List of lay Catholic scientists

Lay Catholic scientists

A

• 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 Catholic 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]

B

• Jacques Babinet (1794–1872) – French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for his contributions to optics ^[4]
• Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) Swedish physicist and first female docent in Sweden
• 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 (née O'Grady; 1863–1950) – biologist and first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, husband of Theodor Boveri
• 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
• Mary Brück (1925-2008) – Irish astronomer and historian of astronomy
• Albert Brudzewski (c. 1445–c. 1497) – first to state that the Moon moves in an ellipse

C

• 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]
• Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907) – Irish astronomer and science educator
• 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 Coriolis 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]
• Piedad de la Cierva [1] (1903–2007) – Spanish scientist, pioneer in the study of artificial radiation in Spain and in the industrialization of optical glass.
• 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]
• Máirin de Valéra (1912–1984) Irish botanist; deeply Catholic, attending daily Mass whenever possible
• 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

• Lennis Echterling – clinical psychologist and crisis interventionist
• 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
• Emily Fortey (1866–1946) – British chemist and politician who investigated synthetic cyclohexane and cyclohexane in fractions of crude oil; converted to Catholicism in 1884
• 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]

G

• 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]
• Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier (1758–1836) – working with her husband, she instrumental to the standardization of the scientific method.
• 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
• Agnes McLaren (1837–1913) – Scottish physician who inspired other women to dedicate their medical knowledge to the care of the poor. First female to graduate as medical doctor from the University of Montpellier.
• 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)
• John J. Montgomery (1858–1911) – American physicist and inventor of gliders and aerodynamics
• Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) – father of modern anatomical pathology^[44]
• Helmut Moritz (1933–2022) – Austrian physical geodesist internationally known for fundamental work on error propagation in geodesy
• 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^[45]
• Joseph Murray (1919–2012) – Nobel Prize in Medicine laureate^[46]

N

• John von Neumann (1903–1957) – Hungarian-born American mathematician and polymath^[47] who converted to Catholicism^[48]
• 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^[49][50]
• Pierre Joseph Pelletier (1788–1842) – co-discovered strychnine, caffeine, quinine, cinchonine, among many other discoveries in chemistry^[51]
• Georg von Peuerbach (1423–1461) – called the father of mathematical and observational astronomy in the West^[52]
• 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^[53]
• 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^[54]
• 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
• Anne-Marie Staub (1914–2012) – French biochemist and chemist. Worked on Bacillus anthracis, the pathogen causing Anthrax.
• 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^[55]
• 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^[56]
• 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^[57]

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^[58]
• 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^[59]
• 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 ^[60]
• 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 ^[61]

X

Y

Z

• Antonino Zichichi (1929–) – Italian nuclear physicist, former President of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare^[62][63]
• Gregory Zilboorg (1890–1959) – Ukrainian-American psychiatrist and historian of psychiatry^[64]

See also

• Catholic Church and science
• Christianity and science
• List of Catholic churchmen-scientists
• Society of Catholic Scientists
• List of Catholic clergy scientists
• List of Catholic priests and religious awarded the Nobel Prize

References