GE Careers Blog.

While its beginnings were humble, it didn’t take long for scientists and inventors from around the world to flock to the Research Lab to see what GE was working on. And each famous mind that visited would stop at Willis Whitney’s desk to sign the VIP guest book. The book sat at Whitney’s desk from 1914 to 1935, and the signatures are a veritable Who’s Who of inventors, physicists, chemists, physiologists, and businessmen — including 9 Nobel Laureates. Check out some of the signatures of the luminaries that dropped by.

Duncan is mechanical engineer at GE Global Research. And he’s thrilled to say that he works on the technology that is expected to revolutionize how products are made in the future. Maybe revolutionize is too strong of a word but if we took this technology – called high-power laser arc welding – and compared it to conventional welding on something like an aircraft carrier, the new technology could save about 800 tons of weld metal — the equivalent of more than 600 cars – and reduce the welding time by 80%.

The first inductee into the new GE Reports Genius Hall of Fame is Dr. John Schenck, a pioneer who helped create GE’s first MRI while he was also practicing medicine as an emergency room physician. Schenck is still hard at work at the GE Research Lab in New York and spoke to us about the early days of medical imaging, and the tech breakthroughs he’s most excited about today.

For Owen Schelenz’s eighth birthday, his ecologically-minded parents gave him a solar-powered portable radio. Fascinated by the concept, Owen took the radio everywhere and would clip it onto the bus window on school trips so he could listen to sun-powered tunes. At GE, Owen delves deeper into his curiosity about free energy sources, and researches ways to make solar energy a viable part of the power grid.

The Atlantic Monthly recently visited GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York for the latest installment of the magazine’s photo series, “Where Ideas Come From,” that takes readers inside the world’s technology companies. GE Reports took a similar field trip to Niskayuna just last week, where we were lucky enough to tour three labs dedicated to some of the most innovative new technologies being developed at GE: the materials lab where carbon fiber composite materials for aircraft engine and wind turbine blades are created and tested; the additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, lab, where GE has pioneered techniques for manufacturing tech components, like ultrasound transducers, from scratch; and the nanotechnology lab, which will soon celebrate its 10th anniversary and where scientists work to extract the potential of different materials at the nano scale—including a waterproof coating inspired by the properties of the lotus leaf.