Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Chemistry,

#1401

Stephen Z. D. Cheng

#28470

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (76 years)

Stephen Z. D. Cheng is a Chinese-American polymer scientist and chemical engineer. Cheng is the R.C.Musson & Trustees Professor of Polymer Science, and was the former Dean of the College of Polymer Science & Polymer Engineering at the University of Akron.

#1402

Kuzhikalail M. Abraham

Kuzhikalail M. Abraham

#20267

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Kuzhikalail M. Abraham is an American scientist, a recognized expert on lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer batteries and is the inventor of the ultrahigh energy density lithium–air battery. Abraham is the principal of E-KEM Sciences in Needham, Massachusetts and a professor at the Northeastern University Center for Renewable Energy Technologies, Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

#1403

Sunney Chan

#73527

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (89 years)

Sunney Ignatius Chan is an American-born biophysical chemist. His work primarily focused on the use of various magnetic resonance spectroscopic and other physical chemical techniques in the analysis of various biochemical and biological problems.

#1404

Myron Tribus

#18493

Overall Influence

1921 - 2016 (95 years)

Myron T. Tribus was an American organizational theorist, who was the director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Study at MIT from 1974 to 1986. He was known as leading supporter and interpreter of W. Edwards Deming, for popularizing the Bayesian methods, and for coining the term "thermoeconomics".

#1405

Garry R. Buettner

#90824

Overall Influence

#1406

Jürgen Warnatz

#49642

Overall Influence

1944 - 2007 (63 years)

Jürgen Warnatz was a German physicist. Between 1999 and 2004 he served as managing director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing at Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg, Germany. From 2003 until his death he chaired the German Section of the Combustion Institute.

#1407

Christopher Chang

#70776

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (51 years)

Christopher J. Chang is a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Class of 1942 Chair. Chang is also a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, adjunct professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and faculty scientist at the chemical sciences division of Lawrence Berkeley Lab. He is the recipient of several awards for his research in bioinorganic chemistry, molecular and chemical biology.

#1408

Stephen Lee

#23682

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Stephen Lee is an American chemist. He is the son of Tsung-Dao Lee, the winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is currently a professor at Cornell University. Education Lee attended the International School of Geneva, Switzerland and Yale University, from which he graduated with a BA in 1978. He later received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985.

#1409

Mark A. Johnson

#61483

Overall Influence

Mark A. Johnson is an American physical chemist and a professor of chemistry at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1983. Johnson is a co-editor of Annual Review of Physical Chemistry beginning with its 2012 issue. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1999, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2010. He received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award in 2012. He is the 2014 recipient of the Irving Langmuir Award.

#1410

Alison Wendlandt

#82992

Overall Influence

Alison Wendlandt is an American chemist who is an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research considers the development of catalysts for organic synthesis. Early life and education Wendlandt is from Colorado. She earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry at the University of Chicago. She was started a master's degree at Yale University. Her graduate research had initially considered chemical biology: how certain molecules interact human health. During her research she became more interested in reaction processes and what she could do to make them more efficient.

#1411

Hans-Joachim Freund

#91030

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (74 years)

#1412

Phillip Thomas Hawkins

#71120

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (67 years)

Phillip Thomas Hawkins FRS is a molecular biologist, senior group leader at the Babraham Institute. Phill Hawkins has contributed much to the understanding of inositol lipids functions in eukaryotic cells. Together with his long-time collaborator Leonard R Stephens, he established that PtdInsP2 is the main substrate of receptor-controlled Type 1 phosphoinositide 3-kinases , thus identifying PtdInsP3 as the key output signal produced by this enzyme. They identified and isolated the GPCR-activated Type 1B PI3K and, in a sustained body of work, defined its structure, explained its complex pattern of regulation by GβΥ and Ras, and proved its role in inflammatory events in vivo.

#1413

Peter Day

#60426

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Peter Day was a British inorganic chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University and later at University College London . Early life and education Day was born 20 August 1938 in Wrotham, Kent. He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School and Wadham College, Oxford where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1965 for research supervised by Robert Williams.

#1414

Milos Novotny

#90432

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (83 years)

Milos Vratislav Novotny is an American chemist, currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Director of the Novotny Glycoscience Laboratory and the Institute for Pheromone Research at Indiana University, and also a published author. Milos Novotny received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1962. In 1965, Novotny received his Ph.D. at the University of Brno. Novotny also holds honorary doctorates from Uppsala University, Masaryk University and Charles University, and he has been a major figure in analytical separation methods. Novotny was recognized f...

#1415

Gunnar Svedberg

#26070

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (78 years)

Professor Gunnar Svedberg was the Rector of the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden. Svedberg studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and received a PhD in chemical engineering in 1975. He became a full professor at the KTH in 1989. He was the Rector of Mid Sweden University College from 1999 to 2003, and of the University of Gothenburg between July 2003 and September 2006. He was President of Innventia, until his retirement in June 2011.

#1416

Anders Hallberg

#66184

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Anders Hallberg is a Swedish pharmaceutical researcher, professor in medicinal chemistry and 2006-2011 Rector Magnificus and Vice Chancellor at Uppsala University. Biography Hallberg completed his basic education at Lund University, where he obtained a Master of Science in chemistry and physics in 1969. The following year he attended the School of Education in Malmö obtained a BScEd and worked thereafter as a teacher in the junior high school from 1970-1973.

#1417

Russell M. Pitzer

#64626

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (87 years)

Russell Mosher Pitzer is an American theoretical chemist and educator. He was born in Berkeley, California and attended public schools in this and the Washington, D.C. area. He received his B.S. in chemistry in 1959 from the California Institute of Technology, his A.M. in physics from Harvard University in 1963, and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University in 1963.

#1418

Lin Ming-chang

#37912

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (89 years)

Lin Ming-chang is a Taiwanese chemist. Born in Zhaomen, Xinpu, Hsinchu, on 24 October 1936, Lin Ming-chang attended Hsinchu Senior High School and graduated from National Taiwan Normal University before pursuing graduate study under Keith J. Laidler at the University of Ottawa. After completing his postdoctoral research in Ottawa, Lin joined Simon H. Bauer at Cornell University in 1967. Lin moved to the United States Naval Research Laboratory in 1970. While working at the NRL, Lin received a Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1979, followed by a Guggenheim fellowship and Alexander von Humboldt Award in 1982.

#1419

Janos H. Fendler

#91219

Overall Influence

#1420

Richard Caprioli

#80041

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Richard M. Caprioli is an American chemist known for his contributions to mass spectrometry imaging. Career and research Caprioli was born in New York City and graduated from Columbia University in 1969 with a PhD, studying under David Rittenberg. He then moved to Purdue University to work with John Beynon, where he was appointed as assistant professor of biochemistry in 1970. In 1975, he moved to University of Texas Medical School where be became full professor. In 1998 he moved to Vanderbilt University where he was appointed the Stanford Moore Professor of Biochemistry and is the director o...

#1421

Gary Siuzdak

#16698

Overall Influence

Gary Siuzdak is an American chemist best known for his work in the field of metabolomics, activity metabolomics , and mass spectrometry. His lab discovered indole-3-propionic acid as a gut bacteria derived metabolite in 2009. He is currently the Professor and Director of The Center for Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. Siuzdak has also made contributions to virus analysis, viral structural dynamics, as well as developing mass spectrometry imaging technology using nanostructured surfaces. The Siuzdak lab is also responsible for creating the research tools eXtensible Computational Mass Spectrometry , METLIN, METLIN Neutral Loss and Q-MRM.

#1422

John Essigmann

#83388

Overall Influence

John M. Essigman is an American chemist, currently the William R. & Betsy P. Leitch Professor in Residence of Chemistry, Toxicology, and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#1423

Gerhard Hummer

#91389

Overall Influence

#1424

Brian T Chait

#91411

Overall Influence

#1425

Natalie Ahn

#39740

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

Natalie G. Ahn is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research is focused on understanding the mechanisms of cell signaling, with a speciality in phosphorylation and cancers. Ahn's work uses the tools of "classical chemistry" to work on understanding the genetic code and how genetics affects life processes. She has been a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 2003, where she is a distinguished professor. She was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator between 1994 and 2014. In 2018, she was elected to the National Ac...

#1426

Ronald Micura

#45180

Overall Influence

Ronald Micura is an Austrian chemist. He received his PhD working in the field of phycobilin pigments under the supervision of Karl Grubmayr in 1995. He was awarded the Lieben Prize in 2005. Micura studied chemistry at the University of Linz, where he also received his Ph.D. in 1995. After a postdoc position at the University of Zurich and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, he became professor at the University of Innsbruck in 2000.

#1427

Weston T. Borden

#88269

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Weston Thatcher Borden is professor of Computational Chemistry and Welch Chair in Chemistry at the University of North Texas. He is also a member of the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling . He was named for his famous mother, movie star Doris Weston, who died of lung cancer in 1960.

#1428

Paul Dyson

#91557

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (59 years)

#1429

Gao Xiaoxia

#84342

Overall Influence

1919 - 1998 (79 years)

Gao Xiaoxia was a Chinese chemist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science. She held leadership positions at Peking University and in the Chinese Chemical Society. Her contributions to analytical chemistry, particularly the development of microanalytical techniques in polarography, were instrumental in supporting the research and production of rare earths.

#1430

Steve Scheiner

#91770

Overall Influence

#1431

Sven Josef Cyvin

#91806

Overall Influence

#1432

Ray F. Weiss

#91817

Overall Influence

#1433

Jas Pal Badyal

#42437

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (61 years)

Jas Pal Singh Badyal is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Durham University. He has been Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales in the Welsh Government since February 2023. Education Badyal was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1985 followed by a PhD in 1988 on the surface science of ruthenium-titania heterogeneous catalysts.

#1434

Johan Stenflo

#60954

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Johan Stenflo is a Swedish chemist and teacher. He received his M.D. in 1968 and his Ph.D. in 1973 at Lund University, where he later became a professor of clinical chemistry. In 1985, he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 1975, he published a classic paper on the biosynthesis of prothrombin.

#1435

Eric Hoffman

#91964

Overall Influence

#1436

Jeremy K. Nicholson

#21848

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Jeremy K. Nicholson is a professor and pro vice chancellor of Health Sciences at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, where he leads the Australian National Phenome Centre. He is also an emeritus professor of Biological Chemistry at Imperial College London and was the director and principal investigator of the MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre until 2018.

#1437

Karin Markides

#51436

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (74 years)

Karin Markides, born 1951, is a Swedish professor in analytical chemistry and President and CEO of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology from 1 June 2023. She was the president of American University of Armenia from 1 July 2019 to 31 May 2023. She was also the President and CEO of Chalmers University of Technology from 2006 to 2015. From 2004 to 2006 she was vice director general for Vinnova. She is also board member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences since 1992 and a board member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since 1999.

#1438

Stacey Bent

#69411

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (60 years)

Stacey Bent is a professor of chemical engineering and vice provost for graduate education and postdoctoral affairs at Stanford University. She is the Jagdeep and Roshni Singh Professor of Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She was the director of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and a senior associate dean in the Stanford School of Engineering until 2019. She is best known for contributions to semiconductor processing, materials chemistry, and surface science. Her work has been applied toward applications in semiconductors, solar cells, and catalysts.

#1439

Israel E. Wachs

#92140

Overall Influence

#1440

Ângelo da Cunha Pinto

#87341

Overall Influence

1948 - 2015 (67 years)

Ângelo da Cunha Pinto was a Portuguese-Brazilian chemist and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Born in Marco de Canaveses, Portugal, Pinto was one of the more prominent national chemists with a specialism in the natural products of Brazil. He was qualified as a pharmacist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1971, and earned a master's degree in chemistry at the Instituto Militar de Engenharia, and a PhD in organic chemistry at the same university he taught at, under the guidance of Roderick Arthur Barnes. He received several awards and is acclaimed as one of Brazil's most influential scientists.

#1441

Richard J. Green

#46584

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (61 years)

Richard J. Green is an American chemist known for his work against the claims of Holocaust deniers. He is a member of The Holocaust History Project. He was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and he graduated in 1983 from Hawken School, a private preparatory day school for boys and girls. He received a BA from St. John's College, U.S. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a "Great Books" school.

#1442

John. Turkevich

#92162

Overall Influence

#1443

Alexander Goldberg

#42576

Overall Influence

1906 - Present (119 years)

Alexander Goldberg was an Israeli chemical engineer. In 1965–1973, he served as President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Biography Alexander Goldberg was born in Wilno, Russian Empire , studied in London, and immigrated to Israel in 1948.

#1444

Sandra C. Greer

#61524

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Sandra Charlene Greer is an American physical chemist who has held important academic and administrative positions at both the University of Maryland, College Park and Mills College. Her area of study is the thermodynamics of fluids, especially polymer solutions and phase transitions. She has received awards for her scientific contributions, and for her advocacy for women in science and her work on ethics in science.

#1445

Ezio Rizzardo

#85501

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Ezio Rizzardo is a polymer chemist at the Australian research agency CSIRO. Biography Born in Italy, Rizzardo's family immigrated to Australia in 1957. After graduating from the University of New South Wales, he studied the photochemistry of organic nitro compounds at the University of Sydney, receiving his PhD in organic chemistry in 1969. He has worked on polymer chemistry at CSIRO since 1976.

#1446

Ian N. Fleming

#92296

Overall Influence

#1447

C. Bradley Moore

#74785

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Charles Bradley Moore is an American chemist and research administrator. His research focused on the application of lasers to understand the behavior and reaction dynamics of energized molecules and energy transfer between molecules. He is currently professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he had a long career as a faculty member actively engaged in research . While at UC Berkeley, Moore also served in several administrative roles, including chair of the department of chemistry , dean of the college of chemistry , and director of the chemical sciences division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory .

#1448

Norio Miyaura

#92328

Overall Influence

#1449

Rafael Luque

#92330

Overall Influence

#1450

Arthur Nozik

#83458

Overall Influence

Arthur J. Nozik is a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Lab . He is also a professor at the University of Colorado, which is located in Boulder. He researches semiconductor quantum dots at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and is a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado. He also does research for the advancement of solar energy, for which he won the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization Award for Science and Technology in 2009.

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