List of Famous people who died in 2002

Max Ferdinand Perutz was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Perutz's contributions to molecular biology in Cambridge are documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 published by the Cambridge University Press in 1992.

Charles Eli Guggenheim was an American documentary film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was the most honored documentary filmmaker in the Academy history, winning four Oscars from twelve nominations.

George Alec Effinger was an American science fiction author, born in Cleveland, Ohio.

Virginia Esther Hamilton was an African-American children's books author. She wrote 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), for which she won the U.S. National Book Award in category Children's Books and the Newbery Medal in 1975.

Yuriy Yakovlev was a Bulgarian stage and film actor.