I remember my head exploding upon seeing a presentation on the work of Larry Stockmeyer. Though he was an academic working in the obscure discipline of theoretical computer science, he ended up being named in a science fiction novel.

Summary paper: https://lance.fortnow.com/papers/files/beyondnp.pdf

Slide show: https://www.slideserve.com/leda/beyond-np-the-work-and-legac...