The innovative mind at work

Some engineers seem to transcend change; they move effortlessly from one technological advance to another, making their mark and enriching the field as they do. IEEE Spectrum asked a few such people to tell us about their backgrounds, achievements, work habits, and feelings about their own creativity and gifts for innovation. Spectrum also asked psychologist Michael Maccoby to analyze the responses for common and divergent characteristics in the hope of resolving our ideas about the nature of innovators. At Spectrum´s request, prominent IEEE Fellows nominated many candidates-men and women from around the world. With great difficulty, the eight covered here were picked from the list according to these criteria: they have made contributions over many years, they are highly regarded in their fields, and they represent a spectrum of backgrounds. Maccoby´s analysis is based on the complete texts of Spectrum´s interviews. The profiles are distillations of those interviews.