biologist willing to get personal with his microbiome, among many others who are making important advances in their chosen fields.

Though none of these scientists have recorded hit singles — at least not that our reporting uncovered — all were nominated by a Nobel laureate or recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. And all were age 40 or younger at the time of nomination.

These remarkable individuals have diverse personalities and talents: They are tenacious and creative, practical-minded and dreamers. They are lab animals and data heads. Some seek simplicity, others complexity. If there is one unifying trait, though, it would have to be their passion — a quality so cliché among successful scientists that it has to be true. As Marie Curie famously wrote in a letter to her sister, “Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working…. But I am held by a thousand bonds.” She did not know, she confessed, whether she could live without the laboratory.