13 Mexican and Mexican-American inventors who made our world better
Did you know that Mexicans and Mexican Americans were behind some of the most important scientific, medical and technological breakthroughs of the 20th and 21st centuries?
From radio microscopes to radar and color television, from genetics to birth control pills, from e-books to jet packs, Mexican minds have driven some of the most important inventions of the last 80 years.
Two of these inventors won the Nobel Prize, and all of them touched our lives for the better. Yet they are almost never mentioned in school.
These 13 Mexican and Mexican American inventors are behind some of the world’s most important breakthroughs in the last century. They are an important part of our history that deserves to be remembered.
Luis Alvarez
Luis Alvarez was born in San Francisco but was living in Santa Fe in 1949, when he received a patent for a radio distance and direction indicator (the radar systems used during World War II to locate and land aircraft). His contribution had a major impact on the understanding of nuclear physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968, and in 1978 was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Albert Vinicio Baez
Dr. Albert Vinicio Baez (1912-2007) invented the first X-ray microscope. If Dr. Baez’s name sounds the slightest bit familiar, it is probably because his daughter is the famous Mexican American Folk singer, Joan Baez. Dr. Baez grew up in Brooklyn and considered becoming a minister before turning to mathematics and physics and developing the X-ray microscope.
Victor Celorio
Born in Mexico City in 1957, Victor Celorio holds U.S. patents 6012890 and 6213703 for his invention, the "Instabook Maker," a technology that supports e-book distribution by enabling fast and accurate printing offline. Celorio is the president of Instabook Corporation, based in Gainesville, Florida.
Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena
Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena invented an early color television system. He received the U.S. patent 2296019 in 1942 for his "chromscopic adapter for television equipment." Gonzalez Camarena publicly demonstrated his color television by broadcasting directly from his Mexico City laboratory in 1946.
Maria Gonzalez
Dr. Maria del Socorro Flores Gonzalez won the MEXWII 2006 award for her work on diagnostic methods for invasive amebiasis. Maria Gonzalez patented processes to diagnose invasive amebiasis, a parasitic disease that kills over 100,000 people each year.
Jose Hernandez-Rebollar
Jose Hernandez-Rebollar invented the Acceleglove, a glove that can translate sign language into speech. According to the Smithsonian, "By using sensors attached to the glove and the arm, this prototype device can currently translate the alphabet and over 300 words in American Sign Language (ASL) into both English and Spanish.”
Juan Lozano
Juan Lozano’s lifelong fascination with jet packs drove him to invent the Rocket Belt. Lozano's company, Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana, sells the Rocket Belt. According to their website, Lozano ”has been working with hydrogen peroxide propulsion systems since 1975, inventor of the penta-metallic catalyst pack to be used with organic hydrogen peroxide and inventor of the most popular machine in the world to produce your own hydrogen peroxide to be used as a rocket fuel.”
Luis Miramontes
Chemist Luis Miramontes co-invented the contraceptive pill. In 1951, Miramontes, then a college student, was under the direction of Syntex Corp CEO George Rosenkranz and researcher Carl Djerassi. Miramontes wrote a new procedure for the synthesis of the progestin norethindrone, the active ingredient for what would become the oral birth control pill. Carl Djerassi, George Rosenkranz and Luis Miramontes were granted U.S. patent 2,744,122 for "oral contraceptives" in 1956. The first oral contraceptive, trade name Norinyl, was manufactured by Syntex Corp.
Dr. Ellen Ochoa
Born in 1958, Dr. Ellen Ochoa was the first Hispanic female astronaut in space, and the inventor of optical lenses for space. A veteran of three space flights, with over 719 hours in space, she is also an electrical engineer, and holds patents on high-tech optical recognition systems.
Victor Ochoa
Mexican American Victor Ochoa invented many things, including a windmill, magnetic brakes, a wrench and a reversible motor. His best-known invention, the Ochoaplane, was a small flying machine with collapsible wings.
Emilio Sacristan
Emilio Sacristan of Santa Ursula Xitla, Mexico, invented an air-pressure powered driver for the pneumatic ventricular assist device (VAD).
Felipe Vadillo
Mexican inventor Felipe Vadillo patented a method of predicting premature fetal membrane rupture in pregnant women. The method has saved countless lives.
Benjamin Valles
Benjamin Valles of Chihuahua, Mexico, holds U.S. patent 7,077,022 for developing a system and a method for pre-forming cable for promoting adhesion to overmolding sensor bodies, for Delphi Technologies Inc.
These Mexican and Mexican American inventors developed some of the most important scientific, medical and technological breakthroughs of the 20th and 21st centuries. Their inventions saved hundreds of thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions more. Yet many of us never learned about these great inventors and their inventions in school. For their visionary accomplishments, these important inventors deserve to be remembered.