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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential female people in Chemistry,
#201
Linda Griffith
#24914
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Linda Gay Griffith is an American biological engineer, and Professor of Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also directs the Center for Gynepathology Research.
Go to Profile#202
Marcetta Y. Darensbourg
#95231
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Marcetta York Darensbourg is an American inorganic chemist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University. Her current work focuses on iron hydrogenases and iron nitrosyl complexes.
Go to Profile#203
Yvonne Connolly Martin
#77922
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Yvonne Connolly Martin is an American cheminformatics and computer-aided drug design expert who rose to the rank of Senior Volwiler Research Fellow at Abbott Laboratories . Trained in chemistry at Northwestern University, she became a leader in collaborative science aimed at discovering and developing bioactive molecules as therapeutic agents, with her contributions proceeding from application of methods to understand how descriptors of molecular shapes and physicochemical properties relate to their biological activity. She is the author of a seminal volume in cheminformatics, Quantitative D...
Go to Profile#204
Sybil P. Seitzinger
#33192
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Sybil P. Seitzinger is an oceanographer and climate scientist at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. She is known for her research into climate change and elemental cycling, especially nitrogen biogeochemistry.
Go to Profile#205
Gabriele Centi
#102010
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
#206
Margaret Thatcher
#323
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher , was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Go to Profile#207
Jennifer M. Heemstra
#49966
Overall Influence
Jennifer Margaret Heemstra is a Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research makes use of the ability of nucleic acids to self-assemble and recognise other molecules. Alongside her research, Heemstra is a science communicator and writes a regular column for Chemical & Engineering News.
Go to Profile#208
Shana O. Kelley
#73776
Overall Influence
Shana O. Kelley is a scientist and Neena B. Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. She is affiliated with Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology and was previously part of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Pharmacy and Faculty of Medicine. Kelley's research includes the development of new technologies for clinical diagnostics and drug delivery. In 2023, she was chosen as president of Chicago's new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.
Go to Profile#209
Michelle Dickinson
#48673
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Michelle Emma Dickinson , also known as Nanogirl, is a nanotechnologist and science educator based in New Zealand. Early life and education Dickinson grew up in Hong Kong, the USA, and the United Kingdom. She had a grandmother from Malta, a grandfather who was English, and a Hong Kong Chinese mother. This may have heightened her awareness of cultural differences. Her father was an English-Maltese soldier.
Go to Profile#210
Sara E. Skrabalak
#100402
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Sara E. Skrabalak is a James H. Rudy Professor at Indiana University. Skrabalak leads a research group in the department of chemistry which focuses on the development of new nanomaterials. She has an adjunct appointment in the department of intelligent systems engineering.
Go to Profile#211
Barbara Ramsay Shaw
#77388
Overall Influence
Barbara Ramsay Shaw is the William T. Miller Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. She is known for her work on how DNA reacts with other compounds. Education and career Shaw earned her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1965. She has an M.S. and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Washington. Her Ph.D. advisors were Michael Schurr, professor of chemistry at the University of Washington and Walter Kauzmann, professor of chemistry and member of the National Academy of Sciences at Princeton University. Shaw received her post-doctoral training from Kensa...
Go to Profile#212
Tia Keyes
#77480
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Tia Emmetine Keyes is a professor of physical chemistry at the School of Chemical Sciences, and a member of the National Centre for Sensor Research at Dublin City University. Research Keyes specialises in photochemistry and molecular spectroscopy. Among her interests are molecular spectroscopy, supramolecular and interfacial chemistry, photophysics and applications in biology such as cell imaging and sensing, and membrane mimetics.
Go to Profile#213
Christina Moberg
#97976
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Christina Moberg is a Swedish chemist who is a professor of Organic Chemistry at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017. Early life and education Moberg was born in Sweden. She attended Stockholm University for her graduate studies, where she studied chemistry and graduated in 1975. She completed her doctoral studies at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Her doctorate considered nickelocene, cobaltocene and cyclopentadienyl -copper in organic synthesis. After earning her doctorate, Moberg moved to the Pierre and Marie Curie University , where she worked with Jean Normant.
Go to Profile#214
Vicki Grassian
#100192
Overall Influence
Vicki H. Grassian is a distinguished professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. She also holds the distinguished chair in physical chemistry.
Go to Profile#215
Emily Balskus
#73530
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Emily P. Balskus is an American chemical biologist, enzymologist, microbiologist, and biochemist born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1980. She has been on the faculty of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department of Harvard University since 2011 and is currently the Morris Kahn Professor. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and three book chapters. Since 2012 she has been invited to give over 170 lectures, has held positions on various editorial boards, and served as a reviewer for ACS and Nature journals among others. Balskus also currently serves as a consultant for Novartis, Kint...
Go to Profile#216
María Vallet-Regí
#65131
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
María Vallet-Regí is a Spanish inorganic chemist. As of 2012, she heads the Smart Biomaterials group at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Early life María Vallet-Regí was born in Las Palmas, Spain. She studied chemistry at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and received her Ph.D. there in 1974.
Go to Profile#217
Magdalena Titirici
#88891
Overall Influence
Magdalena Titirici is a Professor of Sustainable Energy Materials at Imperial College London. Early life and education Titirici studied chemistry at the University of Bucharest. She earned her PhD at the Technical University of Dortmund in 2005, working on molecularly imprinted polymers for her undergraduate studies. Titirici also worked at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz during her postgraduate studies. She then completed her postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, where she then took on the job of group leader. She also received her habilitation in 2013 at the same university.
Go to Profile#218
Sylvia T. Ceyer
#53344
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Sylvia Teresse Ceyer is a professor of chemistry at MIT, holding the John C. Sheehan Chair in Chemistry. Until 2006, she held the chemistry chair of the National Academy of Sciences. Early life and education Ceyer graduated from Hope College in Holland, Michigan in 1974 with an A.B. in chemistry. In 1979, she was awarded a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Her advisors were Y. T. Lee and Gabor Somorjai. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Standards from 1979 to 1981.
Go to Profile#219
Marilyn Olmstead
#70609
Overall Influence
1943 - 2020 (77 years)
Marilyn Olmstead was an American chemist, an expert in small molecule crystallography and an international leader in the crystallographic study of fullerenes, or "Buckyballs." She held the position of professor emerita of chemistry at the University of California Davis.
Go to Profile#220
Elena Boldyreva
#88942
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Elena Vladimirovna Boldyreva is a Russian chemist. Boldyreva is a leading researcher at the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, and is Professor and Head of the Section of Solid State Chemistry at Novosibirsk State University.
Go to Profile#221
Shelley D. Minteer
#99540
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Shelley D. Minteer is an American academic and chemistry professor at the University of Utah. Minteer field of study focuses on the interface between biocatalysts and enzyme-based electrodes for biofuel cells and sensors.
Go to Profile#222
Nora de Leeuw
#96863
Overall Influence
Nora Henriette de Leeuw is the inaugural executive dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at University of Leeds. Her research field is computational chemistry and investigates biomaterials, sustainable energy, and carbon capture and storage.
Go to Profile#223
Olga García Mancheño
#100011
Overall Influence
Olga García Mancheño is an organic chemistry professor at the University of Münster in Germany. García Mancheño directs an organic chemistry research group at University of Münster that focuses on development of new catalytic methods with the goal of developing sustainable synthetic routes to accomplish carbon-hydrogen functionalization, organic chemical rearrangements, and photocatalyzed chemical reactions.
Go to Profile#224
Synnøve Liaaen Jensen
#105798
Overall Influence
1932 - 2022 (90 years)
Synnøve Liaaen Jensen was a Norwegian chemist. She took the degree in 1963 as the first woman in Norway, and became the first female professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology. She was a professor of theoretical chemistry there from 1970 to her retirement. She also received an honorary degree at the University of Zurich in 1986. She was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences.
Go to Profile#225
Yu Jihong
#103060
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Yu Jihong is a Chinese chemist and politician who is a professor at Jilin University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yu was a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and serves as an alternate member of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
Go to Profile#226
Juliet Gerrard
#67007
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Dame Juliet Ann Gerrard is a New Zealand biochemistry academic. She is a professor at the University of Auckland and the New Zealand Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor. Early life Gerrard was born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, in 1967. Her family frequently moved around the United Kingdom when she was a child, living in various locations including Nottingham, Wales and Grimsby. She liked science and focused on chemistry in her studies.
Go to Profile#227
Janne Blichert-Toft
#41027
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Janne Blichert-Toft is a geochemist, specializing in the use of isotopes with applications in understanding planetary mantle-crust evolution, as well as the chemical composition of matter in the universe. To further this research, Blichert-Toft has developed techniques for high-precision Isotope-ratio mass spectrometry measurements.
Go to Profile#228
Núria López
#86631
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Núria López is a Spanish chemist who is Professor of Chemistry at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia . She was awarded the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry Prize for Excellence in 2015.
Go to Profile#229
Dorothy Virginia Nightingale
#85348
Overall Influence
1901 - 2000 (99 years)
Dorothy Virginia Nightingale was an American organic chemist who is known for research on chemiluminescence and the Friedel-Crafts reaction. Nightingale directed the research of 24 PhD students and 26 Masters students and authored 56 scientific publications.
Go to Profile#230
Madhavi Krishnan
#72674
Overall Influence
Madhavi Krishnan is a British chemist who is an Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Krishnan invented an electrostatic fluidic trap which permits the spatial control and manipulation of nanoscale materials. These traps can permit the sensitive detection of biomarkers of disease, allowing for early diagnosis.
Go to Profile#231
Anne Klibanski
#107777
Overall Influence
#232
Adisa Azapagic
#98610
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Adisa Azapagić is a chemical engineer and academic. She has served as Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester since 2006. Early life and education Azapagic was born in 1961 in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She attended the University of Tuzla, and graduated in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Surrey, and earned her PhD on Environmental System Analysis using Life-cycle assessmentin 1996.
Go to Profile#233
Najat A. Saliba
#48225
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Najat Aoun Saliba is a Professor of Analytical Chemistry and an atmospheric chemist at the American University of Beirut . She was the Director of AUB's Nature Conservation Center from 2013 till 2020. Saliba is also the co-founder and director of Khaddit Beirut and the founder and director of the Environment Academy . She was appointed a laureate of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science program in 2019. In 2022 she was elected to the Lebanese parliament.
Go to Profile#234
Viktorya Aviyente
#109397
Overall Influence
Viktorya Aviyente is a Turkish computational chemist. Aviyente is a professor emeritus at Boğaziçi University. Her research interests include computational chemistry and molecular modelling. Aviyente completed a B.S. , M.S. , and Ph.D. in chemistry at Boğaziçi University.
Go to Profile#235
Jane Catherine Ngila
#88277
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Jane Catherine Ngila is the head of the Chemical Sciences Department at the University of Johannesburg, her work focuses on applying nanotechnology for water purification. She is Acting Executive Director of the African Academy of Sciences and member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
Go to Profile#236
Lydia Makhubu
#61015
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Lydia Phindile Makhubu was a Swazi chemist and former professor of chemistry, dean and vice-chancellor of the University of Swaziland . Life She was born at the Usuthu Mission in Swaziland. Her parents were teachers, but her father also worked as an orderly in health clinics. Her early exposure to medicine had a great influence on her choice of career; she initially wanted to become a doctor, but then switched to chemistry.
Go to Profile#237
Linda Hsieh-Wilson
#85135
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Linda Carol Hsieh-Wilson is an American chemist and the Milton and Rosalind Chang Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She is known for her work in chemical neurobiology on understanding the structure and function of carbohydrates in the nervous system. Her studies have revealed critical roles for carbohydrates and protein glycosylation in fundamental processes ranging from cellular metabolism to memory storage. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Go to Profile#238
Franziska Emmerling
#107297
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Franziska L. Emmerling is a German chemist. Emmerling is Head of Materials Cheimstry Department and Head of the Structure Analysis Division at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing . She is a privatdozent at Humboldt University.
Go to Profile#239
Helen Blackwell
#79589
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Helen E. Blackwell is an American organic chemist and chemical biologist. She is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Education Blackwell is a native of Shaker Heights, Ohio and was educated as an undergraduate at Oberlin College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry in 1994. She received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1999 working with Robert Grubbs.
Go to Profile#240
Gilda Barabino
#62990
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Gilda A. Barabino is the president of the Olin College of Engineering, where she is also a professor of biomedical and chemical engineering. Previously, she served as the dean of The Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and as a professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and the CUNY School of Medicine. On March 4, 2021, she became the President-Elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#241
Frances Separovic
#65663
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Frances Separovic is a biophysical chemist, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Deputy Director of the Bio21 Institute and former Head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne, where she taught physical chemistry and graduate students in her field. She is credited with developing a technique which utilises nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study peptides in aligned lipid bilayers, and has applications in the study of the structure of membrane proteins and their effects on the membrane. Her current research concerns 'the structure and interactions of amyl...
Go to Profile#242
Elżbieta Frąckowiak
#57155
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Elżbieta Frąckowiak is a Polish electrochemical engineer whose research concentrates on carbon-based supercapacitors and energy storage. She is a professor in the Faculty of Chemical Technology at the Poznań University of Technology, and a former vice-president of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#243
Wu Lizhu
#105938
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Wu Lizhu is a Chinese chemist specializing in organic chemistry. Early life Wu was born in 1968 in Qinzhou District of Tianshui, Gansu into a Hui family. Her father Wu Jiantao and mother Ma Xian'e were a professors at Northwest University for Nationalities. Her grandfather Wu Hongjian was a member of the China Democratic League and vice chairman of the Tianshui Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Her great-uncle Wu Hongbin was mayor of Tianshui, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of Gansu Provincial People's Congress and executive vice chairman of Gan...
Go to Profile#244
Suning Wang
#96215
Overall Influence
1958 - 2020 (62 years)
Suning Wang was a Chinese-born Canadian chemist. She was a Professor of Chemistry, Research Chair and head of the Wang Group at Queen's University, Canada, having joined the Department of Chemistry at Queen's University in 1996. Wang worked on the development of new Organometallic chemistry and luminescent materials chemistry. Her research interests also included the work on organic Photovoltaics and Nanoparticle, stimuli-responsive materials as well as OLEDs. Wang and her group developed a simple method of producing graphene-like lattice through light exposure, which may contribute to a huge field of future use.
Go to Profile#245
Monica Olvera de la Cruz
#16631
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Monica Olvera de la Cruz is a Mexican born, American and French soft-matter theorist who is the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemistry, and by courtesy Professor of Physics and Astronomy and of Chemical and Biological Engineering, at Northwestern University.
Go to Profile#246
Margot Becke-Goehring
#95881
Overall Influence
1914 - 2009 (95 years)
Margot Becke-Goehring was a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg and she was the first female rector of a university in West Germany - the Heidelberg University. She was also the director of the Gmelin Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Max Planck Society that edited the Gmelins Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie. She studied Chemistry in Halle and Munich, and she finished her doctorate and habilitation at the University of Halle. For her research on the chemistry of main-group elements, she was awarded Alfred Stock Memorial Prize. One of her most notable cont...
Go to Profile#247
Lisa Bero
#59251
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Lisa Anne Bero, born 1958, is an academic who originally trained in pharmacology and went on to a career studying research integrity and how clinical and basic sciences are translated into clinical practice and health policy. Bero is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health and the Chief Scientist of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado. Previously, she had been Chair of Medicines Use and Health Outcomes at the University of Sydney. From 1991 until 2014, she was Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and in the Institute of Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco , and is currently an adjunct professor there.
Go to Profile#248
Margaret C. Etter
#91778
Overall Influence
1943 - 1992 (49 years)
Margaret Cairns Etter, known informally as Peggy Etter , was an American chemist who contributed to the development of solid state chemistry for crystalline organic compounds. She is known for her work characterizing and classifying contacts by hydrogen bonds in organic compounds. Her "enlightened imagination, innovative creativity, and unfailing enthusiasm" is recognised as having a "transformative effect" in many areas of organic chemistry.
Go to Profile#249
Kristie Boering
#86479
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Kristie Ann Boering is a Professor of Earth and Planetary Science and the Lieselotte and David Templeton Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. She studies atmospheric chemistry and mass transport in the extraterrestrial atmosphere using kinetics and photochemistry. Boering was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.
Go to Profile#250
Janis Louie
#91317
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Janis Louie is a Chemistry professor and Henry Eyring Fellow at The University of Utah. Louie contributes to the chemistry world with her research in inorganic, organic, and polymer chemistry. Education Louie received her B.S. from University of California, Los Angeles in 1993, where she was a cheerleader. She then moved on to get her Ph.D. from Yale University for work under Professor John Hartwig in 1998. In the years of 1998-2001 Louie was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.
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