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,
#6901
Arthur Lindo Patterson
1902 - 1966 (64 years)
Arthur Lindo Patterson was a pioneering British X-ray crystallographer. Patterson was born to British parents in New Zealand in 1902. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Montreal, Canada and later to London, England. In 1920 Patterson moved to Canada for college at McGill University, Montreal. Firstly he concentrated on Mathematics and but then changed his major to Physics. He received his bachelor's degree in 1923 and a master's in 1924. His master's thesis was on the production of hard X-rays by interaction of radium β rays with solids.
Go to Profile#6902
Treat Baldwin Johnson
1875 - 1947 (72 years)
Treat Baldwin Johnson was an American organic chemist and Sterling Professor at Yale University from 1928–1943. Early life and education Treat Baldwin Johnson was born in Bethany, Connecticut, on 29 March 1875, the oldest of three sons of Dwight Lauren Johnson and Harriet Adeline Baldwin. He was educated at Ansonia high school and graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1898, where he obtained work as a laboratory assistant and began a Ph.D. degree under the supervision of H L Wheeler. By the time of its completion in 1901, Johnson had published seven scientific p...
Go to Profile#6903
Richard H. Wilhelm
1909 - 1968 (59 years)
Richard Herman Wilhelm was an American chemical engineer notable for developing a new method of fluid separation called chemical parametric pumping. Wilhelm was also notable for pioneering in the development of fluid beds, which according to Princeton University "revolutionized the petroleum-cracking process". Princeton University established Wilhelm Lectures in his honor. Wilhelm was a member of the National Academy of Engineering Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a chairman of the department of chemical engineering at Princeton University. Princeton University cal...
Go to Profile#6904
John Kenneth Stille
1930 - 1989 (59 years)
John Kenneth Stille was an American chemist who discovered the Stille reaction. He received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Arizona before serving in the Navy during the Korean War. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, where he studied under Carl Shipp Marvel. Stille began his independent career at the University of Iowa in 1957 before moving to Colorado State University in 1977.
Go to Profile#6905
Victor LaMer
1895 - 1966 (71 years)
Victor Kuhn LaMer or La Mer was an American chemist. He has been described as "the father of colloid chemistry". Early life and education LaMer was born in Leavenworth, Kansas on June 15, 1895. He was the son of Joseph Secondule LaMer and Anna Pauline Kuhn.
Go to Profile#6906
Marston T. Bogert
1868 - 1954 (86 years)
Marston Taylor Bogert was an American chemist. Biography He was born in Flushing, New York on April 18, 1868 and studied at the Flushing Institute, which was a well known private school, where he was a straight-A student.
Go to Profile#6907
Alexander Gutbier
1876 - 1926 (50 years)
Alexander Felix Maximilian Gutbier was a German professor of chemistry at the University of Jena. He made studies both in organic and inorganic chemistry but pioneered studies on the chemistry of colloid and organo-metallic complexes. Specializing mainly in experimental chemistry, he published several texts on organic chemistry.
Go to Profile#6908
Nikolai Prilezhaev
1877 - 1944 (67 years)
Nikolai Alexandrovich Prilezhaev, , was a Russian organic chemist. The Prilezhaev reaction, in which an alkene and a peroxyacid react to form an epoxide, is named after him. Prilezhaev was the son of a clergyman and studied chemistry at the Theological Seminary in Warsaw and then at the University of Warsaw under the supervision of Yegor Yegorovich Vagner . After graduating in 1900 he was assistant professor of organic chemistry at the Polytechnic in Warsaw where he belonged to the school of organic chemistry founded by Wagner. After earning a master's degree in 1912 in St. Petersburg, he became associate professor of organic chemistry at the University of Warsaw.
Go to Profile#6909
Wilbur Olin Atwater
1844 - 1907 (63 years)
Wilbur Olin Atwater was an American chemist known for his studies of human nutrition and metabolism, and is considered the father of modern nutrition research and education. He is credited with developing the Atwater system, which laid the groundwork for nutrition science in the United States and inspired modern Olympic nutrition.
Go to Profile#6910
Melvin Lorrel Nichols
1894 - 1981 (87 years)
Melvin Lorrel "Pete" Nichols was an American chemistry professor and author. Early life Nichols was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Joseph Wiseman Nichols, a cabinetmaker, and Sarah Rebecca Heidelbaugh. He was the youngest of six children.
Go to Profile#6911
Albert James Bernays
1823 - 1892 (69 years)
Albert James Bernays was a British chemist. He was the son of Dr. Adolphus Bernays , modern languages Professor at King's College, London. Life Bernays was educated at King's College School, and studied chemistry with C. Remigius Fresenius, and afterwards, with Justus Liebig at Giessen, where he graduated PhD. His doctoral thesis was probably a paper on limonin, a bitter principle which he discovered in the pips of oranges and lemons . In 1845, he began his career as an analyst and lecturer on chemistry in Derby, and became known for his interest in questions concerning food and hygiene. In 1851, he served as a juror at the Great Exhibition.
Go to Profile#6912
Charles Daubeny
1795 - 1867 (72 years)
Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny was an English chemist, botanist and geologist. Education Daubeny was born at Stratton near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, the son of the Rev. James Daubeny. He went to Winchester College in 1808, and in 1810 was elected to a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Dr. John Kidd. From 1815 to 1818 he studied medicine in London and Edinburgh, in the latter also studying geology under Prof Robert Jameson. He took his M.D. degree at Oxford, and was a fellow of the College of Physicians.
Go to Profile#6913
Anders Gustaf Ekeberg
1767 - 1813 (46 years)
Anders Gustaf Ekeberg was a Swedish analytical chemist who discovered tantalum in 1802. He was notably deaf. Education Anders Gustav Ekeberg was a Swedish scientist, mathematician and expert in Greek literature. His father, Joseph Erik Ekeberg, was a shipbuilder. His uncle was Carl Gustaf Ekeberg.
Go to Profile#6914
Nikolai Trifonov
1891 - 1958 (67 years)
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Trifonov was a Soviet chemist and founder of the Scientific School of Chemistry. His expertise primarily consisted of the physical and chemical analysis of concentrated solutions.
Go to Profile#6915
Anastasios Christomanos
1841 - 1906 (65 years)
Anastasios Christomanos was one of the most important Greek scientists of the later part of the 19th century. His academic collaborators were some of the most important scientists in the world, including Robert Bunsen, Georg Ludwig Carius, Emil Erlenmeyer and Gustav Kirchhoff. He is the father of modern Greek chemical education. He wrote 73 books and dissertations. His fields of study included: Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry. He helped restructure Greek education. Greek education was in the grasp of Korydalism for over 300 years. With the onset of the in...
Go to Profile#6916
Ernst Gottfried Fischer
1756 - 1831 (75 years)
Ernst Gottfried Fischer was a German chemist. He was born in Hoheneiche near Saalfeld. After studying theology and mathematics at the University of Halle, he was a teacher in Berlin before becoming Professor of Physics in 1810. He translated Claude Berthollet's publication Recherches sur les lois de l'affinitié in 1802. He proposed a system of equivalents based on sulfuric acid equal to one hundred.
Go to Profile#6917
Isaac Mustafin
1908 - 1968 (60 years)
Isaac Mustafin was a Soviet chemist and a doctor of chemical sciences. Dr. Mustafin headed the faculty of analytical chemistry at Saratov State University from 1955. All his life was connected to the Saratov State University: his only lengthy absence from his work place took place from June 23, 1941 to August 15, 1945, when he served in the army. The life and activity of Professor Mustafin were reflected in a number of papers [1–7] and even monographs [8–9], including that in the series of scientific biographic literature of the Nauka publishing house [8]. . The unusual biography and diversi...
Go to Profile#6918
Mikhail Usanovich
1894 - 1981 (87 years)
Michail Illyich Usanovich was a Russian/Soviet physical chemist, and an academician of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakh SSR since 1962. He is famous for his generalized acid-base theory. Michail Usanovich was born to a Jewish doctor's family in Zhytomyr.
Go to Profile#6919
Theodor Wertheim
1820 - 1864 (44 years)
Theodor Wertheim was an Austrian chemist born in Vienna. He was the father of gynecologist Ernst Wertheim . He studied organic chemistry in Berlin as a pupil of Eilhard Mitscherlich, and in 1843 travelled to the University of Prague, where he studied under Josef Redtenbacher. He served as privatdozent in Vienna, and from 1853 to 1860, was a professor at the University of Pest. From 1861 onward, he was a professor at the University of Graz. In May 1864, he moved back to Vienna, where he died soon afterwards.
Go to Profile#6920
Ernst Späth
1886 - 1946 (60 years)
Ernst Späth was an Austrian chemist, specializing in natural products. Life Späth was the first to synthesise mescaline and was one of the first to synthesize cuscohygrine on a small scale with Hans Tuppy.
Go to Profile#6921
Theodor Weyl
1851 - 1913 (62 years)
Theodor Weyl was a German chemist and hygienist born in Berlin. He studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Strasbourg, earning his doctorate in 1872 with a dissertation on animal and plant proteins. Following graduation he worked as an assistant in the physiology laboratory at Berlin, shortly afterwards becoming an assistant professor at the University of Erlangen. During his tenure at Erlangen he spent the winter of 1880–81 performing research on the electric organs of rays at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples.
Go to Profile#6922
Adolf Ferdinand Weinhold
1841 - 1917 (76 years)
Adolf Ferdinand Weinhold was a German chemist, physician and inventor. Life From 1857 to 1861 Weinhold studied chemistry and physics at universities in Göttingen and in Leipzig. His mentors were Otto Linné Erdmann and Friedrich Wöhler. In Germany, Weinhold worked after university studies as chemist and physician. He was appointed professor at Chemnitz University of Technology in 1870. In 1873 he was granted a D. Phil from the University of Leipzig.
Go to Profile#6923
Arthur Rosenheim
1865 - 1942 (77 years)
Arthur Rosenheim was a German chemist. His main work was on heteropolymetalate, colloids and complex ion chemistry. Rosenheim was born in New York to banker William and his wife Maria Hallgarten. He grew up in Berlin from 1873 and graduated from the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in 1884. He went to the University of Heidelberg and later the Universities at Munich and Berlin. He studied under Carl Rammelsberg, receiving a doctorate in 1888 with a dissertation on vanadium tungstic acid. After some studies on electrochemistry at Munich he became an assistant at the Chemical Institute in Berlin. He then founded a private laboratory with Carl Friedheim, and later worked with Richard Joseph Meyer.
Go to Profile#6924
Leon Marchlewski
1869 - 1946 (77 years)
Leon Paweł Teodor Marchlewski was a Polish chemist and an Honorary Member of the Polish Chemical Society. He was one of the founders in the field of chlorophyll chemistry. The illustration on the right is of his diplomatic passport he used in 1927 to attend an international conference on chemistry in Paris.
Go to Profile#6925
Rudolf Schmitt
1830 - 1898 (68 years)
Rudolf Schmitt was a German chemist who together with Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe discovered the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction. Biography Schmitt was born in the small village Wippershain in the Hesse-Kassel as the second of eight siblings as son of a preacher. He moved several times during his childhood and entered the Gymnasium as boarding pupil in Marburg. He received his Abitur in 1853 and entered the University of Marburg the same year. He started studying mathematics, theology and chemistry, but later concentrated on chemistry. After 8 Semesters he joined Hermann Fehling at the University of ...
Go to Profile#6926
Georges Urbain
1872 - 1938 (66 years)
Georges Urbain was a French chemist, a professor of the Sorbonne, a member of the Institut de France, and director of the Institute of Chemistry in Paris. Much of his work focused on the rare earths, isolating and separating elements such as europium and gadolinium, and studying their spectra, their magnetic properties and their atomic masses. He discovered the element lutetium . He also studied the efflorescence of saline hydrates.
Go to Profile#6927
Niels Bjerrum
1879 - 1958 (79 years)
Niels Janniksen Bjerrum was a Danish chemist. Niels Bjerrum was the son of ophthalmologist Jannik Petersen Bjerrum, and started to study at the University of Copenhagen in 1897. He received his Master's degree in 1902 and his Doctor's degree in 1908, and did research in coordination complex chemistry under Sophus Mads Jørgensen. He became a docent in 1912, and in 1914 he became a professor of chemistry at the Royal Agricultural College in Copenhagen, as successor of Odin Tidemand Christensen. He stayed on this post until his retirement in 1949, and from 1939 to 1946 he was also the Director ...
Go to Profile#6928
Eben Norton Horsford
1818 - 1893 (75 years)
Eben Norton Horsford was an American scientist who taught agricultural chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard from 1847 to 1863. Later he was known for his reformulation of baking powder, his interest in Viking settlements in North America, and the monuments he built to Leif Erikson.
Go to Profile#6929
Józef Boguski
1853 - 1933 (80 years)
Józef Jerzy Boguski was a Polish chemist and a professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic. Life Boguski had served as an assistant in St. Petersburg to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. From 1895 Boguski was a professor at Warsaw's Wawelberg and Rotwand School, and from 1920 at the Warsaw Polytechnic.
Go to Profile#6930
Richard Wolffenstein
1864 - 1929 (65 years)
Richard Wolffenstein was a German chemist. He discovered acetone peroxide in 1895 by reacting acetone with hydrogen peroxide. The Wolffenstein-Böters reaction, which he discovered in 1913, was an alternative production method for explosives.
Go to Profile#6931
Charles Prévost
1899 - 1983 (84 years)
Charles Prévost was a French chemist. He was born on 20 March 1899 at Champlitte, Haute-Saône and died in 1983. Biography Prévost was the son of Georges Prévost and Marie Zimmermann . He married Eléonore Fumée , with whom he had two children. After studying at Lycée Louis-le-Grand he was a student from 1919 to 1923 at the École Normale Supérieure and at the University of Paris. In 1923 he entered the agrégation in physical sciences and spent six years as an assistant at the École Navale. In 1928 he received his doctorate in physical sciences. From 1929 to 1933 he was a lecturer in Nancy, then becoming a professor of chemistry; from 1936 to 1937 he was a professor at Lille.
Go to Profile#6932
Ladislaus Farkas
1904 - 1948 (44 years)
Ladislaus Farkas is an Israeli chemist, of Austro-Hungarian origin, was the founder of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Education and career Farkas was born in Dunajská Streda, Slovakia as the son of a pharmacist. In 1908, the family moved to Nagyvárad in Transylvania , where his father ran a pharmacy. The family attends a synagogue affiliated with Neolog Judaism. Farkas studied at the Gymnasium in Oradea, then spent two years at the Technical University of Vienna. He continued his studies in Berlin where he entered the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry in 1924.
Go to Profile#6933
Martha Doan
1872 - 1960 (88 years)
Martha Doan was an American chemist whose contributions include research in compounds of thallium, three published work, and tenure as a professor and dean at various institutions in the US. Throughout her lifetime she received four degrees, a B.S. and master's from Purdue, a B.L. from Earlham College, and a Sc.D. from Cornell. She was a dean of women for two colleges, Earlham College and Iowa Wesleyan College. In addition to her involvement in higher education, she was involved with several national organizations that involved chemistry and science. She was awarded a certificate for Outstanding Service to Science in 1951.
Go to Profile#6934
Wilhelm Klemm
1896 - 1985 (89 years)
Wilhelm Karl Klemm was an inorganic and physical chemist. Klemm did extensive work on intermetallic compounds, rare earth metals, transition elements and compounds involving oxygen and fluorine. He and Heinrich Bommer were the first to isolate elemental erbium and ytterbium . Klemm refined Eduard Zintl's ideas about the structure of intermetallic compounds and their connections to develop the Zintl-Klemm concept.
Go to Profile#6935
Abraham Langlet
1868 - 1936 (68 years)
Nils Abraham Langlet was a Swedish chemist. Biography Langlet was born in Södertälje, Sweden. He was the son of architect Emil Victor Langlet and his wife, author Clara Mathilda Ulrika Clementine Söderén . His brothers included author Valdemar Langlet .
Go to Profile#6936
František Wald
1861 - 1930 (69 years)
František "Franz" Wald was a Czech professor of chemistry who contributed to metallurgy, analytical and physical chemistry. He questioned atomic and molecular approaches to understanding chemical phenomena.
Go to Profile#6937
Paul Friedländer
1857 - 1923 (66 years)
Paul Friedländer was a German chemist best known for his research on derivates of indigo and isolation of Tyrian purple from Murex brandaris. Life and work Paul Friedländer was born as son of Ludwig Friedländer in Königsberg in 1857. The chemist Carl Gräbe was a regular guest of his father; thus after finishing the gymnasium, Friedländer studied chemistry in Königsberg in the laboratories of Gräbe. Later he studied at the Strasbourg and Munich where he assisted Adolf von Baeyer. He received his PhD for the work with Baeyer and completed his habilitation in 1883. He left the well-equipped laboratories of Baeyer in Munich in 1884 to work in the small company K.
Go to Profile#6938
Boy Prof Dr Dipl-chem Cornils
#6939
Franz Leopold Sonnenschein
1817 - 1879 (62 years)
Franz Leopold Sonnenschein was a German chemist from Cologne. He taught himself pharmacy, and in the 1830s, established a small laboratory in Berlin. He worked with a physician as tutor for pharmacy students, readying them for their final exams. At the same time, he studied chemistry and in 1852 obtained his habilitation. He dedicated himself to analytic chemistry and involved himself in practical activities, for which he gained prestige. Many technical enterprises owed their success to him. He promoted analytic and judicial chemistry by numerous scientific investigations. From 1869 up until ...
Go to Profile#6940
Richard Pribram
1847 - 1928 (81 years)
Richard Pribram was an Austrian chemist. He was the brother of internist Alfred Pribram . Biography Pribram was born on 21 April 1847 in Prague. He studied chemistry in Prague and Munich , later becoming an assistant of organic chemistry at the University of Leipzig. In 1872 he earned his habilitation at Prague, where he worked as a lecturer until 1874. He later taught classes at the University of Czernowitz, becoming a full professor of general and analytical chemistry in 1879. At Czernowitz he served as dean to the faculty and rector .
Go to Profile#6941
Fritz Weigert
1876 - 1947 (71 years)
Fritz Weigert was a German physical chemist. Weigert has made major contributions in the field of photochemistry. He was born in Berlin. He was the nephew of both Karl Weigert and Paul Ehrlich. He was married to Margarete Behmer. Around 1908, he began teaching and conducting research at Berlin University - after studying there. He was a photochemistry professor at Leipzig University from 1914 until being, like other Jewish scientists, forced out by the Nazis in 1934. On January 1, 1935, he immigrated to England and in 1936 was director of the Physiochemical Department of the Cancer Research I...
Go to Profile#6942
Leopold von Pebal
1826 - 1887 (61 years)
Leopold von Pebal was an Austrian chemist. In 1851 he obtained his PhD at the University of Graz, followed by several years working as an assistant at the Joanneum. In 1855 he became a privat-docent of theoretical chemistry. Afterwards, he continued his education at Heidelberg, where he studied with Robert Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff . From 1857 onward, he worked as an associate professor at the University of Lemberg.
Go to Profile#6943
Marc Delafontaine
1838 - 1911 (73 years)
Marc Delafontaine was a Swiss chemist and spectroscopist who was involved in discovering and investigating some of the rare earth elements. Career Delafontaine studied with Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac at the University of Geneva. He also worked at the University of Geneva.
Go to Profile#6944
Mieczysław Centnerszwer
1874 - 1944 (70 years)
Mieczysław Centnerszwer was a Polish chemist and professor at the Technical University of Riga and at the University of Warsaw. He was killed by the Gestapo, as a Jew in hiding. Life Centnerszwer was born in Warsaw, son of Gabriel Centnerszwer and was a grandson of the mathematician Jakub Centnerszwer. He studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig and received a doctorate in 1898 under the supervision of Wilhelm Ostwald. While in Leipzig, he met Franciszka Anna Beck, who converted to Judaism and they married in 1900. He worked as a professor at the Riga Polytechnic from 1917 to 1919 and then at the University of Latvia until 1929.
Go to Profile#6945
Edward Weston
1850 - 1936 (86 years)
Edward Weston was an English-born American chemist and engineer noted for his achievements in electroplating and his development of the electrochemical cell, named the Weston cell, for the voltage standard. Weston was a competitor of Thomas Edison in the early days of electricity generation and distribution.
Go to Profile#6946
William Gregory
1803 - 1858 (55 years)
William Gregory FRCPE FRSE FCS was a Scottish physician and chemist. He studied under and translated some of the works of Justus von Liebig, the German chemist. Gregory also had interests in mesmerism and phrenology.
Go to Profile#6947
Hermann Otto Laurenz Fischer
1888 - 1960 (72 years)
Hermann Otto Laurenz Fischer was a German American professor of biochemistry and son of Emil Fischer. Fischer's work was on synthesis and the determination of structures of organic compounds. Fischer was born the eldest son in Würzburg to Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry, and Agnes Gerlach. The family moved to Berlin in 1892 where Fischer went to the Gymnasium. While the other two brothers sought medical careers, he chose chemistry, studying in Cambridge in 1907 after being impressed by Sir William Ramsay who had made a family visit. He then joining for military service. He then went to the University of Berlin and later Jena where he studied tautomerism of diketones under Ludwig Knorr.
Go to Profile#6948
Johann Florian Heller
1813 - 1871 (58 years)
Johann Florian Heller was an Austrian chemist who was one of the founders of clinical chemistry. Heller was born in Vienna, Austria. He studied chemistry in Prague and later with Liebig and Wöhler at Giessen. During those studies he characterized rhodizonic acid and its potassium salt .
Go to Profile#6949
Karl Wilhelm Rosenmund
1884 - 1965 (81 years)
Karl Wilhelm Louis Rosenmund was a German chemist. He was born in Berlin and died in Kiel. Rosenmund studied chemistry and received his Ph.D. 1906 from University of Berlin for his work with Otto Diels. He discovered the Rosenmund reduction, which is the reduction of acid chlorides to aldehydes over palladium on barium sulfate as catalyst . The Rosenmund–von Braun reaction, the conversion of an aryl bromide to an aryl nitrile is also named after him. Rosenmund-Kuhnhenn method is suitable for the determination of iodine value in conjugated systems .
Go to Profile#6950
Friedrich Walchner
1799 - 1865 (66 years)
Friedrich August Walchner was a German geologist, chemist and mineralogist. Life Walchner was born in Meersburg. He studied in Göttingen and at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. In 1817 he joined the Corps Rhenania Freiburg. In Freiburg he was member of the Burschenschaft Genossenschaft/Verein zur Bearbeitung wissenschaftlicher Gegenstände and by the year 1818 he was member of the Alten Freiburger Burschenschaft . In Freiburg he habilitated in 1823 and became a private lecturer and associate professor. In 1825 he was appointed to professor in mineralogy, geology and chemistry at the...
Go to Profile