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.
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List of the most influential people in Chemistry,
#6401
Giuseppe Oddo
1865 - 1954 (89 years)
Giuseppe Oddo was an Italian chemist. The Oddo–Harkins rule is named after him and William Draper Harkins. He published his findings in 1914 in a German journal.
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Edward Barnes
1892 - 1941 (49 years)
Edward Barnes was a professor of chemistry at the Madras Christian College and also an amateur botanist. He described several new species of Sonerila, Impatiens and Arisaema from the hills of Tamil Nadu.
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Arthur Connell
1794 - 1863 (69 years)
Arthur Connell FRS FRSE was a Scottish chemist and mineralogist. The mineral Connellite is named after him. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 30 November 1794, the son of Sir John Connell , Judge of the Admiralty Court and his wife, Margaret Campbell . His paternal grandfather was Arthur Connell, Lord Provost of Glasgow.
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Arthur W. Thomas
1891 - 1982 (91 years)
Arthur Waldorf Thomas was a professor and chemist who specialized in colloid chemistry. He studied and taught at Columbia University for 50 years. Education and employment Thomas was born in New Brunswick. The full tenure of Thomas' career was at Columbia University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1912, his A.M. in 1914, and his Ph.D. in 1915. Thomas was an instructor in food chemistry from 1912 to 1917, an assistant professor from 1919 to 1923, and an associate professor from 1923 to 1928. He became full professor of chemistry in 1928. He died in New York, N. Y.
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Nikolay Belov
1891 - 1982 (91 years)
Nikolay Vasilyevich Belov was a Soviet and Russian crystallographer, geochemist, academician , and Hero of Socialist Labour . Belov founded the field of polychromatic symmetry. Honours and awards Hero of Socialist Labour Four Orders of Lenin Order of the October Revolution Order of the Red Banner of Labour Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" Medal "For Labour Valour" Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" Stalin Priz...
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Morton Masius
1883 - 1979 (96 years)
Morton Masius was a German-American physical chemist. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1928. Biography His parents were Alfred Masius, a translator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his wife Edith, née Bailey. Morton Massius's paternal grandfather was Hermann Masius, a professor of pedagogy. Morton Masius attended the humanistic St. Thomas School, Leipzig. After completing his Abitur, he studied physical chemistry at the Leipzig University and received in 1908 his Dr. rer. nat. with a dissertation supervised by Herbert Max Finlay Freundlich. In 1910 in Leipzig, Morton Masius married Paula Marie Wagner, daughter of a wealthy Leipzig family.
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Thomas Stewart Traill
1781 - 1862 (81 years)
Thomas Stewart Traill was a British physician, chemist, meteorologist, zoologist and scholar of medical jurisprudence. He was the grandfather of the physicist, meteorologist and geologist Robert Traill Omond FRSE .
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Elizabeth Herriott
1882 - 1936 (54 years)
Elizabeth Maude Herriott was a New Zealand scientist and academic. She was the first woman appointed to the permanent teaching staff at Canterbury College, now the University of Canterbury. Education Herriott was born in Canterbury in 1882. Her parents were David and Elizabeth Susannah Herriott. Herriott attended Christchurch East School and Christchurch Girls' High School, where she was head prefect in 1899. She won a scholarship to attend Canterbury College, and studied botany and chemistry there from 1900 to 1905. She graduated with a B.A. in 1904 and a M.A. in 1905. Her Master's research ...
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Ivan Orlov
1886 - 1936 (50 years)
Ivan Efimovich Orlov was a Russian philosopher, a forerunner of relevant and other substructural logics, and an industrial chemist. The date of his death is unknown, but is most likely between 1936 and 1937.
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Olive Wheeler
1886 - 1963 (77 years)
Dame Olive Annie Wheeler, DBE was a Welsh educationist and psychologist, and Professor of Education at University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, now Cardiff University. Early life Born at the High Street in Brecon, Olive Wheeler was the younger daughter of Annie Wheeler, Poole, and her husband, Henry Burford Wheeler. Henry Wheeler was a master printer and publisher. She attended Brecon County School for Girls. She received an Honours Central Welsh Board Certificate in 1904. She attended University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and graduated with a BSc in Chemistry in 1907, and a MSc in 1911.
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Johann Andreas Scherer
1755 - 1844 (89 years)
Johann Baptist Andreas Ritter von Scherer was an Austrian chemist and botanist. Scherer was born in Prague. He studied chemistry at the universities of Prague and Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1782. As a student his instructors included botanists Joseph Gottfried Mikan and Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. In 1797 he became a professor of chemistry at the Theresianum in Vienna, followed by a professorship at the Polytechnic Institute in Prague . From 1807 to 1834 he was a professor of specialized natural history at the University of Vienna.
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John M. Ottaway
1939 - 1986 (47 years)
Prof John Michael Ottaway FRSE FRIC FRSC was a short-lived 20th century British analytical chemist. He was an expert in atomic absorption spectroscopy . Life John Michael Ottaway was born in New Malden on 22 August 1939, the only child of John S. Ottaway and Vera . He studied Chemistry under Professor Bishop at the University of Exeter graduating with honours in 1961. He continued as a postgraduate studying analysis, and gaining his doctorate in 1965. He had begun lecturing in analytical chemistry in 1963 at Exeter and in 1966 began lecturing at the University of Strathclyde. He was promoted...
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Ossian Schauman
1862 - 1922 (60 years)
Julius Ossian Schauman was one of the founders of the Swedish-speaking non-governmental organization Folkhälsan, which provides social welfare and health care services in Finland. He was also the younger brother of Wilhelm Schauman.
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Georg Dedichen
1870 - 1942 (72 years)
Georg Maria Dedichen was a Norwegian chemist. Biography He was born in Modum as a son of physician Hans Gabriel Sundt Dedichen and his wife Caroline Henriette Fredrikke Thaulow . He was a brother of psychiatrist Henrik Dedichen and a maternal grandson of Heinrich Arnold Thaulow. He attended Trondheim Technical School . He continued his studies in Kristiania, Wiesbaden and Kiel.
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Zada Mary Cooper
1875 - 1961 (86 years)
Zada Mary Cooper was an American pharmacist and educator. Biography Born in Quasqueton, Iowa in 1875, Zada Mary Cooper graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 1897 and became a registered pharmacist on March 9 of that year. Beginning as an assistant, she worked at the College of Pharmacy for 45 years, becoming an instructor in 1905, an assistant professor in 1912, and an associate professor in 1942.
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David Templeton Gibson
1899 - 1985 (86 years)
David Templeton Gibson FRSE was a British chemist who spent his entire career at the University of Glasgow. Life He was born in Ireland on 23 November 1899, the son of Thomas Henry Gibson, a barrister, and his wife, Jessie Templeton. He attended Bangor Grammar School then his family moved to Scotland where he attended Ayr Academy from 1910-1917. He then returned to Ireland to study Science at the University of Belfast graduating MSc in 1921. He then went to the University of London for postgraduate studies gaining his first doctorate in 1923.
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Ralph Harper McKee
1874 - 1967 (93 years)
Ralph Harper McKee was a professor at the department of chemical engineering at Columbia University. He was the first person to be awarded a patent for a novel plant. Biography He was born on June 20, 1874, in Missouri to James T. McKee and Mary Frances Ricketts.
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Rosa Bouton
1860 - 1951 (91 years)
Rosa Bouton was an American chemist and professor who organized and directed the School of Domestic Science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1898. Despite the lack of funding, Rosa Bouton worked to provide a course to teach young women about the realms of domestic science. As years passed and the demand for more courses and areas of study emerged, Bouton, as the sole instructor, continued to strengthen and build the department to provide such an education to these women.
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Nellie M. Payne
1900 - 1990 (90 years)
Nellie M. Payne was an American entomologist and agricultural chemist. Her research on insect responses to low temperature had practical agricultural and environmental applications. Early life and education Emily Maria de Cottrell Payne was born in 1900, in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, daughter of James E. Payne Sr. and Mary Emmeline Cottrell Payne. Her father was superintendent of an agricultural station. She had two brothers, Amos and James. She earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural chemistry and entomology from the Kansas State Agricultural College, and a Ph.D. in 1925 from the University of Minnesota.
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Karl Arnold
1853 - 1929 (76 years)
Karl Arnold variously Carl Johann Moritz Arnold or Johann Karl Moritz Arnold was a German chemist and mountaineer. He served as Director and briefly as Vice-Chancellor of the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover. His published works on organic chemistry were of importance to veterinarians, medical students and pharmacists. He was also an accomplished alpinist and chairman of the Hanover section of the German-Austrian Alpine Association.
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Charles Frédéric Kuhlmann
1803 - 1881 (78 years)
Charles Frédéric Kuhlmann was a French chemist who patented the reaction for converting ammonia to nitric acid, which was later used in the Ostwald process. He was both a research scientist and a professor at Université Lille Nord de France. He promoted chemical engineering education for science graduates in Lille and supported the development of École centrale de Lille .
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John Michael Maisch
1831 - 1893 (62 years)
John Michael Maisch was a United States pharmacist, the "father of adequate pharmaceutical legislation." Biography Germany John Michael Maisch was born in Hanau, Germany, the son of Conrad Maisch, a merchant. He received his early education in the free schools of Hanau. When he was 12, his parents apprenticed him to a goldsmith. This only lasted three days since school officials disapproved and demanded his return to academic studies. One of his teachers introduced him to the study of mineralogy and microscopy, and he did practical fieldwork in the Hanau vicinity. He conceived an ambition for a university education.
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Kees Posthumus
1902 - 1972 (70 years)
Kees Posthumus was a Dutch chemist. He was the second rector magnificus of the Eindhoven University of Technology. Biography Kees Posthumus was born in Harlingen, Friesland, as the son of a wholesaler in wood. He attended HBS and then went on to study chemistry at the University of Groningen. He attained his propaedeuse there, whereupon he moved to the University of Leiden to continue his studies. While there he came into contact with Albert Einstein and with Johan Huizinga . Upon gaining his engineering degree he took a teaching position at the Christian HBS in Leiden, while working on his doctorate under prof.dr.
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Henry Stephen
1889 - 1965 (76 years)
Henry Stephen OBE, DSc. was an English chemist known for inventing the Stephen Reaction, a method of deriving aldehydes from nitriles . Career Leonard Henry Nelson Stephen, later known as Henry Stephen, was born at 11 Dalton Terrace, Manchester, son of John Stephen, printer, and Mary Eliza .
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Arthur Vogel
1905 - 1966 (61 years)
Arthur Israel Vogel was a British chemist known for his Chemistry textbooks. He became the head of the chemistry department at Woolwich Polytechnic at the age of 27. Academic career Vogel's first job was at Queen Mary University of London, continuing from his BSc, working with Professor J. R. Partington and achieving an MSc. After a short spell at University College London, he joined Imperial College London and the research school of Sir Jocelyn Field Thorpe. During his time there he received a D.Sc for his research on surface tension, electrochemistry, organic synthesis and sulphur chemist...
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Traill Green
1813 - 1897 (84 years)
Dr. Traill Green M.D., LL.D was a medical doctor, scientist, and educator. Green was actively engaged with the early years of Lafayette College, serving at various times as a professor, trustee, and acting president. He was a civic leader in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he lived most of his life.
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William Garnett
1850 - 1932 (82 years)
Dr. William Garnett was a British professor and educational adviser, specialising in physics and mechanics and taking a special interest in electric street lighting. Early years Garnett was born in Portsea, Portsmouth, England in 1850, the son of William Garnett. In January 1863 he entered the City of London School, where he was a pupil of Thomas Hall. In the May 1866 examination, he obtained the first Royal Exhibition, tenable at the Royal School of Mines and College of Chemistry, and during the winter session, he studied under Dr. Edward Frankland and Professor John Tyndall, but in the following year, resigned the Exhibition and returned to the City of London School.
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David Chapman
1869 - 1958 (89 years)
David Leonard Chapman FRS was an English physical chemist, whose name is associated with the Chapman-Jouguet treatment and the Gouy-Chapman layer . He was a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford for 37 years, and was in charge there of the last college laboratory at the University of Oxford.
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Edward Parrish
1822 - 1872 (50 years)
Edward Parrish was an American pharmacist. He was the first president of Swarthmore College. Biography He was the son of Philadelphia physician Joseph Parrish . He studied at a Friends' school, and graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1842. After a course of training at his brother Dillwyn's shop , in 1843 he purchased a drug store at the northwest corner of Ninth and Chestnut Streets and began his practice. He was elected to membership in the College of Pharmacy in 1843, in 1845 a trustee, and in 1854 secretary of the College. He was appointed professor of materia medica i...
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Hope Winch
1894 - 1944 (50 years)
Hope Constance Monica Winch was an English pharmacist and academic. Biography Winch was born in the vicarage in the village of Brompton, just outside Northallerton in North Yorkshire, where her father Reverend George Winch was vicar of the village's St Thomas' Church. Her mother, Elizabeth Maude Winch was the daughter of Thomas Buston Crofton, also from the village.
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Johann Friedrich Klotzsch
1805 - 1860 (55 years)
Johann Friedrich Klotzsch was a German pharmacist and botanist. His principal work was in the field of mycology, with the study and description of many species of mushroom. Klotzsch was born in Wittenberg. Originally trained as a pharmacist, he later enrolled in pharmaceutical and botanical studies in Berlin. In 1830–32 he was curator of William Jackson Hooker's herbarium at the University of Glasgow. Beginning in 1834 he collected plants in Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, Styria and possibly Hungary. In 1838 he replaced Adelbert von Chamisso as curator and director of the Royal Herbarium in Berli...
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William C. Goggin
1911 - 1988 (77 years)
William C. Goggin was an American chemist, business manager and business theorist, noted for developing the concept of Multidimensional organization at Dow Corning. Biography Born in Alma, Michigan, Goggin obtained his BS in chemistry, Physics and Mathematics at Alma College in 1933, and at the University of Michigan his BS in Electrical Engineering in 1935 and his MS in Electrical Engineering in 1936.
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Kennedy J. P. Orton
1872 - 1930 (58 years)
Kennedy J. P. Orton was a British chemist. Initially he studied medicine at St. Thomas' Hospital, but there he became interested in chemistry and moved to St. John's College, Cambridge. He then obtained a Ph.D. summa cum laude in Heidelberg under Karl von Auwers, before working for a year with Sir William Ramsey at University College, London. He was then lecturer and demonstrator of Chemistry at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, before in 1903 being appointed Professor of Chemistry at University College of North Wales, Bangor, where he headed the department until his death. He was elected a Fellow ...
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Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari
838 - 870 (32 years)
Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari , was a Persian Muslim scholar, physician and psychologist, who produced one of the first Islamic encyclopedia of medicine titled Firdaws al-Hikmah . Ali ibn Sahl spoke Syriac and Greek, the two sources of the medical tradition of Antiquity which had been lost by medieval Europe, and transcribed in meticulous calligraphy. His most famous student was the physician and alchemist Abu Bakr al-Razi . Al-Tabari wrote the first encyclopedic work on medicine. He lived for over 70 years and interacted with important figures of the time, such as Muslim caliphs, governors, and eminent scholars.
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Tom Cottrell
1923 - 1973 (50 years)
Prof Tom Leadbetter Cottrell DSc FRSE was an influential Scottish chemist. He is best remembered as a co-founder and first Principal of the University of Stirling, and founder of the Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling. He wrote several popular academic textbooks on the subject of chemistry.
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Edmund Załęski
1863 - 1932 (69 years)
Edmund Załęski was a Polish chemist, agrotechnician, and plant breeder. He was a professor at the Agricultural University of Dublany, as well as a professor at Jagiellonian University, where he also served as rector from 1930–1931.
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James Eights
1798 - 1882 (84 years)
James Eights was an American physician, scientist, and artist. He was born in Albany, New York, the son of physician Jonathan Eights and Alida Wynkoop. James also became a physician and was appointed an examiner at a local engineering school which is now known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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Conrad Weygand
1890 - 1945 (55 years)
Conrad Weygand was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Leipzig. In 1938 he put forward a method for the classification of chemical reactions based on bond breakage and formation during the reaction. The preparative part of his book, Organisch-Chemische Experimentierkunst, was translated into English and published as Organic Preparations by Interscience Publishers, Inc. in 1946. His book about German chemistry introduces similar thoughts like there were presented by Philipp Lenard in his Deutsche Physik movement.
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Cyril G. Hopkins
1866 - 1919 (53 years)
Cyril George Hopkins was an American agricultural chemist who initiated the Illinois long-term selection experiment in 1896. He was also noted for his extensive research and writings on the soil of Illinois.
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Dudley Maurice Newitt
1894 - 1980 (86 years)
Dudley Maurice Newitt FRS was a British chemical engineer who was awarded the Rumford Medal in 1962 in recognition of his 'distinguished contributions to chemical engineering'. Newitt was born in London and started working as an assistant chemist for Nobel in Scotland. In the First World War, he served in the East Surrey Regiment and was awarded the Military Cross.
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George E. Kimball
1906 - 1967 (61 years)
George Elbert Kimball was an American professor of quantum chemistry, and a pioneer of operations research algorithms during World War II. Early life George E. Kimball was born to Arthur G. Kimball in Chicago in 1906 and he grew up in New Britain, Connecticut. He was the oldest of three children in a middle-class family; his younger brother, Penn Kimball, also became a professor at Columbia, in journalism. His interest in chemistry was due to his high school chemistry teacher. He attended New Britain High School and graduated in 1923. He spent a year at Phillips Exeter Academy and in 1924 he enrolled at Princeton University.
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Martin Lowry
1874 - 1936 (62 years)
Thomas Martin Lowry was an English physical chemist who developed the Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory simultaneously with and independently of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and was a founder-member and president of the Faraday Society.
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Thorfin R. Hogness
1894 - 1976 (82 years)
Thorfin Rusten Hogness was a physical chemist, director of plutonium research for the Manhattan Project, and, after WW II, an advocate of "international control of nuclear energy". Biography Hogness graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in 1918 in chemistry and a Ch.E. degree in 1919 in chemical engineering. He received in 1921 a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley . His Ph.D. thesis is entitled The surface tensions and densities of liquid mercury, cadmium, zinc, lead, tin and bismuth. From 1921 to 1930 he was a faculty member at UC Berkele...
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Harrison Brown
1917 - 1986 (69 years)
Harrison Scott Brown was an American nuclear chemist and geochemist. He was a political activist, who lectured and wrote on the issues of arms limitation, natural resources and world hunger. During World War II, Brown worked at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory and Clinton Engineer Works, where he worked on ways to separate plutonium from uranium. The techniques he helped develop were used at the Hanford Site to produce the plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki. After the war he lectured on the dangers of nuclear weapons.
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Edward Anderson
Edward Alexander Anderson, known as Ed Anderson, is an organic chemist based at the University of Oxford. In 2016, the university awarded him the title of Professor of Organic Chemistry. Life Ed Anderson attended Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated from the university with Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry in 1997, having completed his research project on gold nanoparticles under the supervision of Harry Anderson. Between 1997 and 2001, he completed a doctorate at Gonville and Caius College in the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Andrew Holmes. His research focused on the applications and synthesis of medium-ring lactones and ethers.
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John R. Johnson
1900 - 1983 (83 years)
John Raven Johnson was an American chemist. Johnson was notable, among other things, for the discovery of the nearly quantitative oxidation of organoboranes to alcohols by alkaline hydrogen peroxide. Johnson was Todd Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Cornell University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, chair of the Cornell Department of Chemistry.
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Randy Read
1957 - 1983 (26 years)
Randy John Read is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and professor of protein crystallography at the University of Cambridge. Education Read was educated at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979 followed by a PhD in 1986 for X-ray crystallography of serine proteases and their protein inhibitors supervised by Michael N. G. James.
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Carl Mannich
1877 - 1947 (70 years)
Carl Ulrich Franz Mannich was a German chemist. From 1927 to 1943 he was professor for pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Berlin. His areas of expertise were keto bases, alcohol bases, derivativess of piperidine, papaverine, lactones and also Digitalis-glycosides.
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Francis William Bergstrom
1897 - 1946 (49 years)
Francis William Bergstrom, Ph.D. was an American professor of chemistry at Stanford University. Bergstrom was born in Bloomington, Indiana on January 10, 1897, then moved to Stanford when he was 11 years old. He enrolled at Stanford and received a B.S. in 1918 and a Ph.D. in 1922, working with Edward Curtis Franklin. His postdoctoral work was undertaken at Clark University and Brown University, working with Charles A. Kraus. His independent career lasted 29 years at Stanford, during which time he wrote 70 peer-reviewed papers on nitrogen chemistry and served as an Associate Editor for The Jou...
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Floyd Bartell
1883 - 1961 (78 years)
Floyd Earl Bartell was a chemist who spent his entire academic career at the University of Michigan. He specialized in the study of colloids. Early life and education Bartell was born on June 16, 1883, in Concord, Michigan. He was an undergraduate at Albion College and graduated in 1905. After a short period as an instructor of chemistry at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, Bartell returned to Michigan and began graduate studies in chemistry at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in 1910.
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