Uriah Atherton Boyden was an American civil and mechanical engineer and inventor from Foxborough, Massachusetts best known for the development of a water turbine, that later became known as the Boyden Turbine around 1844, while working for the Appleton Company in Lowell, Massachusetts. Boyden improved upon a turbine developed by French engineer Fourneyron by adding a conical approach passage for the incoming water—submerged diffusers, guide vanes and a diverting exit passage.

A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work.