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 people in Chemistry,
#5601
Lionel Milgrom
#118543
Overall Influence
Lionel R. Milgrom is a British chemist and homeopath who has been accused of being a proponent of pseudoscience. He is a former faculty member at Imperial College London, and a former senior lecturer in inorganic chemistry at Brunel University. He worked as a chemist with expertise in porphyrins for more than twenty years, after which he trained in homeopathy because he was impressed at how effective homeopathy appeared to be for treating his partner's pneumonia. Milgrom is also the founder of the company PhotoBiotics, a spinoff from Imperial College London, which pioneers a form of light-activated targeted cancer therapy.
Go to Profile#5602
Dek Woolfson
#162379
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Derek Dek Woolfson is a British chemist and biochemist. He is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry. and director of the Bristol BioDesign Institute at the University of Bristol, and founder of synthetic biology spin-out company Rosa Biotech.
Go to Profile#5603
Leonard Mullins
#104575
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Leonard Mullins was a scientist and long-time Research Director at the former Malaysian Rubber Producers' Research Association. He is known for his work on the stress-softening behavior of rubber, a phenomenon now known widely as the Mullins effect.
Go to Profile#5604
David Phillips
#182926
Overall Influence
#5605
Xiao-feng Chen
#182939
Overall Influence
#5606
Kristina Håkansson
#177200
Overall Influence
Kristina Håkansson is an analytical chemist known for her contribution in Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry for biomolecular identification and structural characterization. Currently, she holds the position of Professor of Chemistry at University of Michigan. Her research focuses on mass spectrometry, primarily identification and characterization of protein posttranslational modifications by complementary fragmentation techniques such as electron-capture dissociation /negative ion ECD and infrared multiphoton dissociation at low levels.
Go to Profile#5607
Bert Andersson
#182966
Overall Influence
#5608
Kirsty Penkman
#83320
Overall Influence
Kirsty Elizabeth Helena Penkman is a biochemist and geochemist known for her research in biomolecular archaeology, the use of ancient DNA, amino acid dating, and other biomolecules in order to date fossils and learn about the world as it was in prehistoric times. She is a reader in chemistry at the University of York.
Go to Profile#5609
Daniel J. Bradley
#111969
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Daniel Joseph Bradley is a Canadian-American chemist and petroleum engineer, researcher, professor, and administrator. Since July 2008, he has served as president of Indiana State University. Before that, he served as president of Fairmont State University, beginning in February 2001. He was previously a professor at Montana Tech of the University of Montana where he held several ranking positions as department head, dean, and vice-chancellor.
Go to Profile#5610
Susan K. Gregurick
#117010
Overall Influence
Susan Kathryn Gregurick is an American computational chemist. She is the associate director for data science at the National Institutes of Health . Gregurick is the director of the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy.
Go to Profile#5611
Delphine Farmer
#180454
Overall Influence
Delphine Farmer is a Canadian chemist who is a professor at the Colorado State University. Her research considers the development of scientific instruments for atmospheric science. She was awarded the American Geophysical Union Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award in 2022.
Go to Profile#5612
James Holt
#89395
Overall Influence
James Daniel Holt is a British scholar of Latter-day Saint religion and history and is Associate Professor of Religious Education at the University of Chester. Biography Holt served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Scotland Edinburgh Mission . During this time, his mission presidents were Joseph Fielding McConkie and Ian D. Swanney.
Go to Profile#5613
Rory Waterman
#182941
Overall Influence
Rory Waterman is an American chemist. He is a full professor and associate dean of inorganic, organometallic, and catalysis at the University of Vermont. Early life and education Waterman attended the University of Rochester for his Bachelor of Science and the University of Chicago for his Ph.D. After completing his doctoral degree in 2004, he accepted a two-year Miller Research Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#5614
Anne Baranger
#164060
Overall Influence
Anne Michelle Baranger is an American chemist who is professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her research considers the experiences of chemistry students and ways to increase the number of students studying STEM subjects.
Go to Profile#5615
Anatoly B. Kolomeisky
#166800
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Anatoly Boris Kolomeisky is a professor of Chemistry, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Physics and Astronomy and chairman of the department of Chemistry at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Go to Profile#5616
Alessandro Piccolo
#53593
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alessandro Piccolo is an Italian chemist and agricultural scientist, with particular expertise in soil science. He is a professor at the University of Naples Federico II and has been honoured by the prize for chemistry in 1999 by the Humboldt Foundation. He received the Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Life Sciences of Prague, Czech Republic in 2009. He is chief editor of the Springer journal Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture. He has been coordinator of two research EU projects and a member of numerous other EU research projects such as the project Biofector with the University of Hohenheim.
Go to Profile#5617
Mahdi Abu-Omar
#146581
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Mahdi Muhammad Abu-Omar is a Palestinian-American chemist, currently the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Professor of Green Chemistry in the Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Go to Profile#5618
Carla Molteni
#168482
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Carla Molteni is an Italian Professor of Physics at King's College London. She works on computer simulations of materials and biomolecules. Education and early career Molteni studied physics at the University of Milan. She remained there for her graduate studies. She was originally interested in particle physics, but became more fascinated by material science as she became aware of its impact in designing materials of the future.
Go to Profile#5619
Amanda Bryant-Friedrich
#180699
Overall Influence
Amanda Cordelia Bryant-Friedrich is the dean of the graduate school and a professor in the college of pharmacy and health sciences at Wayne State University. She was awarded the 2014 American Chemical Society Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. Her research considers modified nucleic acids and biomarkers of disease.
Go to Profile#5620
René Roy
#95734
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
René Roy is a Canadian organic chemist from Quebec, specializing in glycobiology and carbohydrate chemistry. He is professor emeritus, Department of chemistry, at the Université du Québec à Montréal and associate professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Institut Armand-Frappier . He is the founder and former director of PharmaQAM, a biopharmaceutical research center based at UQAM, focusing on the discovery of new bioactive molecules, their mechanism of action and the vectorization of drugs. He is a pioneer in the development of synthetic glycoconjugate vaccines bot...
Go to Profile#5621
Channa Jayasumana
#54367
Overall Influence
Channa Jayasumana is a Sri Lankan medical academic, politician, Cabinet Minister, and member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka for the Anuradhapura District. Education Channa Jayasumana was born into a middle-class Sinhalese family in the down-south, Sri Lanka. Both of his parents were government servants. He studied at the Kalutara Vidyalaya and was a famous athlete in his school days.
Go to Profile#5622
Gordon Wallace
#99116
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Gordon Wallace, AO, FAA, FTSE, FRACI is a leading scientist in the field of electromaterials. His students and collaborators have pioneered the use of nanotechnology in conjunction with organic conductors to create new materials for energy conversion and storage as well as medical bionics. He has developed new approaches to fabrication that allow material properties discovered in the nano world to be translated into micro structures and macro scopic devices.
Go to Profile#5623
Kelvin Ogilvie
#141112
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie is a Canadian academic and politician. A former president of Acadia University in Wolfville, he was named to the Senate of Canada as a Conservative on August 27, 2009, and served until his retirement on November 6, 2017. He was an international expert in biotechnology, bioorganic chemistry and genetic engineering.
Go to Profile#5624
Alexander M. Spokoyny
#176514
Overall Influence
Alexander M. Spokoyny is an American chemist and associate professor in chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA and a faculty member of the California NanoSystems Institute . Education Spokoyny has started his research career as an undergraduate student at UCLA working in the laboratory of M. Frederick Hawthorne. He received his Ph.D. degree in 2011 from Northwestern University in inorganic and materials chemistry working with Chad Mirkin. Spokoyny then conducted a post-doctoral research stint at MIT in chemical biology until 2014 working jointly with Stephen L. Buchwald and Bradley L. Pentelute o...
Go to Profile#5625
Lilo Pozzo
#174472
Overall Influence
Lilo Danielle Pozzo is an American chemical engineer who is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Washington. Her research considers the development, measurement and control of molecular self-assembly. She is interested in the realization of materials for energy storage and conversion. Pozzo serves on the editorial board of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Digital Discovery.
Go to Profile#5626
Chinedum Peace Babalola
#127677
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Chinedum Peace Babalola , is a Nigerian Professor of Pharmaceutical chemistry and Pharmacokinetics. She is the first female Professor of Pharmacy in the University of Ibadan, FAS and FAAS and the second female Nigerian FAAS. She is the incumbent Vice Chancellor of Chrisland University, Nigeria.
Go to Profile#5627
Jeanne Hardy
#174906
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jeanne A. Hardy is an American professor of biological and biophysical chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her group's work is best known for designing allosteric binding sites and control elements into human proteases.
Go to Profile#5628
Brigitte Eisenmann
#183569
Overall Influence
1942 - 2011 (69 years)
Brigitte Eisenmann was a German chemist and a professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. She was the first woman professor for Chemistry at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Together with Herbert Schäfer, she extended the definition of Zintl phases.
Go to Profile#5629
Mohamed Osman Baloola
#69208
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Mohamed Osman Baloola is a Sudanese scientist and inventor who was named among The World's 500 Most influential Arabs in 2012 and 2013 for his work on diabetes. Baloola has been a teaching assistant of biomedical engineering at the Ajman University of Science and Technology since 2010. He won a science and innovation award at the Arabian Business Awards 2011, in the Amrani hotel at Burj Khalifa in Dubai. He won Dh40,000 during a Sharjah television competition for his invention of a remote monitoring and control system for diabetes patients via mobile phone.
Go to Profile#5630
Munira Khalil
#182303
Overall Influence
Munira Khalil is an American chemist who is the Leon C. Johnson Professor of Chemistry and department chair at the University of Washington. Early life and education Khalil attended Colgate University, where she majored in chemistry and English and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for doctoral research, where she developed coherent two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy to study the molecular structure of coupled vibrations on a picosecond timescale. Khalil moved to the University of California, Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher, where ...
Go to Profile#5631
Charles Esimone
#81660
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Charles Okechukwu Esimone is a Nigerian professor of biopharmaceutics and pharmaceutical biotechnology who currently serves as the vice-chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria. He is the first professor of pharmaceutical microbiology in South-Eastern Nigeria.
Go to Profile#5632
Margaret Hyland
#174951
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 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.
Go to Profile#5633
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".
Go to Profile#5634
Roger Guilard
#168519
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Roger Guilard is a French chemist. He is a professor of chemistry at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France where he is a member of the Institute of Molecular Chemistry of the University of Burgundy.
Go to Profile#5635
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.
Go to Profile#5636
Julian Cooper
#106438
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Julian Marc Cooper is a British academic, and specialist on Russian economic matters, including Russian defence budget and military expenditure. Cooper graduated from the University of Bath with a BSc degree in economics in 1968. He graduated from the Department of Industrial Economics and Business Studies and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at Birmingham University with a PhD in 1975 for a thesis on "The development of the Soviet machine tool industry, 1917–1941".
Go to Profile#5637
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.
Go to Profile#5638
John Enemark
#136272
Overall Influence
John H. Enemark is an American chemist, focusing in bioinorganic chemistry, molybdenum-containing enzymes, pulsed EPR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography and metal nitrosyls, currently the Regents Professor Emeritus at University of Arizona.
Go to Profile#5639
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.
Go to Profile#5640
Viktoria Däschlein-Gessner
#183505
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 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.
Go to Profile#5641
Chuan He
#183799
Overall Influence
#5642
Geoff Vigar
#94478
Overall Influence
Geoff Vigar is Professor at School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, Newcastle University. Currently he is the Director of Global Urban Research Unit at the university. Research interests His research focuses on strategy development and implementation in land-use and transport planning, and the role and incorporation of social and environmental issues into governance practices in particular. His research centres on how governance institutions influence different policy pathways both in relation to planning and transport policy but also in wider City strategy-making.
Go to Profile#5643
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.
Go to Profile#5644
Philip Lawley
#80447
Overall Influence
1927 - 2011 (84 years)
Philip Douglas Lawley was a British chemist, best known for demonstrating that DNA damage was the base cause of cancer working with Peter Brookes. In January 2003 the ICR honoured the achievements of Brookes and Lawley by naming a £21m laboratory after them. It is devoted to research on the genetic nature of cancer and located next to the Haddow laboratories.
Go to Profile#5645
Christopher Hourigan
#168068
Overall Influence
Christopher Hourigan is a physician-scientist known for work on measurable residual disease in acute myeloid leukemia. He is the Chief of the Laboratory of Myeloid Malignancies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Go to Profile#5646
Francis R. Jones
#61788
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Dr Francis R. Jones is a poetry translator and Reader in Translation Studies at Newcastle University. He is currently Head of the Translating and Interpreting Section of the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle. He works largely from Dutch and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, though also from German, Hungarian, Russian, and Caribbean creoles.
Go to Profile#5647
Owsley Stanley
#107971
Overall Influence
1935 - 2011 (76 years)
Augustus Owsley Stanley III was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist. He was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area hippie movement during the 1960s and played a pivotal role in the decade's counterculture. Under the professional name Bear, he was the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead, recording many of the band's live performances. Stanley also developed the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound, one of the largest mobile sound reinforcement systems ever constructed. Stanley also helped Robert Thomas design the band's trademark skull logo.
Go to Profile#5648
Iain Paul
#119486
Overall Influence
1939 - 2012 (73 years)
Iain Paul was a Scottish chemist and theologian born in Glasgow, Scotland as the Second World War was stirring. Iain and his sister were raised by their paternal grandparents attending Govan High School .
Go to Profile#5650
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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