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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Chemistry,
#6801
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.
Go to Profile#6802
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 .
Go to Profile#6803
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.
Go to Profile#6804
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...
Go to Profile#6805
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...
Go to Profile#6806
Pierre Gallezot
#6807
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.
Go to Profile#6808
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.
Go to Profile#6809
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...
Go to Profile#6810
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.
Go to Profile#6811
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.
Go to Profile#6812
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...
Go to Profile#6813
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.
Go to Profile#6814
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.
Go to Profile#6815
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.
Go to Profile#6816
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.
Go to Profile#6817
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...
Go to Profile#6818
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.
Go to Profile#6819
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...
Go to Profile#6820
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.
Go to Profile#6821
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 .
Go to Profile#6822
Walter G. Chapman
#6823
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.
Go to Profile#6824
Georg Lockemann
1871 - 1959 (88 years)
Georg Lockemann was a German chemist. Biography He studied chemistry at the Technical University of Hannover and at the University of Heidelberg, receiving his doctorate in 1896 with a dissertation-thesis on azobenzene derivatives. In 1901 he became a teaching assistant to Ernst Otto Beckmann at the University of Leipzig, where in 1904 he obtained his habilitation with a thesis on studies of acrolein and phenylhydrazine. In 1907 he was named head of the chemistry department at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, where he worked up until his retirement in 1937. In 1939 he was re-instated to h...
Go to Profile#6825
Karl Gotthelf Lehmann
1812 - 1863 (51 years)
Karl Gotthelf Lehmann was a German physiological chemist. From 1830 he studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, receiving his doctorate in 1835 with a thesis titled De urina diabetica. In 1842 he became an associate professor of medicine at Leipzig, where in 1854 he was named a full professor of physiological chemistry. From 1856 to 1863 he was a professor of general chemistry at the University of Jena.
Go to Profile#6826
Thomas Messinger Drown
1842 - 1904 (62 years)
Thomas Messinger Drown was the fourth University President of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. He was also an analytical chemist and metallurgist. Background He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1842. He graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia in 1859, and then went on to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1862. He went abroad to Germany to study chemistry in Freiberg, Saxony, and mining at the University of Heidelberg. From 1869 to 1870 he was an instructor of metallurgy at Harvard University. In 1870, he started a consulting business in Philadelphia.
Go to Profile#6827
Alfred Spinks
1917 - 1982 (65 years)
Alfred Spinks , was a British chemist and biologist. Biography Alfred Spinks was the only child of Alfred Robert Spinks, manager of a Littleport brewery, and Ruth . He was born in Littleport on 25 February 1917.
Go to Profile#6828
Johann Conrad Barchusen
1666 - 1723 (57 years)
Johann Conrad Barchusen, originally Barkhausen, sometimes Barchausen was a pharmacist, chemist, physician and professor. At Universiteit Utrecht, he was the first person to teach chemistry as a specific subject . He published four textbooks on chemistry and two on medicine.
Go to Profile#6829
Augusto Piccini
1854 - 1905 (51 years)
Augusto Piccini was an Italian chemist. Biography He was born in 1854 as the son of the president of the local court Francesco Piccini and his wife Elisabetta Boninsegni. Piccini had two brothers, Giulio , journalist and author of crime stories, and Giovanni , lawyer and since 1900 Member of the Camera dei deputati of the Kingdom of Italy.
Go to Profile#6830
Nathaniel Thomas Lupton
1830 - 1893 (63 years)
Nathaniel Thomas Lupton was an American chemist and university professor. He served as the President of the University of Alabama from 1871 to 1874. Additionally, he served as State Chemist of Alabama.
Go to Profile#6831
Mokarram Hussain Khundker
1922 - 1972 (50 years)
Mukarram Hussain Khundkar was a Bangladeshi scientist and educationist. He served as a professor at the Department of Chemistry of University of Dhaka. He was one of the founding fellows of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#6832
Andrew Fyfe
1792 - 1861 (69 years)
Professor Andrew Fyfe FRSE FRCSE PRSSA PRMS was a Scottish surgeon and chemist. Following early studies on Fox Talbot's newly created photographic techniques he was one of the first to work out the theory behind positive rather than negative prints. He had an amateur interest in photography but appears not to have pursued his own theories and limited his experiments to ferns lying on chemical papers.
Go to Profile#6833
Laura Alberta Linton
1853 - 1915 (62 years)
Laura Alberta Linton was an American chemist and physician. Early life and education Linton was born in Mahoning County, Ohio, on April 8, 1853, the oldest child of Joseph and Christina Linton. The family were Quakers. The family farmed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before settling in Wabasha County, Minnesota. Linton graduated from the Winona Normal School in 1872, and went on to the University of Minnesota, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry.
Go to Profile#6834
Gordon Alles
1901 - 1963 (62 years)
Gordon A. Alles , was an American chemist and pharmacologist who did extensive research on the isolation and properties of insulin for the treatment of diabetics. He is also credited with discovering and publishing the physiological effects of amphetamine and methylenedioxyamphetamine . He is the first person to have prepared amphetamine sulfate, although not the amphetamine molecule. Alles first reported the physiological properties of amphetamine as a synthetic analog of ephedrine, and therefore received credit for this discovery. He enjoyed large royalties from Smith, Kline & French because he sold his patent rights for amphetamine to the company and it enjoyed large sales.
Go to Profile#6835
Joseph König
1843 - 1930 (87 years)
Franz Joseph König was a German chemist noted among other things as the founder of German food chemistry. He developed many analytical techniques and created the foundations for the modern quality control of foodstuffs.
Go to Profile#6836
Ralph E. Oesper
1886 - 1977 (91 years)
Ralph Edward Oesper was an American chemist and historian of chemistry. He is noted for his biographies of scientists, emphasizing their personal lives in addition to their scientific contributions. Oesper translated significant works in the field of chemistry to various languages especially English. As an independent investigator, he developed improved analytical methods. These contributions included new reagents for certain types of titrations. One such new reagent, Oesper's Salt, is named for him.
Go to Profile#6837
Albert Hilger
1839 - 1905 (66 years)
Albert Hilger was a German pharmacologist and chemist, known for his work in the field of food chemistry. He worked as a pharmacy assistant in the cities of Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Saarbrücken, and studied mathematics and sciences at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe. In 1860 he continued his education at the University of Würzburg, receiving his PhD two years later in Heidelberg. Later on, he spent several years as an assistant to chemist Johann Joseph Scherer at Würzburg.
Go to Profile#6838
Friedrich Goppelsroeder
1837 - 1919 (82 years)
Christoph Friedrich Goppelsroeder was a Swiss chemist, best known for his studies of "capillary analysis", a precursor of paper chromatography. He studied chemistry at the University of Basel as a student of Christian Friedrich Schönbein, then furthered his education at the University of Berlin under Franz Leopold Sonnenschein and Heinrich Rose, and also at Heidelberg University, where he was a pupil of Robert Bunsen. In 1858 he received his doctorate, and three years later, qualified as a lecturer at Basel. In 1869 he became an associate professor of chemistry at the university, and from 1872 to 1880 served as director of the chemistry school in Mulhouse.
Go to Profile#6839
Wyatt C. Whitley
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
Wyatt C. Whitley was an American chemist, professor of chemistry and a former director of the Engineering Experiment Station at the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1963 until 1968. Education Whitley received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Wake Forest College in 1929. He received a Master of Science in Chemistry from the Georgia School of Technology in 1934, and attended the University of Wisconsin for his PhD.
Go to Profile#6840
Henry Barker Hill
1849 - 1903 (54 years)
Henry Barker Hill was an American chemist and director of the Chemistry Laboratory at Harvard University. Biography Henry Barker Hill was born in Waltham, Massachusetts on April 27, 1849, the son of the Reverend Thomas Hill, president of Antioch College and Harvard.
Go to Profile#6841
W. Conway Pierce
1895 - 1974 (79 years)
Willis Conway Pierce was an American chemist and professor at Pomona College and in the University of California system. Career Pierce left Georgetown College as a sophomore for New York to serve in the gas defense section of the United States Army Signal Corps. He was in the army from April to December 1918. He subsequently graduated from Georgetown College in 1920. In that same year, he began teaching at the University of Kentucky and later at the University of South Dakota. He stayed on at the University of Chicago after receiving his Ph.D. to teach quantitative analysis. During this time he co-authored seminal chemistry textbook Quantitative Analysis with Edward Lauth Haenisch.
Go to Profile#6842
David Ginsburg
1920 - 1988 (68 years)
David Ginsburg was an Israeli research pioneer in the synthetic organic chemistry industry. He was born in New York City. At the age of 13 he immigrated to mandatory Palestine. Research Ginsburg’s main topic of research – that caused some international hype and controversy was the structure of natural products and the total synthesis of morphine. He was also involved heavily in the biosynthesis of alkaloids and insulation materials. He contributed to the first studies of Bfronflnim and the application of mass spectroscopy as well as the study of soapy structure.
Go to Profile#6843
Irvine Masson
1887 - 1962 (75 years)
Sir James Irvine Orme Masson FRS FRSE MBE LLD , generally known as Irvine Masson, was an Australian-born chemist of Scots descent who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield from 1938 to 1953. He is usually referred to in documents as J. I. O. Masson.
Go to Profile#6844
Francis Humphreys Storer
1832 - 1914 (82 years)
Francis Humphreys Storer was an American chemist known for his work in agricultural chemistry. He studied under Josiah Parsons Cooke at the Lawrence Scientific School . He later was professor of general and industrial chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1865 to 1870, and dean of the Bussey Institution at Harvard University from 1870 to 1907. At MIT he co-authored with Charles W. Eliot the first Laboratory Manual of Inorganic Chemistry written in the English language. Storer's father was David H. Storer, a prominent physician and naturalist, and his older brother was Horatio R.
Go to Profile#6845
Haruthiun Abeljanz
1849 - 1921 (72 years)
Haruthiun Tigran Abeljanz was a Swiss-Armenian chemist. Biography Abeljanz was born in the village of Vardablur, in what is now Armenia's Lori Province. He first studied in Heidelberg, then enrolled in the Philosophical Faculty II of the University of Zurich for chemistry in the summer semester of 1869. He passed his final examination on 27 November 1871 and was granted his PhD on 27 February 1872, with Johannes Wislicenus as his doctoral adviser, on the basis of his dissertation, Über den Bichloräther. In 1873 he completed his postdoctoral degree at the University of Zurich and subsequently ...
Go to Profile#6846
Sven Gustaf Hedin
1859 - 1933 (74 years)
Sven Gustaf Hedin was a Swedish chemist and physiologist credited with the discovery of histidine. He was born in Alseda parish, Jönköping County. He began his studies in 1878 and received his bachelor's degree in 1881 at Uppsala University. In 1886 he received his doctorate in philosophy and doctorate of medicine in 1893 in Lund and docent in chemistry in 1886 and became a researcher there in 1895. From 1900 to 1907 he was made head of the pathological chemistry division at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, and professor of medicinal and physiological chemistry at Uppsala University in 1908.
Go to Profile#6847
August Friedrich Horstmann
1842 - 1929 (87 years)
August Friedrich Horstmann was a German physical chemist who contributed to a thermodynamic understanding of chemical reactions and equilibria. His mathematical approach published in 1873 was largely overshadowed by the independent and identical findings of Josiah Willard Gibbs made about three years later.
Go to Profile#6848
Kathryn Grove Shipp
1904 - 1977 (73 years)
Kathryn Grove Shipp was an American organic chemist, a specialist in explosives, affiliated with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory from 1957 to 1970. In 1967, she was one of the six recipients of the Federal Woman's Award.
Go to Profile#6849
Alexander Naumann
1837 - 1922 (85 years)
Alexander Nikolaus Franz Naumann was a Prussian and German physical chemist and a professor at the University of Giessen. He was a pioneer of chemical thermodynamics and proposed that molecules reacted when their energy levels exceeded a certain critical level which could be achieved through the provision of heat.
Go to Profile#6850
William Farish
1759 - 1837 (78 years)
William Farish was a British scientist who was a professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, known for the development of the method of isometric projection and development of the first written university examination.
Go to Profile