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,
#1001
Holger Braunschweig
#39829
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Holger Braunschweig is Head and Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg in Würzburg, Germany. He is best known for founding the field of transition metal-boron multiple bonding , the synthesis of the first stable compounds containing boron-boron and boron-oxygen triple bonds, the isolation of the first non-carbon/nitrogen main-group dicarbonyl, and the first fixation of dinitrogen at an element of the p-block of the periodic table. By modifying a strategy pioneered by Prof. Gregory Robinson of the University of Georgia, Braunschweig also discovered the first rational and high-yield synthesis of neutral compounds containing boron-boron double bonds .
Go to Profile#1002
Chris Abell
#56022
Overall Influence
1957 - 2020 (63 years)
Christopher Abell was a British biological chemist who was a professor of biological chemistry at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry and Todd-Hamied Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. On his 2016 election to the Royal Society, Abell's research was described as having "changed the face of drug discovery."
Go to Profile#1003
Khalil Amine
#76871
Overall Influence
#1004
James Dudley Winefordner
#76892
Overall Influence
#1005
Klavs F. Jensen
#71347
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Klavs Flemming Jensen is a chemical engineer who is currently the Warren K. Lewis Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Jensen was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2002 for fundamental contributions to multi-scale chemical reaction engineering with important applications in microelectronic materials processing and microreactor technology.
Go to Profile#1006
Daniel W. Armstrong
#74523
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Daniel Wayne Armstrong is an American chemist who specializes in separation science, chiral molecular recognition, bioanalytic analysis, mass spectrometry and colloid chemistry. He is the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He has authored ~ 750 publications including 35 book chapters, a book, and holds over 35 patents on separation technologies. He was an associate editor for the prestigious American Chemical Society journal Analytical Chemistry. He is a fellow of the American Chemical Society, Royal Chemical Society , and the National Academy of Inventors.
Go to Profile#1007
Elsa Reichmanis
#28004
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Elsa Reichmanis is an American chemist, who was the 2003 president of the American Chemical Society. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 for the discovery, development, and engineering leadership of new families of lithographic materials and processes that enable VLSI manufacturing. She was also inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2020. She is currently the Anderson Endowed Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University. She previously served on the faculty at The Georgia Institute of Technology. Reichmanis is noted for h...
Go to Profile#1008
Bernard R Glick
#76952
Overall Influence
#1009
John T. Groves
#63147
Overall Influence
John T. Groves is an American chemist, and Hugh Stott Taylor Chair of Chemistry, at Princeton University. Biography Groves received an undergraduate degree in chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with Frederick Greene. In 1965, he began his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Ronald Breslow at the Columbia University. During this time, he focused on the synthesis and characterization of cyclopropenyl cation, the simplest aromatic system and the first aromatic compound prepared with other than six electrons in a ring.
Go to Profile#1010
Nuno Maulide
#50468
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (46 years)
Nuno Maulide, born in 1979 , is a Portuguese chemist and scientist, currently professor of organic chemistry at the University of Vienna, as well as a science-related writer and speaker. He is also an amateur pianist. Son of a Mozambican father and a São Toméan mother, who were physicians, he was the first black professor at the institution in over six centuries of existence. He is also involved in science divulgation and the popularization of chemistry, especially for children.
Go to Profile#1011
Séverin Amelinckx
#77083
Overall Influence
#1012
Alán Aspuru-Guzik
#57171
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (49 years)
Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a professor of chemistry, computer science, chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Toronto. His research group, the matter lab, studies quantum chemistry, AI for chemical and materials discovery, quantum computing and self-driving chemical. He is the chief scientific officer and a co-founder of quantum computing startup Zapata Computing and the co-founder of Kebotix a company focused on automated chemical and material discovery.
Go to Profile#1013
Charles B. Harris
#57718
Overall Influence
1940 - 2020 (80 years)
Charles Bonner Harris was an American physical chemist. Education and career Charles B. Harris was born in New York City and spent most of his youth in Grosse Pointe. He attended the University of Michigan and received his bachelor's degree in 1963. In 1966 he received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under F. Albert Cotton. The following year, Harris went to the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a professor in the chemistry department. He headed this department from 2003 and was dean of the faculty from 2004 to 2007. In 2015 he retired. Hi...
Go to Profile#1014
Ariel Fenster
#35295
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
Ariel Fenster is a Canadian science educator, chemist, and founding member of McGill University's Office for Science and Society. Fenster lectures extensively in both French and English on topics of health, the environment, and technology. He was a frequent television and radio presenter on science-related subjects.
Go to Profile#1015
Richard M. Noyes
#73159
Overall Influence
1919 - 1997 (78 years)
Richard Macy Noyes was an American physical chemist. Family Noyes was born April 6, 1919, in Champaign, Illinois, to the American chemist William Noyes and his third wife Katherine Macy, daughter of Jesse Macy. His older half-brother was Albert and his brother Pierre ; both were chemists.
Go to Profile#1016
Fred Wudl
#76382
Overall Influence
Fred Wudl is an American materials scientist, academic researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Wudl has published over 500 papers and has 20 patents awarded. He is known for his work on organic conductors and super-conductors with the discovery of the electronic conductivity of the precursor to the first organic metal and superconductor. He leads research aimed at optical and electrooptical properties of processable conjugated polymers, as well as on the organic chemistry of fullerenes and the design and ...
Go to Profile#1017
Frederick William Sunderman
#77307
Overall Influence
#1018
Melanie Sanford
#36200
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Melanie Sarah Sanford is an American chemist, currently the Moses Gomberg Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan. She is a Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. She has served as an executive editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society since 2021, having been an associate editor of the since 2014.
Go to Profile#1019
Neil E. Schore
#75011
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Neil E. Schore is an American chemist and former associate professor of organic chemistry and Vice Chair of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis. He is also the co-author of Organic Chemistry: Structure and Function. His doctoral advisor at Columbia University was Nicholas Turro, a world renowned chemist in the field of organic photochemistry. His research areas include “mechanistic and synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry; applications of organometallic chemistry and polymer chemistry to organic synthesis.” He is now a professor emeritus at UC Davis and holds the positio...
Go to Profile#1020
Ouyang Ziyuan
#31812
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (90 years)
Ouyang Ziyuan is a Chinese cosmochemist, geochemist and space advocate. He is a research professor at the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Asteroid 8919 Ouyangziyuan, discovered in 1996, was named in his honor.
Go to Profile#1021
Norbert Pienta
#69816
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Norbert Pienta is an American chemist currently Professor at University of Georgia and editor-in-chief of American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Education. His current interests are browser web education research and tutorial and education in schools. He is currently retired.
Go to Profile#1022
Andreas Pfaltz
#73859
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Andreas Pfaltz is a Swiss chemist known for his work in the area of coordination chemistry and catalysis. Education and professional life Andreas Pfaltz studied at ETH Zurich, completing his undergraduate diploma in natural sciences in 1972 and his PhD in organic chemistry in 1978. His doctoral supervisor was Albert Eschenmoser, whose research into vitamin B12 and other corrin rings would influence Pfaltz's early research. Following a two-year postdoctoral position at Columbia University , working for Gilbert Stork on the synthesis of Rifamycin, he returned to ETH Zurich as a lecturer and began his own research.
Go to Profile#1023
Alfons Baiker
#77587
Overall Influence
#1024
Olaf Karthaus
#56611
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Olaf Karthaus is a German polymer chemist and Professor at the Chitose Institute of Science and Technology in Chitose, Hokkaidō, Japan, researching polymer chemistry, thin films, photonics, and nanotechnology.
Go to Profile#1025
Bernhard. Witkop
#77736
Overall Influence
#1026
Jean-Pierre Hansen
#35144
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Jean-Pierre Hansen FRS is a Luxembourgian chemist and an emeritus professor of the University of Cambridge. Education Hansen gained a PhD from Paris-Sud 11 University in 1969, the same year working as a staff scientist for the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
Go to Profile#1027
Hong-Cai Zhou
#76166
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Hong-Cai Zhou is a Chinese–American chemist and academic. He is the Davidson Professor of Science and Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry at Texas A&M University. He is the associate editor of the journal Inorganic Chemistry.
Go to Profile#1028
Anthony Joseph Arduengo III
#53014
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Anthony Joseph Arduengo III is Professor of the Practice at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Saxon Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Alabama, adjunct professor at the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry of Braunschweig University of Technology in Germany, and co-founder of the StanCE coalition for sustainable chemistry based on woody biomass . He is notable for his work on chemical compounds with unusual valency, especially in the field of stable carbene research.
Go to Profile#1029
Nicola Armaroli
#49352
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Nicola Armaroli is an Italian chemist, research director at the Italian National Research Council , director of the scientific magazine Sapere and member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#1030
Angela K. Wilson
#62708
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Areas of Specialization: Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Chemical Physics, Inorganic Chemistry Angela K. Wilson was born on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She is currently John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University (MSU), Director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science, and Engineering, and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in MSU’s College of Natural Sciences. Wilson received her bachelor’s degree in 1990 from Eastern Washington University and her PhD in 1995 from the University of Minnesota. After graduating, Wilson held a postdoc ...
Go to Profile#1031
Soottawat Benjakul
#77857
Overall Influence
#1032
Benedetta Mennucci
#74694
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Benedetta Mennucci is an Italian theoretical chemist who is professor at the University of Pisa. She is a developer of the Polarizable continuum model. Early life and education Mennucci obtained her Laurea in Chemistry in 1994 and her Ph.D. award in Chemistry in 1999. The PhD thesis had the title "Theoretical Models and Computational Applications of Molecular Phenomena Involving the Environment Effect".
Go to Profile#1033
Lai-Sheng Wang
#69316
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Lai-Sheng Wang is an experimental physical chemist currently serving as the Chair of the Chemistry Department at Brown University. Wang is known for his work on atomic gold pyramids and planar boron clusters.
Go to Profile#1034
Donald Mackay
#68586
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Donald Mackay was a Scottish-born Canadian scientist and engineer specializing in environmental chemistry. Life and career Donald Mackay was born on 30 October 1936. He was a member of the faculty of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto and the founding director of the Canadian Environmental Modelling Centre at Trent University. He has developed several multimedia fugacity models. He has stressed that principles of good practice also need to be adopted for chemical assessments, especially in a regulatory context.
Go to Profile#1035
Jeehiun Lee
#69835
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
Jeehiun Katherine Lee is an organic chemist and a professor in the department of chemistry at Rutgers University. She currently runs a research lab on the New Brunswick campus. Although she is an organic chemist by training, she has expanded her research field to biological chemistry, using mass spectrometry, computer modeling and other methods to characterize reactivity and catalysis.
Go to Profile#1036
David Clyde Dahlin
#78282
Overall Influence
#1037
Lloyd Montgomery Pidgeon
#47803
Overall Influence
1903 - 1999 (96 years)
Lloyd Montgomery Pidgeon, was a Canadian chemist who developed the Pidgeon process, one of the methods of magnesium metal production, via a silicothermic reduction. He is considered the "father" of academic metallurgical research in Canada.
Go to Profile#1038
Jan Veizer
#27054
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (84 years)
Ján Veizer is the Distinguished University Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa and Institute for Geology, Mineralogy und Geophysics, of Bochum Ruhr University. He held the NSERC/Noranda/CIFAR Industrial Chair in Earth System Isotope and Environmental Geochemistry until 2004. He is an isotope geochemist; his research interests have included the use of chemical and isotopic techniques in determining Earth's climatic and environmental history.
Go to Profile#1039
Araxie Babayan
#53512
Overall Influence
1906 - 1993 (87 years)
Araxie Tovmasovna Babayan was a Soviet and Armenian organic chemist. Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the Armenian SSR and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Armenian SSR . Life and Work Araxie Babayan was born on 5 May 1906 in Yerevan. As a student of Yerevan State University, Babayan worked in the chemical laboratory, performing demonstrative experiments of her teacher Stepan Gambaryan - founder of the school of organic chemistry in Armenia. She graduated the agricultural faculty of the Yerevan State University in 1928. Starting from 1928 until 1958 Babayan worked in Yere...
Go to Profile#1040
Chao-Jun Li
#78138
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Chao-Jun "C.-J." Li, a Canadian chemist, is E. B. Eddy Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry at McGill University, Montréal. He is known for his pioneering works in Green Solvent and Green Syntheses .
Go to Profile#1041
Akira Endo
#9488
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (92 years)
is a Japanese biochemist whose research into the relationship between fungi and cholesterol biosynthesis led to the development of statin drugs, which are some of the best-selling pharmaceuticals in history.
Go to Profile#1042
Jeffery W. Kelly
#40673
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Jeffery W. Kelly is an American businessman and chemist who is on the faculty of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Biography Kelly received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and performed post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University .
Go to Profile#1043
Hachiro Sugimoto
#24034
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Hachiro Sugimoto is a Japanese chemist and pharmacologist, known for his discovery of Donepezil. Research Sugimoto's research on E2020 , an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, first began at Eisai's Tsukuba Research Laboratories in 1983, because his mother suffered from dementia. At that time, there was a hypothesis suggested that acetylcholines were closely linked to abnormal decreases in memory function in patients with Alzheimer's disease. His research group was finally able to successfully create Donepezil with a promising enough profile for the compound to become a drug candidate.
Go to Profile#1044
Samson Jenekhe
#21778
Overall Influence
Samson Ally Jenekhe is the Boeing-Martin Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. Jenekhe was previously a chemical engineer at the University of Rochester where his work focused on semiconducting polymers and quantum wires. He has authored over 300 research articles and 28 patents.
Go to Profile#1045
Jürgen Hennig
#45172
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Jürgen Klaus Hennig is a German chemist and medical physicist. Internationally he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for clinical diagnostics. He is the Scientific Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Chairman of the Magnetic Resonance Development and Application Center at the University Medical Center Freiburg. In the year 2003 he was awarded the Max Planck Research Award in the category of Biosciences and Medicine.
Go to Profile#1046
Peter M. Rentzepis
#67467
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (91 years)
Peter Michael Rentzepis is a Greek-born American physical chemist. Education and career Rentzepis is a native of Kalamata born on 11 December 1934, Rentzepis attended the 1st Lykion in his hometown and graduated from Denison University and Syracuse University in the United States before pursuing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, graduating in 1963. Rentzepis, who joined Bell Labs in 1963, after two years at General Electric, led the physical and inorganic chemistry research department at Bell between 1973 and 1985, and taught at University of California, Irvine from 1974 to 2014, serving in a presidential chair professorship from 1985.
Go to Profile#1047
Kozi Asada
#78733
Overall Influence
#1048
Peter Wipf
#77357
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (53 years)
Peter Wipf is a distinguished university professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests focus on the total synthesis of natural products, the discovery of new transformations of strained molecules, and the development of new pharmaceuticals. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry , the American Association for the Advancement of Science , and the American Chemical Society .
Go to Profile#1049
Hans-marten Paulsen
#78879
Overall Influence
#1050
Chihaya Adachi
#44280
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Chihaya Adachi is a Japan-born scientist and lecturer specializing in organic electronics which is a field of materials science. Adachi is the Director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research at Kyushu University, a large multi-disciplinary team of physicists, chemists, and engineers from both academia and industry.
Go to Profile