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
Maria Lipp
1892 - 1966 (74 years)
Maria Lipp was a German organic chemist. She was the first female doctoral student, professor, and ordinary professor at the RWTH Aachen University. Life Lipp was born in Stolberg as the daughter of Karl Savelsberg and Friederike de Nys. She was later adopted by the chemist Julius Bredt. In 1913, she started studying chemistry at the TH Aachen. She completed her diploma with distinction in 1917 and was the first female doctoral student at the TH Aachen. She completed her doctorate with distinction in 1918 and her habilitation in organic chemistry again at the TH Aachen in 1923. In 1925, she married Peter Lipp, a professor for organic chemistry at the TH Aachen.
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Jüri Kukk
1940 - 1981 (41 years)
Jüri Kukk was an Estonian professor of chemistry, a political prisoner, who died in the Soviet labor camp at Vologda after several months of being on hunger strike and psychiatric treatments. Kukk was born in Pärnu. He resigned from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1978 and was subsequently fired from the post of associate professor of chemistry at Tartu University. He was also refused permission to emigrate.
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Paul Lebeau
1868 - 1959 (91 years)
Paul Marie Alfred Lebeau was a French chemist. He studied at the elite École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris . Together with his doctoral advisor Henri Moissan he was working on fluorine chemistry discovering several new compounds, like bromine trifluoride, oxygen difluoride, selenium tetrafluoride and sulfur hexafluoride.
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Gustav Bischof
1792 - 1870 (78 years)
Karl Gustav Bischof was a German chemist, born in Nuremberg. He studied at Erlangen where he became a university lecturer in 1815. In 1819 he was appointed to the position of an extra-Ordinary Professor of Chemistry at Bonn, and in 1822 to that of a full professor. The University of Bonn was a leading center for geologists including Ferdinand von Roemer, Georg August Goldfuss, and Gerhard vom Rath as well as Bischof.
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Samuel Philip Sadtler
1847 - 1923 (76 years)
Samuel Philip Sadtler, Ph.D., LL.D. was an American chemist, and the first president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1908. Life Sadtler was born at Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, the son of a Lutheran minister, and educated at Pennsylvania College , at Lehigh University , at Lawrence Scientific School , and in Europe at the University of Göttingen . As well as his professional activities, he was active in the Lutheran church.
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Agnes Pockels
1862 - 1935 (73 years)
Agnes Luise Wilhelmine Pockels was a German chemist whose research was fundamental in establishing the modern discipline known as surface science, which describes the properties of liquid and solid surfaces and interfaces.
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Arnold Eucken
1884 - 1950 (66 years)
Arnold Thomas Eucken was a German chemist and physicist. He examined the energy states of the Hydrogen atom and contributed to knowledge of the atomic structure. He also contributed to chemical engineering and process control through physical chemistry measurements for applications in industry.
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Amé Pictet
1857 - 1937 (80 years)
Amé Pictet was a Swiss chemist. He discovered the Pictet–Spengler reaction, and the related Pictet–Hubert reaction and Pictet–Gams reaction. Pictet was born in Geneva, studied with August Kekulé at the University of Bonn where he received his Ph.D. in 1879. From 1894 until 1932 he was professor at the University of Geneva. He is credited with publishing the first synthesis of nicotine.
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Wilder Dwight Bancroft
1867 - 1953 (86 years)
Wilder Dwight Bancroft was an American physical chemist. Biography Born in Middletown, Rhode Island, he was the grandson of historian and statesman George Bancroft and great-grandson of Aaron Bancroft. He received a B.A. from Harvard University in 1888, and a Ph.D. from University of Leipzig in 1892, as well as honorary SCDss from Lafayette College and Cambridge University .
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Francis Robert Japp
1848 - 1925 (77 years)
Francis Robert Japp FRS was a British chemist who discovered the Japp-Klingemann reaction in 1887. He was born in Dundee, Scotland, the son of James Japp, a minister of the Catholic Apostolic Church. He graduated from St Andrews with an M.A. in 1868 and entered the University of Edinburgh as a student of law. He left the university because of health problems and stayed in Germany for two years from 1871 until 1873. After returning to England he decided to study chemistry. He started his studies at the University of Heidelberg with Robert Bunsen, where he received his PhD in 1875.
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Dennis F. Evans
1928 - 1990 (62 years)
Dennis Frederick Evans was an English chemist who made important contributions to nuclear magnetic resonance, magnetochemistry and other aspects of chemistry. Early life Evans was born in Nottingham, England on 28 March 1928. His father George Frederick Evans was a master carpenter and his mother was a dressmaker. He was educated at Huntingdon Street Junior School and then won a scholarship to Nottingham High School. In 1946 he entered Oxford with a scholarship to Lincoln College where his tutor was Rex Richards . He won the university Gibbs Prize in Chemistry in 1949, and in that year star...
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Charlotte Fitch Roberts
1859 - 1917 (58 years)
Charlotte Fitch Roberts was an American chemist best known for her work on stereochemistry. Life Roberts was born on February 13, 1859, in New York City to Horace Roberts and Mary Roberts . Education and career Roberts attended Wellesley College in 1880. Wellesley made her a graduate assistant in 1881, an instructor in 1882, and an associate professor in 1886. In 1885 she spent a year at Cambridge University working with Sir James Dewar, a chemist and physicist. In 1896 she published The Development and Present Aspects of Stereochemistry. She obtained a PhD from Yale in 1894 and a post at the University of Berlin from 1899 to 1900.
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Robert Fulford Ruttan
1856 - 1930 (74 years)
Robert Fulford Ruttan, was a Canadian chemist and university professor. Biography Born in Newburgh, Canada West, the son of Dr. Allan Ruttan, a physician, and Caroline Smith, Ruttan's family moved to Napanee around 1863. He received a Bachelor of Arts in natural science degree in 1881 from the University of Toronto. He received his M.D. in 1884 from McGill University, where he also participated in the establishment of the zeta psi fraternity. He never practiced medicine, but rather did postgraduate studies in organic chemistry with August Wilhelm von Hofmann at the University of Berlin.
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Pompejus Bolley
1812 - 1870 (58 years)
Pompejus Alexander Bolley was a German-Swiss chemist known for his work in dye chemistry. From 1831 to 1836 he studied mineralogy and chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, where for a period of time he was an assistant to Leopold Gmelin. From 1838 to 1855 he was a professor of chemistry at the cantonal school in Aarau. He was a co-founder of the Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich, where from 1855 to 1870 he served as a professor of chemical technology. From 1859–65 he was also director of the school — in 1864 he was the target of student protests against his strict school policies.
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Edwin Emery Slosson
1865 - 1929 (64 years)
Edwin Emery Slosson was an American magazine editor, writer, journalist and chemist. He was the first head of Science Service, and a notable popularizer of science. Family background and education Slosson was born in Albany, Kansas, the son of William Butler Slosson and his wife, the former Achsah Louise Lilly. His parents were pioneers who had moved from New York State to Kansas in 1857. William Slosson ran the first general store in Albany. A supporter of free state status for Kansas, he helped to organize a branch of the Underground Railroad and ran a "station" where escaping slaves were ...
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Arthur George Green
1864 - 1941 (77 years)
Arthur George Green FRS was a British organic chemist. Career He was educated at Lancing College and University College London. In 1887, Green was working in London for the Brooke, Simpson and Spiller company when he discovered the aniline based dye primuline. In 1894, Green accepted a job with the Clayton Aniline Company as manager of their dyestuff department, a post he held until 1901. From 1902 until 1916, he was Professor of Tinctorial Chemistry at the University of Leeds. In 1916, Green joined the Levinstein company as Director of Research. He resigned from the company in 1923.
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Rachel Lloyd
1839 - 1900 (61 years)
Rachel Lloyd was an American chemist who studied the chemistry and agriculture of sugar beets . She studied at the Harvard Summer School and earned her doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1886. She was the first American woman to earn a doctorate of chemistry and the first woman to publish work in a major chemistry journal.
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Carl Scheibler
1827 - 1899 (72 years)
Carl Wilhelm Bernhard Scheibler was a German chemist. Scheibler's research focused on sugar, including the technical chemistry of sugar production and the composition of molasses. Scheibler was born the son of Friedrich August Theodor Scheibler and Anna Gertrud Eschweiler in Gemereth/Eupen, at that time a small town close to the Belgian border. He went to school in Aachen and studied chemistry at the University of Berlin. He received his PhD for his work De Wolframiatibus. Scheibler worked with Gustav Werther in Königsberg and from 1858 at the Pommersche Provinzial-Zuckersiederei in Stetti...
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Patrick Linstead
1902 - 1966 (64 years)
Sir Patrick Linstead CBE, DSc, HonDSc, DIC, HonFCGI, HonMIMM, FRS was an English chemist. Biography Patrick Linstead was born on 28 August 1902 in Southgate, London, the second son of Edward Flatman Linstead, advertising manager for Burroughs Wellcome, and Florence Evelyn, née Hester. After primary education in Southgate, Linstead attended the City of London School from the age of 11 to 17, where the science master, George H J Adlam, was a considerable influence. He joined Imperial College in 1920 and graduated three years later with first class honours, before continuing to a PhD in Sir Joc...
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John Howard Appleton
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
John Howard Appleton was an American chemist. Appleton was born in Portland, Maine, February 3, 1844. He was graduated at Brown University with bachelor of philosophy degree in 1863, the following year became instructor in chemistry there, and in 1868 was elected professor of chemistry and applied arts which he held till his mandatory retirement at the age of 70 in 1914. He was State Sealer of Weights and Measures and also chemist for the State Board of Agriculture. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Chemistry in 1928.
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Friedrich Heeren
1803 - 1885 (82 years)
Friedrich Heeren was a German chemist. He received his doctorate in Göttingen, and from 1831 was an instructor of technological-chemical subjects at the Polytechnic School in Hannover . Here he taught classes in physics, mineralogy and chemistry.
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William Klyne
1913 - 1977 (64 years)
William Klyne was an organic chemist known for his work in steroids and stereochemistry — a field in which he was a "pioneer", and in which Ernest Eliel and Norman Allinger described him as "one of the world's experts".
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George Murray Burnett
1921 - 1980 (59 years)
George Murray Burnett FRSE FRSA FRIC LLD was a Scottish mathematician and chemist. He served as both Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University from 1974 until 1980. He is largely remembered for his work on polymer reactions.
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Robert Schiff
1854 - 1940 (86 years)
Robert Schiff was a Free City of Frankfurt-born, Italian chemist. He was the son of physiologist Moritz Schiff and Claudia Trier. He successively was a student at the University of Heidelberg, then at the University of Zürich, where he obtained a doctorate in 1876. He then became an assistant to Stanislao Cannizzaro at Sapienza University of Rome, and in 1879 was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Modena. In 1892 he relocated as a professor to the University of Pisa.
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Jean-Baptiste Van Mons
1765 - 1842 (77 years)
Jean-Baptiste Van Mons was a Belgian physicist, chemist, botanist, horticulturist and pomologist, and professor of chemistry and agronomy at Louvain . Van Mons carried out the first recorded selective breeding of the European Pear through cycles of seed propagation.
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C. W. L. Bevan
1920 - 1989 (69 years)
Cecil Wilfrid Luscombe "Bill" Bevan, CBE was a Welsh chemist, academic, and academic administrator. He was Principal of University College, Cardiff from 1966 to 1987. He was additionally Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales for two terms: 1973 to 1975 and 1981 to 1983.
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Tu Tsung-ming
1893 - 1986 (93 years)
Tu Tsung-ming , was the first Doctor of Medical Sciences of Taiwan. He was born in Tamsui in 1893, trained as a physician at Taiwan Governor's Medical School, and received his doctorate degree from Kyoto Imperial University in 1922. He became the first Taiwanese professor in Japan's pre-1945 imperial university system, at Taihoku Imperial University . His pharmacology research lab was the cradle of medical research in Taiwan. The laboratory did pioneering research on methods to treat opium addiction, on the toxicology of snake venom, and on the pharmacology of traditional Chinese medicine.
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Francis Grant Ogilvie
1858 - 1930 (72 years)
Sir Francis Grant Ogilvie CB FRSE was a Scottish educator, museum director, and scientist. Birth, parentage and early career Ogilvie was born in Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, the eldest son of the Reverend Alexander Ogilvie, headmaster of Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen, and his wife Maria Matilda . His younger sister, Dame Maria Gordon, was an eminent scientist in the fields of geology and palaeontology.
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Samuel Soloveichik
1909 - 1967 (58 years)
Dr. Samuel Soloveichik was an Orthodox Jewish chemist and talmudist. Early life Born in Pruzhany, Samuel Soloveichik was the second son of Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik. He was the brother of rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik and Ahron Soloveichik . He had two sisters, Mrs. Shulamith Meiselman , and Mrs. Anne Gerber .
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Jacques-Marie-Frangile Bigot
1818 - 1893 (75 years)
Jacques Marie Frangile Bigot was a French naturalist and entomologist most noted for his studies of Diptera. Bigot was born in Paris, France, where he lived all his life, though he had a small house in Quincy-sous-Sénart, Essonne. He became a member of the Entomological Society of France in 1844, and his first paper was published in its Annals in 1845, as was most of his later work. Bigot was a prolific author, and, like Francis Walker, his work was the subject of much later criticism.
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Chester Dewey
1784 - 1867 (83 years)
Chester Dewey was an American botanist, antislavery activist, clergyman and educator. Early life Chester Dewey was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, on October 25, 1784, to Elizabeth Owen and Stephen Dewey. He studied for the ministry at Williams College, graduated in 1806, and officiated at Tryingham, Massachusetts. Even though he gave up preaching as his primary profession after only a few months, he never really retired from the pulpit. He also assisted his brother, Loring D. Dewey in his efforts to create a school of U.S. Blacks. For the remainder of his life he accepted frequent invita...
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Ernst Schulze
1840 - 1912 (72 years)
Ernst Schulze was a German chemist who discovered a number of amino acids. Biography Schulze's grandfather was the philosopher and privy counsellor Gottlob Ernst Schulze, and his father held public office in the town where he was born: Bovenden near Göttingen. After completing school, Schulze studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen. Among his professors were Friedrich Wöhler and Heinrich Limpricht. He completed his final semester at Heidelberg, where he completed his studies under Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. Schulze then traveled to Jena, where he completed his doctoral studies as the ass...
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Pierre Gallezot
#6434
Karl Seubert
1851 - 1942 (91 years)
Karl Friedrich Otto Seubert was a prominent German chemist notable for his work on atomic weights of platinum elements. He was the son of the German botanist Moritz August Seubert and Maria Seubert.
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Albert Benjamin Prescott
1832 - 1905 (73 years)
Albert Benjamin Prescott was an American chemist. He graduated in medicine at the University of Michigan in 1864, and was made assistant professor of organic and applied chemistry, dean of the school of pharmacy, and director of the chemical laboratory over the years. Professor Prescott served as president of the American Chemical Society in 1886, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1891, and president of the American Pharmacists Association in 1900. During his tenure as Dean at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy, Prescott encouraged the foundation of what is now the Phi Delta Chi professional pharmacy fraternity.
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Charles Soret
1854 - 1904 (50 years)
Charles Soret was a Swiss physicist and chemist. He is known for his work on thermodiffusion . Life Charles Soret was the son of Jacques-Louis Soret, professor of physical medicine at University of Geneva, and Clémentine Odier. In 1872, Charles graduated from an art college in Geneva and, two years later, he added a degree in mathematics. In addition, he also attended lectures in physics and other sciences. He continued studies in mathematics at the Sorbonne, where he received his MA in 1876. He believed that a good physicist is first of all a good mathematician; therefore, only afterward...
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Charles M. Wetherill
1825 - 1871 (46 years)
Charles M. Wetherill was an American chemist. In 1862, he was appointed the first head of the Chemical Division in the newly organized U.S. Department of Agriculture, a unit that eventually became the Food and Drug Administration.
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Richard Lorenz
1863 - 1929 (66 years)
Richard Lorenz was an Austrian chemist. He was the son of historian Ottokar Lorenz. He studied chemistry at the Universities of Vienna and Jena, receiving his doctorate in 1888 with a dissertation on the valence of boron, "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Valenz des Bors". After graduation, he worked as an assistant in the biological institute at the University of Rostock. In 1892 he obtained his habilitation in physical chemistry at University of Göttingen.
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Gustav Kortüm
1904 - 1990 (86 years)
Gustav Ferdinand Albert Kortüm was a German physical chemist and electrochemist. Kortüm was the son of a pastor and studied chemistry at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology from 1922. In 1928 he received his doctorate under Georg Bredig with a thesis on the synthesis of hydrocyanic acid from carbon monoxide and ammonia. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin and from 1929 was assistant to Johannes Ludwig Ebert in Würzburg. From 1931 he was an assistant to Hans von Halban at the University of Zürich. From 1...
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Patrick Dunbar Ritchie
1907 - 1981 (74 years)
Patrick Dunbar Ritchie FRSE FRSC FPRI LLD was a 20th-century British chemist of Scots descent. Apart from being a noted chemist, he was an artist, fine art conservator, philatelist, ornithologist and mountaineer. His friends knew him as Pat Ritchie.
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John Griscom
1774 - 1852 (78 years)
John Griscom was an early American lecturer and educator, and one of the first American educators to teach chemistry. Biography John Griscom was born in Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey on September 27, 1774.
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Edmund Speyer
1878 - 1942 (64 years)
Jakob Edmund Speyer was a high-ranking German university lecturer and chemist of Jewish descent. He was persecuted during the National Socialist era, losing his profession and his livelihood. He was deported to the Lodz ghetto, where he died in 1942.
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Isabel Bevier
1860 - 1942 (82 years)
Isabel Bevier was one of the pioneers in the development of the scientific study of women’s labor in the home, today known as "home economics". In 1900 she began developing the “household science” program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Rudolf Friedrich Weinland
1865 - 1936 (71 years)
Rudolf Heinrich Friedrich Weinland was a German pharmaceutical chemist. He was the son of zoologist David Friedrich Weinland . From 1887 he studied at the Polytechnic in Stuttgart and at the University of Erlangen, receiving his doctorate from the latter institution in 1891. From 1892 he worked as an assistant to Albert Hilger in the chemistry laboratory at the University of Munich, where in 1899 he obtained his habilitation for pharmaceutical chemistry. In 1902 he was named an associate professor at the University of Tübingen, then in 1920 relocated to Würzburg as head of the department of p...
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Karl Elbs
1858 - 1933 (75 years)
Karl Elbs was a German chemist. He is credited with developing the Elbs reaction for the synthesis of anthracene. He is also responsible for the Elbs persulfate oxidation. From 1877 he studied natural sciences at the University of Freiburg, receiving his doctorate in 1880 under the direction of Adolf Karl Ludwig Claus. In 1887 he obtained his habilitation, then in 1894 was named a full professor at the University of Giessen, where he served as director of the physico-chemistry laboratory.
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Susan Hayhurst
1820 - 1909 (89 years)
Susan Hayhurst was an American physician, pharmacist, and educator, and the first woman to earn a pharmaceutical degree in the United States. Early life and education Susan Hayhurst was born in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Quakers Thomas and Martha Hayhurst. She attended school in Wilmington, Delaware and excelled in mathematics. While a young girl, she worked as a teacher at country schools in Bucks County. Taking an interest in chemistry and physiology, she enrolled at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and graduated with a degree in medicine in...
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Ayşe Saffet Rıza Alpar
1903 - 1981 (78 years)
Ayşe Saffet Rıza Alpar was the first female university rector in Turkey. She is also the second female chemist of the country after Remziye Hisar. Ayşe Saffet Rıza was born to Hasan Rıza Pasha on 17 April 1903. Her father was a general of the Ottoman Empire, the commander during the Siege of Scutari in the First Balkan War. Following the killing of her father in 1913, she was raised in the German Empire. She came to Turkey for studying in Kandilli High School for Girls. For university, she traveled once more to Germany to study chemistry in University of Hamburg. In 1932, she obtained her PhD.
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Georg Wiegner
1883 - 1936 (53 years)
Georg Wiegner was a colloid chemist. He was born in Leipzig and died in Zurich. Georg Wiegner studied natural sciences at the University of Leipzig, and received a doctorate in 1906. He was an assistant to Wilhelm Fleischmann at the University of Göttingen from 1907. He was appointed professor of agricultural chemistry at the ETH Zurich in 1913, where he remained until the year of his death, in 1933. He was responsible for seminal discoveries in coagulation and ion exchange. His group at the ETH strongly influenced ecological pedology in Switzerland. The group who worked with him included Hermann Gessner , Hans Jenny and Hans Pallmann .
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Walter G. Chapman
#6450
Thomas Stevenson
1838 - 1908 (70 years)
Thomas Stevenson was an English toxicologist and forensic chemist. He served as an analyst to the Home Office and in England he served as an expert witness in many famous poisoning cases. These included the Pimlico Mystery, The Maybrick Case, the Lambeth Poisoner, and the George Chapman case.
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