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 people in Chemistry,
#5951
Joke Bouwstra
#192019
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Johanna Aaltje "Joke" Bouwstra is a Dutch researcher and professor of drug administration at Leiden University. Bouwstra has worked at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, where she has been section leader of Drug Delivery Technology.
Go to Profile#5952
Leonard John Lewis
#38623
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Leonard John Lewis was a British academic. He worked as an educationalist in Nigeria and was a lecturer at the Institute of Education of the University of London. He served as Principal of the University of Zimbabwe for the transition to Zimbabwe's independence, despite his somewhat controversial views on education and politics. He has published a number of books on education policy.
Go to Profile#5953
Kwak Jaesik
#151145
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Kwak Jaesik is a South Korean novelist, science fiction writer and chemist. He is best known for stories of ordinary people with plot twists of science fiction or fantasy elements. Some of his work has been adapted to television drama and comics.
Go to Profile#5954
Alan Turnbull
#179224
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Alan Turnbull is a British corrosion scientist and engineer specialising in the measurement and modelling of environment-assisted cracking and the localised corrosion of metals. He is a Senior NPL Fellow in Electrochemistry at the National Physical Laboratory.
Go to Profile#5955
Mike Pittilo
#64716
Overall Influence
1954 - 2010 (56 years)
Robert Michael Pittilo was a British biologist and Principal and vice-chancellor of the Robert Gordon University, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Pittilo worked in research and education for most of his adult life, holding a number of positions at universities throughout the United Kingdom, notably as Foundation Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences at Kingston University and St George's, University of London, and as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire.
Go to Profile#5956
Kirk K. Durston
#192175
Overall Influence
Kirk K. Durston (born 1954) is a Canadian scientist and philosopher, with undergraduate degrees in both physics and mechanical engineering, as well as a graduate degree in philosophy and a doctorate in biophysics from the University of Guelph. He has publications in journals of both science and philosophy. Currently, his primary, scientific focus is on the development of a k-modes computational method for analyzing large arrays of protein sequences to detect the most critical interdependencies within a protein sequence or structure. This is important for developing novel pharmaceuticals and medicines.
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Anders Thor
#93886
Overall Influence
1935 - 2012 (77 years)
Anders Johan Thor was a Swedish scientist and teacher most notable for his leadership in international standardization of quantities and units. He is one of the creators of binary prefixes and the IUPAC Green Book.
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Matthew Francis
#128323
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Matthew Francis is a British poet, editor of W. S. Graham's New Collected Poems, and a professor at the Aberystwyth University. In 2004, Francis was included on the Poetry Book Society's list of the 20 best modern poets as selected by a panel chaired by poet laureate Timmy Mallett.
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Yuen Poovarawan
#35162
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Yuen Poovarawan is a Thai computer scientist. He worked at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand until his retirement, where his last positions were associate professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Vice President for Information Technology. Among his noted contributions are the development of natural language processing for the Thai language, and the advancement of information technology services in Thailand, particularly the implementation of networking infrastructure at Kasetsart.
Go to Profile#5960
Chavonda Jacobs-Young
#157812
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Chavonda J. Jacobs-Young is an American government executive who serves as the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics. Jacobs-Young was previously the administrator of the Agriculture Research Service, first appointed in February 2014; she was the first female and person of color to lead the agency. In 1998, Jacobs-Young became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in paper science.
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Emily M. Dieter
#192234
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
#5962
Yan Zheng
#190198
Overall Influence
Yan Zheng is a marine geochemist known for her research on metals in groundwater and private wells in Bangladesh, China, and the United States. She is an elected fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.
Go to Profile#5963
Maziar Ashrafian Bonab
#71418
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Dr Maziar Ashrafian Bonab is an Iranian forensic pathologist and a medical geneticist specialising in forensic and cancer genetics and Forensic Facial Reconstruction. Part of his groundbreaking research uses human DNA markers to identify the ancestral history of humans/human populations in both anthropological and forensic cases. His main area of research is Cancer Genetics. Maziar was born in Tehran, Iran . Before completing his PhD in Cambridge, he first qualified as a Medical Doctor from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and worked as a Medical Practitioner in Iran. After comple...
Go to Profile#5964
William Marshall Jr.
#90476
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
William Marshall Jr. was an American architect in practice in Norfolk, Virginia from 1955 to 1984 and was president of the American Institute of Architects for 1975. Life and career William Marshall Jr. was born November 24, 1925, in Ashland, Kentucky to William Marshall, a civil engineer, and Lee Marshall. The family moved to Virginia shortly thereafter and in 1939 settled permanently in Norfolk. In 1943 he enrolled in the Virginia Military Institute to study engineering, but left in 1944 to enlist in the United States Army. After the war he enrolled in the University of Virginia to study architecture, and graduated with a BS in architecture in 1949.
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Jonathan Abbatt
#182656
Overall Influence
Jonathan Abbatt is a Canadian chemist currently at the University of Toronto and an Elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. His work mainly focuses on chemical processes in the atmosphere. Research and career
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Marcel Lesieur
#110846
Overall Influence
1945 - 2022 (77 years)
Marcel Lesieur was a French scientist. He was a student of the École polytechnique and held a doctorate in science. A researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, he then became a professor of fluid mechanics at the Institut polytechnique de Grenoble. He led a research team at the Geophysical and Industrial Flow Laboratory.
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Hideki Sakurai
#146936
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
is a Japanese chemist. He discovered the Sakurai reaction in 1976.
Go to Profile#5968
Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
#177578
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim is a German chemist, science communicator, television presenter and YouTuber. In June 2020 she was elected to the senate of the Max Planck Society. Life and education Nguyen-Kim was born in 1987 in Heppenheim, Hesse; her parents are from South Vietnam, her father is also a chemist. She completed the in 2006 in Hemsbach. She studied at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked on her doctorate at RWTH Aachen University, Harvard University, and the University of Potsdam; completing it in 2017. She rejected a job offer from BASF to focus on science communication.
Go to Profile#5969
William Henry Emerson
1860 - 1924 (64 years)
William Henry "Big Doc" Emerson was an American chemist. Life William Henry Emerson was born in Tunnel Hill, Georgia in 1860 to Matilda Caroline Austin, daughter of Clisbe Austin, and Caleb J. Emerson. He joined the United States Naval Academy at age 16, graduating in 1880. Emerson spent the next several years as an officer in the U.S. Navy before enrolling in graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in October 1883. At Johns Hopkins, Emerson studied chemistry under Ira Remsen. He graduated with his Ph.D. in 1886 and accepted a faculty position at the South Carolina Military Academy . In ...
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Edward Sucharda
1891 - 1947 (56 years)
Edward Sucharda was a renowned Polish chemist and engineer. He was rector of Lwów University of Technology from 1938 to 1939 and vice-rector of Wrocław University of Technology from 1945 to 1947. Scientific activity Edward Sucharda's work was distinguished by four main areas of interest:
Go to Profile#5971
John Hamilton Bowie
#5972
John Brown Francis Herreshoff
1850 - 1932 (82 years)
John Brown Francis Herreshoff was second winner of the Perkin Medal. He was also the president of The General Chemical Company. Biography Herreshoff was born February 7, 1850, Bristol, Rhode Island, to the marriage of Charles Frederick Herreshoff III and Julia Ann Lewis . Herreshoff was a metallurgical chemist affiliated with the firm of Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, builders of yachts and torpedo boats. Herreshoff was also the president of The General Chemical Company, which was founded in 1899 and merged in 1920 with Allied Corporation.
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Samuel Sugden
1892 - 1950 (58 years)
Samuel Sugden, FRS was an eminent chemist in the first half of the 20th century. Early life He was born in Leeds on 21 February 1892 and educated at Batley Grammar School and the Royal College of Science.
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Kurt Peters
1897 - 1978 (81 years)
Kurt Gustav Karl Peters was an Austrian chemist. His work focused on the area of fuel technology, physical chemistry and catalytic reactions as well as the separation of rare gases and hydrocarbons.
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Johann Frederik Eijkman
1851 - 1915 (64 years)
Johan Fredrik Eykman or Johann Frederik Eijkman was a Dutch chemist. Family background He is one of the eight children of Christiaan Eijkman, the headmaster of a local school, and Johanna Alida Pool. His brother Christiaan Eijkman was a physician and professor of physiology whose demonstration that beriberi is caused by poor diet led to the discovery of vitamins. Together with Sir Frederick Hopkins, his brother received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
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Richard Threlfall
1861 - 1932 (71 years)
Sir Richard Threlfall was an English chemist and engineer, he established the School of Physics at the University of Sydney and made important contributions to military science during World War I. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1899, and was created KBE in 1917 and GBE in 1927.
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Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck
1809 - 1887 (78 years)
Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck was a Belgian palaeontologist and chemist, born at Leuven. He studied medicine in the university of his native town, and in 1831 he became assistant in the chemical schools. He pursued the study of chemistry in Paris, Berlin and Gießen, and was subsequently engaged in teaching the science at Ghent and Liège. In 1856 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Liège University, and he retained this post until the close of his life.
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Robert Warington
1838 - 1907 (69 years)
Robert Warington, Jr. was an English agricultural chemist, known for his research and publications on the chemistry of phosphates and nitrates in agricultural soils. Biography Robert Warington Jr. was the eldest son and second child of the chemist Robert Warington, FRS. After studying chemistry in his father's laboratory and attending lectures by Faraday, Brande, and Hofmann, Robert Warington Jr. became in 1859 an unpaid assistant to Sir John Bennet Lawes at Rothamsted Experimental Station at Harpenden. Warington was from 1862 to 1867 an assistant to the Professor of Chemistry at the Royal A...
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Rudolf Marloth
1855 - 1931 (76 years)
Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth was a German-born South African botanist, pharmacist and analytical chemist, best known for his Flora of South Africa which appeared in six superbly illustrated volumes between 1913 and 1932. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Marloth when citing a botanical name.
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Wilhelm August Lampadius
1772 - 1842 (70 years)
Wilhelm August Lampadius was born in Hehlen, Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, on 8 August 1772 and died on 13 April 1842 in Freiberg, Kingdom of Saxony. He was a German pharmacist in Göttingen from 1785 until 1791. Also he was an "extraordinary professor" of chemistry and mineralogy in 1794 and an "ordinary professor" in 1795. He taught at the Mining Academy in Freiberg. Lampadius is best known for inflaming the first coal gas lantern on European ground.
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Gustav von Hüfner
1840 - 1908 (68 years)
Gustav von Hüfner was a German chemist. From 1860 to 1865 he studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, and while a student, attended lectures given by biologists Carl Gegenbaur and Matthias Jakob Schleiden at the University of Jena. After graduation, he trained under physiologist Carl Ludwig and chemist Hermann Kolbe at Leipzig, and studied in the laboratory of Robert Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg. In 1869 he obtained his habilitation, and three years later, succeeded Felix Hoppe-Seyler at the University of Tübingen. In 1875, he was appointed a full professor of organic and phys...
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Alexander Tschirch
1856 - 1939 (83 years)
Alexander Tschirch was a German-Swiss pharmacist born in Guben. He received pharmacy training in Dresden and at the Berner Staatsapotheke . From 1878 to 1880 he studied at the University of Berlin, earning his PhD at Freiburg in 1881, followed by a degree in botany from Berlin in 1884. In 1889–90 he took a study tour of India, Ceylon and Java. From 1890 to 1932 he was a professor of pharmacy and pharmacognosy at the University of Bern, serving as rector in 1908–09.
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William P. Griffith.
#5984
Johannes van Laar
1860 - 1938 (78 years)
Johannes van Laar was a Dutch chemist who is best known for the equations regarding chemical activity . Biography Van Laar's parents died when he was still a minor, his mother in 1862 when he was about 2-years-old and his father in 1873 when he was about 13-years-old. From that point on his uncle N. A. Rost van Tonningen was responsible for him. He finished school in 1876 and joined the Royal Naval Institute at Willemsoord. After several trips on steam ships and reaching the rank of a sub-lieutenant he asked for discharge when he became of age.
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André Laugier
1770 - 1832 (62 years)
André Laugier was a French chemist, pharmacist and mineralogist. He was a cousin to famed chemist Antoine François Fourcroy and the father of astronomer Paul Auguste Ernest Laugier . He received his education in his hometown of Lisieux, and during the French Revolution, was tasked with collecting church bells in Bretagne in order for them to be melted down for the production of cannons. In 1794 he was employed as head of the gunpowder and saltpeter works at the Comite de salut public. In 1797 he received his master's degree in pharmacy, and subsequently taught classes in chemistry and pharmac...
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Winford Lee Lewis
1878 - 1943 (65 years)
Winford Lee Lewis was a US soldier and chemist best known for his rediscovery of the chemical warfare agent lewisite in 1917. He was born in Gridley, California and died in his home in Evanston, Illinois in 1943 following a fall.
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Giovanni Francisco Vigani
1650 - 1712 (62 years)
Giovanni Francisco Vigani , known also as John Francis, was an Italian chemist who became the first professor of chemistry in the University of Cambridge. Life Vigani was born at Verona about the middle of the seventeenth century. He travelled in Spain, France, and Holland, and studied mining, metallurgy, and pharmacy in the countries he visited. He is not known to have received an official university degree. In 1682 he published a small treatise, entitled Medulla Chymiæ. It was dedicated to a Dutchman, Joannes de Waal, and was printed and published at Danzig. During this year he probably arrived in England, first settling in Newark-on-Trent.
Go to Profile#5988
Frederick Pearson Treadwell
1857 - 1918 (61 years)
Frederick Pearson Treadwell was an American analytical chemist working in Switzerland. Life F.P. Treadwell studied chemistry in Heidelberg under Robert Bunsen. He graduated with a doctoral degree in 1878 and was lecture assistant to Bunsen from 1878-1881. Treadwell became Privatdozent in analytical chemistry at ETH Zürich in 1882, Titularprofessor in 1885, and Ordinarius in 1893, a post he held until his sudden death by "heart disease" in 1918. His son William Dupré Treadwell followed him on his position at ETH.
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Fanny Rysan Mulford Hitchcock
1851 - 1936 (85 years)
Fanny Rysan Mulford Hitchcock was one of only 13 American women to receive their doctorates in chemistry during the 19th-century, and was the first woman to receive a doctorate in Philosophy of Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Peter de la Mare
1920 - 1989 (69 years)
Peter Bernard David de la Mare was a New Zealand physical organic chemist. Born in Hamilton in 1920, he was the son of Sophia Ruth de la Mare , a medical practitioner, and Frederick Archibald de la Mare, a lawyer. He was educated at Hamilton High School, and then attended Victoria University College, from where he graduated in 1942 with an MSc in chemistry, winning the Shirtcliffe Fellowship and the Jacob Joseph Scholarship. His master's research was supervised by Philip Robertson. He worked at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in the agricultural department at Wellington a...
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Jacopo Bartolomeo Beccari
1682 - 1766 (84 years)
Jacopo Bartolomeo Beccari was an Italian chemist, one of the leading scientists in Bologna in the first half of the eighteenth century. He is mainly known as the discoverer of the gluten in wheat flour.
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M. E. Jr. Conrad
#5993
Samuel Wilson Parr
1857 - 1931 (74 years)
Samuel Wilson Parr was an American chemist and academic from Illinois. A graduate of the Illinois Industrial University , he taught at Illinois College after receiving a master's degree from Cornell University. He was recruited by the University of Illinois in 1891 and remained there for the rest of his career. Parr is noted for his contributions to industrial chemistry, including the identification of the alloy illium, named for the school. In 1928, Parr was the president of the American Chemical Society.
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Peter Jacob Hjelm
1746 - 1813 (67 years)
Peter Jacob Hjelm was a Swedish chemist and the first person to isolate the element molybdenum in 1781, four years after its discovery by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Working with Molybdic acid, Hjelm chemically reduced molybdenum oxide with carbon in an oxygen-free atmosphere, resulting in carbon dioxide and a near-pure dark metal powder to which he gave the name 'molybdenum'. His first publication on molybdenum appeared in 1790.
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Paul-Antoine Giguère
1910 - 1987 (77 years)
Paul-Antoine Giguère, was a Canadian academic and chemist. Born in Quebec City, he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Université Laval in 1934, and a doctorate from McGill University in 1937 under the direction of Otto Maass. He started working in the laboratory of CIL in Beloeil, Quebec and then went to work at the California Institute of Technology with Linus Pauling.
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Johann Theodor Eller
1689 - 1760 (71 years)
Johann Theodor Eller was a German physician, mineralogist and chemist who served in the Prussian court. Eller followed the beliefs of the day that heat was an element. Lavoisier read his works on air and fire. In his medical research he claimed that copper in cooking utensils was harmful.
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August Bernthsen
1855 - 1931 (76 years)
Heinrich August Bernthsen was a German chemist who was among the first to synthesize and study the structures of methylene blue and phenothiazine. Bernthsen was born to Heinrich Friedrich and Anna Sybilla Terheggen in Krefeld, Prussia. He studied the natural sciences before studying chemistry at Bonn and Heidelberg. After studying under Robert Bunsen he became an assistant to August Kekule. He worked from 1883 at the University of Heidelberg and from 1887 he worked at the Badische Aniline and Iodafabrik factory. He developed a number of dyes, many of which were patented. He also pioneered the...
Go to Profile#5998
Zdenko Hans Skraup
1850 - 1910 (60 years)
Zdenko Hans Skraup was a chemist from Austria-Hungary, who discovered the Skraup reaction, the first quinoline synthesis. Life Skraup was born in Prague, where he attended the Oberrealschule from 1860 till 1866 and subsequently studied at the Technical University of Prague. After being assistant of Heinrich Ludwig Buff for less than a year he worked at a china factory but changed to the mint in Vienna in 1873.
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Thomas Antisell
1817 - 1893 (76 years)
Thomas Antisell was a physician, scientist, professor, and Young Irelander. He fought in the American Civil War, and served as an advisor to the Japanese Meiji government. Early life and education Antisell was born in Dublin, 16 January 1817, the youngest son of Thomas Christopher Antisell KC and Margaret Daly. Antisell attended the Dublin School of Medicine, the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland, and the Royal College of Surgeons in London, graduating from the latter with an MD in November 1839. He studied chemistry in Paris and Berlin in 1844. Upon his return to Dublin in 1845, he secured a lectureship in botany at the Peter St.
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Claude-Auguste Lamy
1820 - 1878 (58 years)
Claude Auguste Lamy was a French chemist who discovered the element thallium independently from William Crookes in 1862. Life Lamy was born in the commune of Ney in the department of Jura, France in 1820. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris. After he graduated from University in 1842 he became a teacher at Lille then at Limoges and again in Lille. In 1851 he received his Ph.D. In 1854 he became a professor at the faculty of sciences of Lille . He taught at École des arts industriels et des mines . In 1866 he changed to the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures . Lamy died in 1...
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