The Most Influential People Across History

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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List of the most influential female people in Chemistry,

#801

Margaret Hyland

#174951
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Margaret Mary Hyland is a Canadian-born chemist based in New Zealand whose research focuses on aluminium technology, and the chemistry and engineering of material surfaces. She moved to New Zealand in 1989 and after holding many senior academic leadership roles supporting and developing research at the faculty, university and national level became recognised as an authority on the generation and capture of fluoride emissions from aluminium smelters and for coordinating the team that produced the 'Fluoride Emissions Management Guide' for the aluminium industry. This achievement was acknowledged when she became the first woman to win the Pickering Medal.
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#802

Norma A. Alcantar

#174287
Overall Influence
Norma A. Alcantar is a Mexican–American chemical engineer. She is a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of South Florida. In 2019, Alcantar was elected a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "outstanding contributions in providing drinking water for low-income communities and contributions to disrupting amyloid fibril formation in Alzheimer's research".
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#803

Elizabeth Williamson

#85804
Overall Influence
Elizabeth M. Williamson MRPharmS is a former Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Reading, England. Her main research interest is in herbal medicines. She began work as a practising pharmacist in 1978, working in both community and hospital pharmacies. Before being appointed to the chair in the newly created School of Pharmacy at Reading in 2005 she was Senior Lecturer in Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy at the University of London School of Pharmacy.
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#804

Cynthia Selassie

#181041
Overall Influence
Cynthia Rachel D. Selassie is an American bio-organic and medicinal chemist known for her work with quantitative structure-activity relationships . She is the Blanche and Frank R. Seaver Professor of Science and professor of chemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
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#805

Suzana Straus

#179594
Overall Influence
Suzana K. Straus is a Canadian chemist who is a professor at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on host defense peptides , as well as protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions.
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#806

Viktoria Däschlein-Gessner

#183505
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (43 years)
Viktoria Däschlein-Gessner is a German chemist who is the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry II at Ruhr University Bochum. Her research considers organometallic chemistry and catalysis. She has developed ylidic ligands to stabilise reactive main group compounds.
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#807

Elizabeth Percival

#179734
Overall Influence
1906 - 1997 (91 years)
Ethel Elizabeth Percival, was a British research chemist and expert in algae polysaccharides. Life She was born Ethel Elizabeth Kempson in Coventry on 3 January 1906, the daughter of Frank George Kempson, an engineer, and his wife Emily. She was educated locally and at Wolverhampton Girls School.
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#808

Michelle Scherer

#64316
Overall Influence
Michelle Marie Scherer is the Donald E. Bently Professor of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Her research considers environmental geochemistry, in particular redox-reactions at mineral-water interfaces. In 2009 she was awarded the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Distinguished Service Award.
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#809

Supawan Tantayanon

#180235
Overall Influence
Supawan Tantayanon is a Thai chemist who is a professor at the Chulalongkorn University. She has previously served as President of the Science Society of Thailand, Council of Science and Technology Professionals of Thailand, and Federation of Asian Chemical Societies.
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#810

Clara W. Hall

#173727
Overall Influence
Clara E. Walke Hall was an American research chemist at the National Institutes of Health from 1959 to 1999. Hall and geneticist Elizabeth F. Neufeld's research on genetic conditions affecting lysosomes led to Neufeld receiving the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1982.
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#811

Ester Vázquez

#183458
Overall Influence
Ester Vázquez Fernández-Pacheco is an expert in carbon nanostructures and sustainable synthesis. She is a full professor at the University of Castilla la Mancha and a group leader at the MSOC Nanochemistry group.
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#812

Rosa Muchnik de Lederkremer

#177184
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (93 years)
Rosa Muchnik de Lederkremer is an Argentine chemist. A doctor in chemical sciences, emeritus professor at the University of Buenos Aires , and senior researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council , she has received Konex Awards in the area of Organic Chemistry in 1983 and 2013. Her research includes major contributions in the area of glycobiology through investigating the inhibition of the key enzyme for the survival of Trypanosoma cruzi in the human body.
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#813

Julie M. Harris

#146564
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Julie Marie Harris has been Director of Research in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience and a Professor of Vision Science at the University of St Andrews. Her research investigates visual systems and camouflage.
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#814

María Escudero-Escribano

#165563
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (42 years)
María Escudero-Escribano is a Spanish chemist and Director of the Nano-Electrochemical group at the University of Copenhagen. Her research considers the design of materials for catalysis, fuel cells and sustainable chemistry.
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#815

Laura K. Boyer

#65431
Overall Influence
Laura Kate Boyer is a clinical assistant professor at the Science and Technology Studies Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Background In 1991, Boyer received her BA in Geography and Psychology at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She received her MA in Human Geography at the University of British Columbia in 1994. In 2001, Boyer received her PhD in Human Geography at McGill University. In 2014 she became a lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Planning and Human Geography at Cardiff University.; As a professor, she specializes in urban studies, public policy, ...
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#816

Linda Peteanu

#183810
Overall Influence
Linda A. Peteanu is an American chemist who is a professor and head of the department of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research considers the steady state and transient photophysics of conjugated molecules.
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#817

Lisa Rohan

#174314
Overall Influence
Lisa Cencia Rohan is an American chemist and pharmaceutical scientist. Biography She obtained a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in pharmaceutics from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Pharmacy. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences in the area of mucosal immunology at the University of Pittsburgh. So far, Rohan has 169 publications with over 3,000 citations. Prior to her academic career, Rohan held leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry.
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#818

Erika Marín-Spiotta

Erika Marín-Spiotta
#143419
Overall Influence
Erika Marín-Spiotta is a biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist. She is currently Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is best-known for her research of the terrestrial carbon cycle and is an advocate for underrepresented groups in the sciences, specifically women.
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#819

Kathryn McGrath

#181601
Overall Influence
Kathryn McGrath is a New Zealand chemical scientist. She is deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Biography McGrath was educated at Burnside High School in Christchurch, and went on to study at the University of Canterbury, where she completed a BSc degree in chemistry. She then earned a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra. Her thesis focused on the properties of liquid crystals. After completing her doctoral studies, she held postdoctoral positions at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, and Princeton University in the United State...
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#820

Annie Kersting

#182691
Overall Influence
Annie Bernadette Kersting is a chemist known for her work on the movement of compounds such as plutonium in the environment. She was the 2016 recipient of the Garvan–Olin Medal from the American Chemical Society.
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#821

Philippa Wiggins

#178833
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Philippa Marion Wiggins was a New Zealand academic, who made significant contributions to the understanding of the structure of water in living cells. Academic career Wiggins studied science at the University of Canterbury, but although she wanted to continue in physics, women at the university were not allowed to progress past stage one. Having switched to chemistry, Wiggins then won a scholarship to research at the Davy-Faraday Laboratory at the Royal Institution in London. She then completed a PhD at King's College London. Wiggins took time off to have a family and did not return to full...
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#822

Clara Brink Shoemaker

#182711
Overall Influence
1921 - 2009 (88 years)
Clara Brink Shoemaker was a Dutch-born American crystallographer and a senior research professor at Oregon State University. As a postdoctoral researcher, she worked on the structure determination of vitamin B12 in the group of Dorothy Hodgkin. Together with her husband, David Shoemaker, she contributed to the research on transition metal phases and intermetallic compounds. They were the first to recognize that interstices in tetrahedrally close-packed metal crystals are exclusively tetrahedral and only have four types of coordination polyhedra.
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#823

Hagit Eldar-Finkelman

#184867
Overall Influence
Hagit Eldar-Finkelman is an Israeli scientist and a principal investigator of an active research laboratory at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. Eldar-Finkelman’s research is focused on the signal transduction field and drug development targeting protein kinases. She is well known for her pioneering work on the functions of GSK-3 and its contribution to diabetes and other pathogenies, including depressive behavior, Alzheimer’s diseases, and Huntington’s diseases. Novel findings also include the unique evolution of GSK-3 isozymes. Eldar-Finkelman is a leading figure in dev...
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#824

Montserrat Soliva Torrentó

Montserrat Soliva Torrentó
#46374
Overall Influence
1943 - 2019 (76 years)
Montserrat Soliva Torrentó was a Catalan doctor of chemistry. She served as a professor of the Higher School of Agriculture of Barcelona of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and had been a leading authority in Spain on the subject of composting. In 2012, she was the recipient of the Environment Award for the research career.
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#825

Marina Guenza

#178725
Overall Influence
Marina Guenza is an Italian theoretical physical chemist who studies the fluid dynamics of macromolecules. She is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oregon. Education and career Guenza earned a master's degree at the University of Genoa in 1985, and completed her Ph.D. in 1989 through a consortium of the University of Genoa, University of Turin, and University of Pavia.
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#826

Guangzhao Mao

#111498
Overall Influence
Guangzhao Mao is an American chemical engineer and an academic. She is a professor and head of the school of chemical engineering at the University of New South Wales. She holds positions as chief investigator at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation, the ARC Research Hub for Resilient Intelligent Infrastructure Systems, and the ARC Research Hub for Connected Sensors for Health.
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#827

Janie Sheridan

#161884
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Jane 'Janie' Lois Sheridan is a New Zealand academic and as of 2018 is a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After a 1995 PhD titled 'HIV/AIDS and drug misuse : perspectives of pharmacy undergraduates and pharmacists' at the University of London, Sheridan moved to the University of Auckland, rising to full professor.
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#828

Dora Akunyili

#21252
Overall Influence
1954 - 2014 (60 years)
Dora Nkem Akunyili was the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control of Nigeria from 2001 to 2008. Early life and education Dora Edemobi was born in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria to Chief Paul Young Edemobi who hailed from Nanka, Anambra State. She received her First School Leaving Certificate from St. Patrick's Primary School, Isuofia, Anambra State, in 1966 and had her West African School Certificate Examination at Queen of the Rosary Secondary School Nsukka, Enugu State in 1973, where she graduated with Grade I Distinction consequently, she won th...
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#829

Sibylle Kemmler-Sack

#89112
Overall Influence
1934 - 1999 (65 years)
Sibylle Kemmler-Sack was a German chemist. She was a professor for Chemistry at the University of Tübingen. Life Kemmler-Sack did her doctorate on "Untersuchungen an ternären Uran oxiden" in 1962. She habilitated in 1968 and the title of her habilitation thesis was "Über spektroskopische und magnetische Untersuchungen an Oxidfluoriden es fünfwertien Urans" . She became a university lecturer in 1968, an extraordinary professor in 1973, a university professor in 1978.
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#830

Kim Baines

#185641
Overall Influence
Kim Baines PhD FRSC FRSC is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Western Ontario. In 2022 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was the inaugural chair of the DEI working group of the Chemical Institute of Canada. The Lipson-Baines Awards in Chemistry is named in part for her.
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#831

Theresa Koehler

#179917
Overall Influence
Theresa Marie Koehler is an American microbiologist who is the Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Distinguished Professor in Biomedical Sciences and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at McGovern Medical School. She is known for her extensive research on anthrax and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.
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#832

Candice Bridge

#121544
Overall Influence
Candice Mae Bridge is an American chemist and Associate Professor of Chemistry and Forensic Science at the University of Central Florida. Her research considers the development of mass spectroscopy for forensic analysis, including the characterization of lubricant from rape victims and residue from gunshots, as well as the identification of drugs in urine samples.
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#833

Francesca Iacopi

#174073
Overall Influence
Francesca Iacopi is an engineer, researcher and an academic. She specializes in materials and nanoelectronics engineering and is a professor at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a chief investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, and a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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#834

Emily Leproust

#182451
Overall Influence
Emily Leproust is an American scientist and entrepreneur. She is the CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience, a public company working on DNA synthesis. The company harnesses synthetic biology, providing tools to manufacture insulin from yeast, to tackle malaria, produce spider silk at scale or store information on DNA. She was awarded the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award in 2020.
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#835

Ishbel Campbell

#96712
Overall Influence
1906 - 1997 (91 years)
Isobel 'Ishbel' Grace MacNaughton Campbell was a British chemist researcher and lecturer who held one of the first Commonwealth Fellowships awarded to a woman. Biography Campbell was born at The Manse, Kirkcaldy, Fife in 1905 the ninth, and last, child of Reverend John Campbell and Elizabeth Adelina Renwick. In common with her seven elder sisters, she studied at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. While at St Andrews, Campbell served as the President of the Women's Student's Union. She graduated with a BSc in 1927 and obtained her PhD in 1931.
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#836

Vida Stout

#110530
Overall Influence
1930 - 2012 (82 years)
Vida Mary Stout was a New Zealand limnographer and academic administrator. She was the first woman to be Dean of Science at a New Zealand university. Biography Stout was the daughter of Thomas Duncan MacGregor Stout and granddaughter of Robert Stout. Born and raised in Wellington, Stout was educated at Woodford House in Hawke's Bay, where she was Dux.
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#837

Marie-Élisa Nordmann-Cohen

#179141
Overall Influence
1910 - 1993 (83 years)
Marie-Élisa Nordmann-Cohen was a French chemist, antifascist, and communist member of the French Resistance during World War II. Biography Marie-Élisa Nordmann was a student of physicist Paul Langevin, who supervised her doctoral studies in chemistry before the war.
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#838

Rachel Thomson

#167452
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Rachel Clare Thomson is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Pro Vice Chancellor of Teaching at Loughborough University. She is known for her expertise in measuring and predicting the behaviour of materials for high temperature power generation, as well as the development of higher education and research programmes.
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#839

Anushka Rajapaksha

#185869
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Anushka Upamali Rajapaksha is a Sri Lankan scientist, university lecturer and research scholar. She is well known for her contributions in the field of chemistry. Career She obtained a second upper class grade in Bachelor of Sciences in Chemistry Special from the University of Peradeniya in 2008. She obtained a Master of Philosophy from the University of Peradeniya in 2012. She also received Doctor of Philosophy from the Kangwon National University, South Korea in 2015.
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#840

Karen H. Johannesson

#181343
Overall Influence
Karen H. Johannesson is an American geochemist and professor in the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Intercampus Marine Sciences Graduate Program of the University of Massachusetts System. She teaches geochemistry and has expertise in environmental geochemistry, biogeochemistry, trace element speciation, geochemical modeling, chemical hydrogeology, reaction path and reactive transport modeling.
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#841

Rubye Prigmore Torrey

#177106
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
Rubye Mayette Prigmore Torrey was a notable African American female chemist and educator. She earned her bachelor's and master's degree at Tennessee State University and her PhD from Syracuse University. Her main research interests included food chemistry, the electroanalysis of drinking water and human hair, and research ethics. She is known for developing a mechanism to decompose hydrogen sulfide, which earned her a place in Sigma Xi.
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#842

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

#124877
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Dr. Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim GCSK is a Mauritian politician and biodiversity scientist who served as the sixth president of Mauritius from 2015 to 2018. In December 2014, she was selected to be the presidential candidate of the Alliance Lepep. After Kailash Purryag resigned on 29 May 2015, both Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth and Leader of the Opposition Paul Berenger positively welcomed her nomination, which was unanimously approved in a vote in the National Assembly.
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#843

Julia Weinstein

#186103
Overall Influence
Julia A. Weinstein is a British Russian chemist who is a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Sheffield. Her research considers light matter interactions, including the dynamics of photo-excited electron transfer in condensed matter. She was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Dynamics Award in 2017.
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#844

Hilda Cid

#126148
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (92 years)
Hilda Cid Araneda is a Chilean scientist who excelled in the field of crystallography. She was the first Chilean female to complete a PhD in Exact Sciences. She made remarkable contributions both as a professor of mathematics and physics and as influential researcher on structural biology, specially in protein crystallography.
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#845

Rachael Dunlop

Rachael Dunlop
#90512
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
Rachael Anne Dunlop , popularly known as Dr. Rachie, is an Australian medical researcher and skeptic. She is a postdoctoral fellow in cell biology at the University of Technology, Sydney. A prominent member of the Australian skeptic movement, she frequently blogs about and speaks out against the anti-vaccine movement in Australia and has a regular segment on The Skeptic Zone podcast. Dunlop won a Shorty Award in 2010 for her Twitter posts about health-related topics.
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#846

Olga L. Mayol-Bracero

#185457
Overall Influence
Olga L. Mayol-Bracero is a Puerto Rican atmospheric chemist. Mayol-Bracero is an associate professor at the UPRRP College of Natural Sciences. Her primary research focus is atmospheric aerosols. She researches the impact of atmospheric aerosols on the climate, ecosystem, degradation of structures, and human health.
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#847

Joanna Bauldreay

#134735
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Joanna Bauldreay is a British chemist and Aviation Fuel Development Manager at Shell Global Solutions. Early life and education Bauldreay studied Natural Sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1976. She was awarded a Half Blue for cricket, and continues to play sports. Bauldreay joined the University of Southampton for her graduate studies, earning a master's degree in Electrochemical Science. She completed her PhD at Newnham College, Cambridge, under the supervision of Mary Archer.
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#848

Yu-Shan Lin

#185290
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (43 years)
Yu-Shan Lin is a computational chemist. She is an associate professor of chemistry at Tufts University in the United States. Her research lab uses computational chemistry to understand and design biomolecules, with topics focusing on cyclic peptides, protein folding, and collagen.
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#849

Francine Battaglia

#174578
Overall Influence
Francine Battaglia is an American aerospace engineer specializing in computational fluid dynamics, including the study of fluidized beds and of fire, fire whirls, and flame spread. Her other research interests include ventilation and energy usage in architectural design, and alternative and renewable energy systems. She is professor and chair in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University at Buffalo, where she directs the Computational Research for Energy Systems and Transport Laboratory.
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#850

Carla Meledandri

#185253
Overall Influence
Carla J. Meledandri is a New Zealand chemistry academic, and in 2020 was promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 2009 PhD titled 'NMR studies of membrane-bound nanoparticles and nanoparticle assemblies' at the Dublin City University, Meledandri moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor.
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