Katherine Kuchenbecker works on incorporating the sense of touch directly into virtual objects. Imagine being able to feel textures on your digital screens.

Once known for entertaining millions by creating special effects for Hollywood, theme parks and Broadway, Applied Minds cofounder Bran Ferren now solves impossible tech challenges with previously unimaginable inventions.

Tal Golesworthy is an engineer and entrepreneur, working in research and development of combustion and air pollution control -- until he decided to innovate in his own health.

Sarah Bergbreiter packs advanced technologies into tiny robots that can overcome obstacles 80 times their height.

Erik Schlangen is a civil engineer and pioneer of experimental micromechanics, who focuses on making industrial materials more durable.

Kwabena Boahen wants to understand how brains work -- and to build a computer that works like the brain by reverse-engineering the nervous system. His group at Stanford is developing Neurogrid, a hardware platform that will emulate the cortex’s inner workings.

As the president of Syyn Labs, Adam Sadowsky merges art and technology to create interactive projects big and small.

Robert Lang merges mathematics with aesthetics to fold elegant modern origami. His scientific approach helps him make folds once thought impossible -- and has secured his place as one of the first great Western masters of the art.

Jon Nguyen is an award winning aeronautics and graphics engineer at NASA.

Gautam Bhan studies how cities produce and reproduce poverty and inequality.

Logging countless hours behind an X-ray machine, Nick Veasey illuminates the labyrinthine secrets hidden beneath the exteriors of everyday objects.

Melissa Marshall aims to teach great communication skills to scientists and engineers, so that they can effectively share their work.

Nikolai Begg is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose passion is rethinking medical devices.

Nina Tandon studies ways to use electrical signals to grow artificial tissues for transplants and other therapies.

John La Grou, a long-time electronics inventor, audio designer and entrepreneur, wants to save lives (and energy) with a new, smarter type of electrical outlet.

Klaus Stadlmann was pursuing his PhD at Vienna's Technical University when a broken laser system gave him some unexpected free time to think. Instead of working on his thesis, he decided to build the world's smallest 3D printer.

Rodney Brooks builds robots based on biological principles of movement and reasoning. The goal: a robot who can figure things out.

Arthur Ganson's kinetic metal sculptures mix high art with gearhead humor. He's also the inventor of the kids' construction toy Toobers & Zots.

Carlo Ratti directs the MIT SENSEable City Lab, which explores the "real-time city" by studying the way sensors and electronics relate to the built environment.

Dennis Hong is the founder and director of RoMeLa -- a Virginia Tech robotics lab that has pioneered several breakthroughs in robot design and engineering.

Adam Grosser is a general partner at Foundation Capital -- and a refrigeration visionary.

TED Fellow Manu Prakash is on a mission to bring radical new technology to global health.

As the dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science, Vijay Kumar studies the control and coordination of multi-robot formations.

As the CEO of MIT-inspired WiTricity, Eric Giler has a plan to beam electric power through the air to wirelessly power your laptop or recharge your car. You may never plug in again.

TED Senior Fellow Frederick Balagadde invented the micro-chemostat, a first-of-its-kind, dime-sized piece of transparent plastic that can orchestrate the behavior of living cells.

Jonathan Drori commissioned the BBC's very first websites, one highlight in a long career devoted to online culture and educational media -- and understanding how we learn.

David Hanson merges robotics and art to design life-like, social robots that can mimic human expression and emotion.

Biotech entrepreneur Hadyn Parry leads a science start-up that develops GM insects to fight dengue fever.

In the fight against disease, defect and injury, Alan Russell has a novel argument: Why not engineer new tissue and organs to replace sick ones?

Raymond Wang won the top prize in the 2015 Intel Science and Engineering Fair for his invention that circulates fresh air on planes and reduces transmission of germs between passengers.