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,
#801
Tetsuo Nozoe
#46822
Overall Influence
1902 - 1996 (94 years)
Tetsuo Nozoe was a Japanese organic chemist. He is known for the discovery of hinokitiol, a seven-membered aromatic compound, and studying non-benzenoid aromatic compounds. Early life and career Tetsuo Nozoe was born on 16 May 1902 in Sendai to Juichi Nozoe, a lawyer and one-time member of the National Diet, and Toyo Nozoe. Tetsuo's family was Buddhist except of his mother who was a devout Christian. Tetsuo had three sisters and seven brothers, and he was the sixth child in the family. He started doing chemical experiments at home since his junior high school days. Although his parents wanted...
Go to Profile#802
Samir Zard
#61056
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Samir Zard is a Lebanese-French chemist and the president of the department of chemistry at the École polytechnique, Paris, where he also directs the department of organic chemistry and synthesis. Biography Samir Zard was born in Ife, Nigeria ; he grew up in the suburbs of Lebanon. Zard initially studied chemistry at the American University of Beirut, but in 1975 he was forced to emigrate due to the Lebanese civil war. He completed his undergraduate education at Imperial College London, receiving the highest mark among his graduating class, and followed Sir Derek Barton to Université Paris-Sud for doctoral study.
Go to Profile#803
Jerome A. Berson
#50190
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Jerome A. Berson was an American chemist who was a Sterling Professor at Yale University, and also a published author. He worked on sigmatropic rearrangements, thermal and carbocationic rearrangements, and the role of orbital symmetry in chemical reactions while at University of Wisconsin. While at Yale University, he was part of many new studies, especially on non-Kekulé molecules.
Go to Profile#804
Hans-Wolfgang Spiess
#60493
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Hans-Wolfgang Spiess , also Hans Wolfgang Spiess, is a German polymer chemist who specializes in the Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of macromolecules. He was director of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz until his retirement in 2012.
Go to Profile#805
Hartmut Karl Lichtenthaler
#68605
Overall Influence
#806
Ari Helenius
#35650
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Ari Helenius is a Finnish emeritus professor of biochemistry who is known for his research in virology. Personal life Helenius was born 3 September 1944 in Oulu, Finland. Career He did his PhD with Kai Simons at the University of Helsinki in 1973. From 1975 until 1981 he worked as a staff scientist at the newly-created European Molecular Biology Laboratory. From 1981 to 1997, he was a professor at Yale University, where he was chair of the department of cell biology from 1992 to 1997. In 1997, he joined the ETH Zurich as a founding member of the Institute of Biochemistry.
Go to Profile#807
Gerald Fuller
#35206
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Gerald Gendall Fuller is a Canadian/American chemical engineer and Fletcher Jones II Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Fuller received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary in 1975 and his PhD in chemical engineering from Caltech in 1980.
Go to Profile#808
Sadhan Basu
#51214
Overall Influence
1922 - 1992 (70 years)
Sadhan Basu FNA, FASc, FRSC was an Indian physical chemist, academic and the Palit Professor of Chemistry at the University of Calcutta from 1964 to 1985. He was known for his elucidation of the Quantum Mechanical Model of Robert S. Mulliken and his article, Degree of Polymerization and Chain Transfer in Methyl Methacrylate, co-authored by Jyotirindra Nath Sen and Santi R. Palit was the first published Indian article on polymer chemistry. He was an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Chemical Society of France, Indian Chemical Society, Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#809
Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin
#67014
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin is an Indian-Swiss chemist and materials scientist who conducts research on Perovskite solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, and light-emitting diodes. He is a professor at EPFL and the director of the Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials at School of Basic Sciences.
Go to Profile#810
John E. Bercaw
#59361
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
John E. Bercaw is an American chemist and Centennial Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology. Early life and education Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bercaw obtained his bachelor of science in 1967 from North Carolina State University and later his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1971 under the direction of Hans-Herbert Brintzinger, followed by postdoctoral research with Jack Halpern at the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#811
Henk Buck
#41949
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (95 years)
Henk Buck is an organic chemist. He studied at the University of Leiden where he received his PhD in 1959. He got a lectorship at the university in Theoretical Organic Chemistry in 1964. For his research he received the Golden Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society in 1967. In 1970 he was appointed as professor of Physical Organic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry at the University of Technology in Eindhoven. Because there was no chair for Theoretical Chemistry and Biochemistry he gave lectures in organic chemistry, physical organic chemistry, theoretical organic chemistry, biochemistry and biotechnology.
Go to Profile#812
Herschel Rabitz
#54742
Overall Influence
Herschel Albert Rabitz is a professor of chemistry at Princeton University who does both theoretical and experimental research. As of September 2022 he has an h-index of 99, an i-10 index of nearly 700, and nearly 50000 citations. He completed his PhD in chemical physics at Harvard University in 1970. He completed post-doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his bachelor's degree from University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#813
Joseph A. Schwarcz
#31805
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Joseph A. Schwarcz is an author and a sessional instructor at McGill University. He is the director of McGill's Office for Science and Society. Early life Schwarcz is an only child, born in Sopron, Hungary to Jewish parents. During the Hungarian uprising in 1956, when he was age 9, the family escaped over the border to Austria and migrated to Canada and settled in Montreal, Quebec. Schwarcz attended Logan school on Darlington and went on to study chemistry at McGill University in Montreal where he received a BSc and PhD .
Go to Profile#814
Bogusław Bobrański
#39510
Overall Influence
1904 - 1991 (87 years)
Bogusław Bobrański was a Polish chemist. He was the rector of Wrocław Medical University from 1957 - 1962. Biography Graduating in Chemistry from the Lviv Polytechnic, Bobrański received his engineering diploma in 1926. He worked in the Department of Organic Chemistry of his university under the supervision of Prof. Edward Sucharda.
Go to Profile#815
Daniel I.C. Wang
#31469
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Daniel I-Chyau Wang was a Chinese-American chemical engineer. He was an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was known for founding the MIT Biotechnology Process Engineering Center and the expansion of the field of biochemical engineering.
Go to Profile#816
Karl Kordesch
#18240
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
Karl Kordesch was an Austrian chemist and inventor, most notable for jointly inventing the alkaline battery. In 1953 he moved to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. Life Kordesch was born in Vienna. He studied chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna, and earned his doctoral degree in 1948. From 1948–53 he worked at the university's Chemical Institute. He was then recruited as a member of Operation Paperclip and moved to the United States, where from 1953–55 he was head of the Battery Division of the U.S. Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth. In 1955 he joined Union Carbide in Ohio, working with two fellow Austrians.
Go to Profile#817
Csaba Horváth
#26427
Overall Influence
1930 - 2004 (74 years)
Csaba Horváth was a Hungarian-American chemical engineer, particularly noted for building the first high-performance liquid chromatograph. Early life and education Csaba Horváth was born in Szolnok, Hungary and graduated in chemical engineering from the Budapest Institute of Technology. In 1956 he went to West Germany to work for Hoechst AG. He then studied physical chemistry at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, receiving his Ph.D. in 1963.
Go to Profile#818
Herman Klare
#18903
Overall Influence
1909 - 2003 (94 years)
Hermann Klare was a chemistry academic who played a prominent role in scientific administration and research in the German Democratic Republic . Klare held professorships at the Technical University Leuna-Merseburg and at Humboldt University . From 1968 to 1979 he was president of the German Academy of Sciences .
Go to Profile#819
Geraldine L. Richmond
#19659
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Geraldine Lee Richmond is an American chemist and physical chemist who is serving as the Under Secretary of Energy for Science in the US Department of Energy. Richmond was confirmed to her DOE role by the United States Senate on November 5, 2021. Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon . She conducts fundamental research to understand the chemistry and physics of complex surfaces and interfaces. These understandings are most relevant to energy production, atmospheric chemistry and remediation of the environment. Throughout her career she has worked to increase the number and success of women scientists in the U.S.
Go to Profile#820
Ernest Grunwald
#59628
Overall Influence
1923 - 2002 (79 years)
Ernest Grunwald was a German-born American physical organic chemist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the chair of the chemistry department at Brandeis University. He was also noted for his 1997 textbook Thermodynamics of Molecular Species. Awarded the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry in 1959.
Go to Profile#821
Hugh Christopher Longuet-higgins
#69081
Overall Influence
#822
Stephen Mann
#65331
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Stephen Mann, FRS, FRSC, is Professor of Chemistry, co-director of the Max Planck Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology, director of the Centre for Organized Matter Chemistry, director of the Centre for Protolife Research, and was principal of the Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials at the University of Bristol, UK.
Go to Profile#823
Tan Weihong
#63495
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Tan Weihong is a Chinese chemist. He is the University of Florida Distinguished Professor, V. T. and Louise Jackson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida, and also the Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Professor of Biology, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics at Hunan University in China. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 and The World Academy of Sciences in 2016.
Go to Profile#824
Georges Guiochon
#69262
Overall Influence
#825
Enrico. Clementi
#69330
Overall Influence
#826
Jeffrey R. Long
#60885
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Jeffrey R. Long is a professor of chemistry at University of California, Berkeley known for his work in metal−organic frameworks and molecular magnetism. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and is the 2019 F. Albert Cotton Award recipient. His research interests include: synthesis of inorganic clusters and porous materials, investigating the electronic and magnetic properties of inorganic materials; metal-organic frameworks, and gas storage/capture.
Go to Profile#827
Joseph H. Burckhalter
#69368
Overall Influence
1912 - 2004 (92 years)
Joseph H. Burckhalter was a chemist who worked in the field of isothiocyanate compounds. In 1995 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Burckhalter is also a member of the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#828
Biman Bagchi
#36784
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Biman Bagchi is an Indian scientist currently serving as a SERB-DST National Science Chair Professor and Honorary Professor at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit of the Indian Institute of Science. He is a theoretical physical chemist and biophysicist known for his research in the area of statistical mechanics; particularly in the study of phase transition and nucleation, solvation dynamics, mode-coupling theory of electrolyte transport, dynamics of biological macromolecules , protein folding, enzyme kinetics, supercooled liquids and protein hydration layer. He is an elected fellow...
Go to Profile#829
Jerome Nriagu
#28863
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Jerome Okon Nriagu is a Nigerian-born, American environmental chemist, academician and researcher. He is Professor Emeritus in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. He was formerly a Research Scientist at Environment Canada in the former National Water Research Institute, Burlington, Ontario, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo, Canada.
Go to Profile#830
Larry Faulkner
#33088
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Larry Ray Faulkner is an American academic and businessman. He served as the twenty-seventh president of The University of Texas at Austin from 1998 to 2006, and as the president of the Houston Endowment Inc. from 2006 to 2012.
Go to Profile#831
Chaitan Khosla
#54730
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Chaitan Khosla is an Indian biochemist who is the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Stanford University. He earned his B.Tech. in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1990 with Jay Bailey working on the expression of the Vitreoscilla Hemoglobin gene. He did his postdoctoral work at the John Innes Centre with David Hopwood. He has been a professor at Stanford since 1992 and was the chair of the program. His research is focused on two realms, th...
Go to Profile#832
Yu Shuhong
#68221
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Yu Shuhong is a Chinese chemist and materials scientist and professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. Early life and education Yu was born in Lujiang County, Anhui in August 1967. In July 1988 he graduated from Hefei University of Technology. He received his master's degree from Shanghai Research institute of Chemical Industry and in 1991, and completed his doctoral work in 1998 at the University of Science and Technology of China under the supervision of Qian Yitai.
Go to Profile#833
Inga Fischer-Hjalmars
#45817
Overall Influence
1918 - 2008 (90 years)
Inga Fischer-Hjalmars was an internationally acclaimed Swedish physicist, chemist, pharmacist, humanist, and a pioneer in quantum chemistry. She was one of the pioneers in the application of quantum mechanics to solve problems in theoretical chemistry. Fischer-Hjalmars also served as chair of the International Council of Scientific Unions' Standing Committee on the Free Circulation of Scientists.
Go to Profile#834
Arthur Birch
#46119
Overall Influence
1915 - 1995 (80 years)
Arthur John Birch, AC CMG FRS FAA was an Australian organic chemist. Birch developed the Birch reduction of aromatic rings which is widely used in synthetic organic chemistry. The Birch Reduction enables the modification of steroids. In 1948 Birch published the first total synthesis of a male sex hormone , as the first member of a new structural series. This series later comprised the first oral contraceptive pill, which was made by others. The Birch reduction also allows for the development of other steroid drugs and antibiotics – he also made the first simple synthesis of the ring A-B structure of cholesterol.
Go to Profile#835
Gernot Frenking
#68433
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Gernot Frenking is a German chemist known for his contribution in theoretical chemistry. Education and life From 1960 to 1964, Frenking initially trained as a chemical laboratory assistant at the Bayer AG paint factory in Uerdingen. He completed his Abitur on the second educational path and studied chemistry at the RWTH Aachen from 1969 to 1973. In 1973 he received his diploma at the RWTH Aachen with Hans-Dieter Scharf with a thesis on calculations of chemical reactivity using quantum theoretical models as well as measurements and theoretical calculations on the dipole moments of some compoun...
Go to Profile#836
Michael Strano
#52325
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Michael Steven Strano is an American chemical engineer and the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He is particularly interested in quantum-confined materials. Strano was appointed editor-in-chief of Carbon in 2016. In 2017, Strano was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for contributions to nanotechnology, including fluorescent sensors for human health and solar and thermal energy devices."
Go to Profile#837
Ali Alavi
#61119
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Ali Alavi FRS is a professor of theoretical chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Education Alavi was born in Tehran and was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences followed by a PhD in 1990 for research on the molecular dynamics of thin films and charge-transfer complexes.
Go to Profile#838
Mark Lautens
#58695
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Mark Lautens, OC, <big></big> is a Canadian organic chemist and is a University Professor at the University of Toronto. He is known for his involvement in the developments of asymmetric ring-opening chemistry, synthetic utility and scope of the Catellani Reaction including the use of ligands to facilitate the reaction, carbohalogenation, multi-component multi-catalyst reactions, and domino catalysis. He has supervised over 50 doctoral students and has published over 400 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals.
Go to Profile#839
Stephen Finney Mason
#40513
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
Stephen Finney Mason FRS FRSC was a British chemist and scientific historian. Biography Stephen Finney Mason was born in Leicestershire on 6 July 1923, the first child of Leonard Stephen Mason, a garage owner, and Chrissie Harriette . He won a scholarship to Wyggeston Grammar School from 1933 to 1941; from there he gained an open scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford. He graduated with a first-class degree in 1945 and, in 1947, was awarded a DPhil on the biological activity of antimalarials, supervised by Dalziel Hammick.
Go to Profile#840
David A. Tirrell
#43593
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
David A. Tirrell is an American chemist and the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor and professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology . A pioneer in the areas of polymer synthesis and protein biosynthesis, his research has a wide range of applications, including coatings, adhesion, lubrication, bioengineering and biomedical intervention. From 2012 to 2018, Tirrell was the director of the Beckman Institute at Caltech. , he serves as Caltech's Provost. He is one of very few American scientists to have been elected to all three branches of the ...
Go to Profile#841
Horst Kessler
#63424
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Horst Kessler is a German chemist and emeritus Professor of Excellence at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technical University of Munich . Kessler works in the area of bioorganic chemistry, in particular peptide synthesis, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He also made contributions to magnetic resonance imaging.
Go to Profile#842
Albert L. Allred
#65367
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (94 years)
Albert Louis Allred is an American chemist accomplished in the fields of inorganic chemistry and electronegativity. He was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, United States. Education and career Allred studied chemistry at the University of North Carolina and earned a bachelor's degree in 1953. He studied at Harvard University and earned a master's degree in 1955, followed by a doctorate in 1957. In 1956 he was an instructor, 1958 assistant professor, and 1969 professor at the College of Arts and Sciences of Northwestern University. From 1980 to 1986, he was chairman of the chemistry department.
Go to Profile#843
Albert Padwa
#69879
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
#844
Gilbert Froment
#57652
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (95 years)
Gilbert F. Froment is a Belgian Professor Emeritus of chemical engineering at Ghent University, Belgium, and a research professor at Texas A&M University. His career was in the fields of kinetic and chemical reaction engineering studies, as well as the use of that to solve problems in process industry.
Go to Profile#845
Bernhard Schlegel
#67311
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Hans Bernhard "Berny" Schlegel is German-born computational and theoretical chemist, and distinguished professor at Wayne State University. He is a highly cited chemist, with a Thomson Reuters H-Index of 116 and citations of over 218,000 as of 2020. He is a professor of chemistry at the Wayne State University and co-author of the computational chemistry software, Gaussian. The "Berny optimization" as implemented in Gaussian is named after him. His group also created the Electronic Structure Perl Toolkit .
Go to Profile#846
Robert Cava
#28282
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Robert Joseph Cava is a solid-state chemist at Princeton University where he holds the title Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry. Previously, Professor Cava worked as a staff scientist at Bell labs from 1979–1996, where earned the title of Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff. his research investigates topological insulators, semimetals, superconductors, frustrated magnets and thermoelectrics.
Go to Profile#847
John Albery
#43013
Overall Influence
1936 - 2013 (77 years)
Wyndham John Albery was a British physical chemist and academic. Early life Wyndham John Albery was born on 5 April 1936. His father Michael James Albery , a barrister, was part of a sprawling theatrical family network as the son of Gertrude Mary and Irving Albery a Conservative MP and the son of actress and theatrical manager Mary Moore and dramatist James Albery. His aunt Jessica Mary Albery was one of Britain's first female professional architects.
Go to Profile#848
Paul W. K. Rothemund
#29345
Overall Influence
Paul Wilhelm Karl Rothemund is a research professor at the Computation and Neural Systems department at Caltech. He has become known in the fields of DNA nanotechnology and synthetic biology for his pioneering work with DNA origami. He shared both categories of the 2006 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology with Erik Winfree for their work in creating DNA nanotubes, algorithmic molecular self-assembly of DNA tile structures, and their theoretical work on DNA computing. Rothemund is also a 2007 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.
Go to Profile#849
Alan Lindsay Mackay
#31900
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (99 years)
Alan Lindsay Mackay FRS is a British crystallographer, born in Wolverhampton. Mackay was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, Oundle School, Trinity College, Cambridge, and the University of London, where he received his doctorate. He spent his scientific career at Birkbeck College, founded by George Birkbeck, one of the Colleges of the University of London, where he was immersed in a liberal scientific atmosphere under the leadership of John Desmond Bernal.
Go to Profile#850
John Prausnitz
#33092
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (97 years)
John Michael Prausnitz is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he has held since 1955. Prausnitz is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the thermodynamics of phase equilibria and its application to industrial process design. In 2003, he received the National Medal of Science for his work in molecular thermodynamics. He is responsible for many of the activity coefficient models used for the design of major chemical plants.
Go to Profile