Raymond Damadian
Damadian received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989. His original MRI full-body scanner was given to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1980s and is now on loan and on display at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Ohio. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000 Lifetime Achievement Award on Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner."
William H. Oldendorf
However, his idea was a fundamental discovery which also led to MRI, positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and other imaging techniques. Once these techniques became widely accepted, Dr. Oldendorf, along with William Markley McKinney, MD (1930–2003) were instrumental in promoting the use of Computed Tomography among neurologists to help decrease the use of superfluous and invasive tests.