Adam Rasheed, 31

Adam Rasheed has made fundamental improvements to an aircraft propulsion system based on a pulsed-detonation engine -- a technology in which a fuel-air mixture is compressed and exploded as many as 100 times per second. Pulsed detonation creates vastly higher pressures than the slower burn of a conventional engines combustion chamber, offering a theoretical 5 percent efficiency gain. Rasheed built a prototype that operates longer and without the oxygen enrichment required by other research efforts. And he was the first to use such technology in an important role: to drive the turbines that are at the heart of todays jet engines.