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).

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List of the most influential people in Chemistry,

#1701

Veronica Vaida

#96251
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Veronica Vaida is a Romanian-American chemist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is an expert in environmental chemistry and aerosols. Early life and education Vaida was born in Bucharest. Her parents were from Transylvania and met after World War II. Her mother survived an Auschwitz concentration camp and her father was a political prisoner. She attended a Hungarian school in Cluj-Napoca and moved back to Bucharest in 1963. She studied chemistry at the University of Bucharest. After seeing a US position advertised in 1969, she moved to Brown University, working on detectors for molecular beams.
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#1702

Henning Hopf

#99800
Overall Influence
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#1703

Catherine Clarke Fenselau

Catherine Clarke Fenselau
#45038
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Catherine Clarke Fenselau is an American scientist who was the first trained mass spectrometrist on the faculty of an American medical school; she joined Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1968. She specializes in biomedical applications of mass spectrometry. She has been recognized as an outstanding scientist in the field of bioanalytical chemistry because of her work using mass spectrometry to study biomolecules.
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#1704

Dirk Trauner

#57389
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Dirk Trauner is an Austrian chemist. Education and training From 1986 to 1991 Trauner studied biology and biochemistry at the University of Vienna. From 1992 to 1995 he studied chemistry at the Free University of Berlin and completed his diploma under Johann Mulzer, whom he followed to Frankfurt and subsequently Vienna as an assistant. In 1997 he completed his PhD under Mulzer at the University of Vienna summa cum laude. From 1998 to 2000 he was a postdoc under Samuel J. Danishefsky at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. In 2000 he moved to the University of Californi...
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#1705

Jose L. Jimenez

#99411
Overall Influence
José Luis Jiménez-Palacios is a Spanish–American chemist and engineer. As a professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, Jimenez contributed to the establishment of the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer, an instrument for real-time analysis of aerosol size and composition.
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#1706

Martin Gruebele

Martin Gruebele
#53846
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Martin Gruebele is a German-born American physical chemist and biophysicist who is currently James R. Eiszner Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics, Professor of Biophysics and Computational Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he is the principal investigator of the Gruebele Group.
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#1707

Vladimir Minkin

Vladimir Minkin
#45387
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (90 years)
Vladimir Isaakovich Minkin is a Russian chemist. Professor, Doctor of Chemical Sciences. Biography Vladimir Isaakovich Minkin graduated from the Chemical Faculty of Rostov State University in 1957. Since 1967 he was a Professor of the Department of Natural Compounds, in 1981-2012 — Director of the Research Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry of the RSU . Since 2003 he was Vice-Chairman of the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2004-2009 — head of the Department of Natural and High-Molecular Compounds of the Southern Federal University. Since 2012 — scientifi...
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#1708

Raymond C. Stevens

#29515
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Raymond C. Stevens is an American chemist and structural biologist, Founder, CEO and Board Member of Structure Therapeutics; Founding Director of the at ShanghaiTech University; Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, and Founding Director of the Bridge Institute at the University of Southern California; Board Member, Danaher Corporation.
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#1709

Iain McCulloch

Iain McCulloch
#72187
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Iain McCulloch is Professor of Polymer Chemistry, in the Department of Chemistry, at the University of Oxford, UK, a fellow and tutor in chemistry at Worcester College, and an adjunct professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology , Saudi Arabia, and a visiting professor in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London.
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#1710

Gilles Klopman

#84737
Overall Influence
1933 - 2015 (82 years)
Gilles Klopman was the Charles F. Mabery Professor of Research in Chemistry, Oncology and Environmental Health Sciences Director of the Laboratory for Decision Support Methodologies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health,
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#1711

Donald T. Sawyer

#100093
Overall Influence
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#1712

Werner Herz

#100138
Overall Influence
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#1713

Enrique Cadenas

#100239
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
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#1714

P. G. Ashmore

#67738
Overall Influence
1916 - 2002 (86 years)
Professor Philip George Ashmore, known as Sandy Ashmore, was an English academic chemist and the first Professor of Physical Chemistry at UMIST, Manchester. Background and education The son of a schoolmaster who later became headmaster of Derby School, Ashmore was educated at Derby School and then from 1934 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate, he held a scholarship, played soccer for Cambridge University and hockey for Cambridgeshire, was in his college's cricket First XI and crowned his first four years with a double first in the Natural Science tripos. For two years he stay...
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#1715

Edward M. Burgess

Edward M. Burgess
#59833
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Edward Meredith Burgess was an American chemist. He specialized in organic chemistry with an emphasis on methodology, structure, and photochemistry. He is best known for the Burgess reagent that is used for selective dehydration of alcohols.
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#1716

Jin‐quan Yu

#100364
Overall Influence
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#1717

Lynden Archer

#78454
Overall Influence
Lynden A. Archer is a chemical engineer, Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering, David Croll Director of the Energy Systems Institute, and professor of chemical engineering at Cornell University. He became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2007 and was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2018. Archer's research covers polymer and hybrid materials and finds applications in energy storage technologies. His h-index is 92 by Google Scholar.
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#1718

Howard Davis

#81346
Overall Influence
1937 - 2009 (72 years)
Howard Theodore "Ted" Davis was an American chemical engineer and regents professor in the Department of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota. He is internationally known for his work in statistical thermodynamics, transport in porous media, and surface thermodynamics. Davis was an author of more than 400 academic papers and five books including the acclaimed textbooks: “Linear Algebra and Linear Operators in Engineering” ., "Statistical Mechanics of Phases, Interfaces and Thin Films" . He served as the department head of CEMS for 15 years , followed by...
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#1719

Wil-liam V. Boynton

#100473
Overall Influence
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#1720

Saul. Patai

#100515
Overall Influence
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#1721

Danna Freedman

#51641
Overall Influence
Danna Freedman is an American chemist and the Frederick George Keyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her group's research focuses on applying inorganic chemistry towards questions in physics, with an emphasis on quantum information science, materials with emergent properties, and magnetism. Freedman was awarded the 2019 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
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#1722

Kwang-Chu Chao

#73623
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Kwang-Chu Chao , was an American chemist and chemical engineer. Chao is the Harry Creighton Pfeffer Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. He is also the President of American Zhu Kezhen Education Foundation.
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#1723

Jürgen Troe

#56079
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Hans-Jürgen Troe is a German physicist from the University of Göttingen. He was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after he was nominated by his Division of Chemical Physics in 2009, for "experimental and theoretical research on the kinetics of unimolecular reactions of neutral and ionic molecules, and especially for the development of the statistical adiabatic channel model and its application to unimolecular processes from low to high pressures." Was awarded the Otto Hahn Prize in 2015.
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#1724

Akkihebbal Ravishankara

#97616
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Akkihebbal Ramaiah Ravishankara ForMemRS FAAAS FRSC is a scientist specializing in Chemistry and Atmospheric Sciences, and University Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.
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#1725

Hans Freeman

#47158
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Hans Charles Freeman AM, FAA was a German-born Australian bioinorganic chemist, protein crystallographer, and professor of inorganic chemistry who spent most of his academic career at the University of Sydney. His best known contributions to chemistry were his work explaining the unusual structural, electrochemical, and spectroscopic properties of blue copper proteins, particularly plastocyanin. He also introduced protein crystallography to Australia and was a strong advocate for courses to ensure Australian scientists have good access to "big science" facilities. Freeman has received numerou...
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#1726

John A. Zubieta

#100661
Overall Influence
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#1727

Miha Tišler

#98631
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Miha Tišler was a Slovene chemist who served as a professor of chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Tišler was the author of 50 books and monographs on heterocyclic chemistry, and he was named a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.
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#1728

Richard A. Friesner

#90697
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Richard A. Friesner is an American theoretical chemist and William P. Schweitzer Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008, and the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. Richard Friesner co-founded Schrödinger in 1990.
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#1729

Kenneth Karlin

Kenneth Karlin
#49719
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Kenneth D. Karlin was born on October 30, 1948, in Pasadena, California, a professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Research in his group focuses on coordination chemistry relevant to biological and environmental processes, involving copper or heme complexes. Of particular interest are reactivities of such complexes with nitrogen oxides, O2, and the oxidation of substrates by the resultant compounds. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the book series Progress in Inorganic Chemistry.
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#1730

Adrian Covaci

#100786
Overall Influence
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#1731

Yi Xie

#100810
Overall Influence
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#1732

Rudi Busse

#100814
Overall Influence
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#1733

Benton Seymour Rabinovitch

#97290
Overall Influence
1919 - 2014 (95 years)
Seymour Rabinovitch was a professor of chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, whose research including developing measurements for the efficiency with which energy is transferred between molecules in gas phase chemical reactions. Rabinovitch was an editor of the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry and of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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#1734

William Summer Johnson

#100886
Overall Influence
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#1735

John S. Fossey

#23422
Overall Influence
John S. Fossey was a British chemist. He was a professor of synthetic chemistry at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, and a visiting professor at Henan Normal University and guest professor at East China University of Science and Technology, both in China. His research was in molecular recognition and catalysis, and he was a user of boronic acid derivatives. He was a former industry fellow of the Royal Society.
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#1736

Jack Corliss

#18191
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
John B. Corliss is a scientist who has worked in the fields of geology, oceanography, and the origins of life. Corliss is a University of California, San Diego Alumnus, receiving his PhD from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the 1960s. As part of his doctoral work under Jerry van Andel, he analyzed samples of basaltic rock from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Chemical traces in these rocks showed evidence of hot water circulation, suggesting the existence of undersea hot springs known as hydrothermal vents.
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#1737

Susan Brantley

#97852
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Susan L. Brantley is an American geologist and geochemist who is the Dr. Hubert Barnes and Dr. Mary Barnes Professor at Pennsylvania State University. Her research dominantly studies interactions between fluids and minerals at low temperatures, biological reactions in water-rich fluids within soils, and the geochemical processes that convert rock into soil. However, among many other topics, she has also published work on carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes, and the environmental impact of shale gas extraction and nuclear waste disposal. During her career, Brantley has published over 200 r...
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#1738

Li Jinghong

#100771
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Li Jinghong is a Chinese chemist of Mongol ethnicity. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University. Early life and education Li was born in Inner Mongolia in December 1967. In September 1986 he entered the University of Science and Technology of China, where he graduated in July 1991. After graduation, he was assigned to Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , where he obtained a Doctor of Science degree in December 1996. From 1997 to 2001 he was a postdoc at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Universit...
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#1739

Gerhard Erker

#100993
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
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#1740

Gary M. Hieftje

Gary M. Hieftje
#50376
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Gary M. Hieftje is an analytical chemist, Distinguished Professor, and the Robert & Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Gary M. Hieftje received his A.B. degree at Hope College in Holland, Michigan in 1964, and his PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1969. In 1969, he started his career in teaching and research at Indiana University. Hieftje was named a Distinguished Professor in 1985, and entered emeritus status in 2018. As of 2018, Dr. Hieftje has been involved in over 600 publications.
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#1741

Ayhan Ulubelen

#78825
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Ayhan Ulubelen was a Turkish analytical chemist. She was a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. Ulubelen contributed to the isolation and testing of natural products from Turkish plants relevant to spontaneous abortion, cancer, HIV, and diabetes.
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#1742

Arend Joan Rutgers

#64821
Overall Influence
1903 - 1998 (95 years)
Arend Joan Rutgers was a Dutch-Belgian physical chemist. Arend Joan Rutgers went to high school in Almelo, after which he studied chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He later obtained his master's degree in 1926 he went to Leiden, where he studied theoretical physics under Paul Ehrenfest. In 1930, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Leiden and completed a thesis titled "Bijdrage tot de theorie der thermoelectriciteit in kristallen." . In 1931, he returned to Amsterdam and worked as a research assistant.
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#1743

Nico G. Van Kampen

#101010
Overall Influence
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#1744

Muhammad Sahimi

#14858
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and holds the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is also active in journalism, frequently writing on Iranian politics.
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#1745

D. J. Donald Nicholas

#101024
Overall Influence
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#1746

Nancy Makri

#67653
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Nancy Makri is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Endowed Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where she is the principal investigator of the Makri Research Group for the theoretical understanding of condensed phase quantum dynamics. She studies theoretical quantum dynamics of polyatomic systems, and has developed methods for long-time numerical path integral simulations of quantum dissipative systems.
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#1747

Bettina Lotsch

#95043
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (48 years)
Bettina Valeska Lotsch is a German chemist. She is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. Life Lotsch studied chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and completed it with a diploma in Chemistry in 2000. In 2006, she finished on her dissertation in the group of Wolfgang Schnick at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. From 2007 to 2008, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of G. A. Ozin at the University of Toronto. From 2009 to the beginning of 2017, she was an assistant professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
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#1748

William Arthur Steele

#101050
Overall Influence
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#1749

Attila Laszlo Szabo

#101060
Overall Influence
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#1750

Giacinto Scoles

#88331
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (90 years)
Giacinto Scoles is a European and North American chemist and physicist who is best known for his pioneering development of molecular beam methods for the study of weak van der Waals forces between atoms, molecules, and surfaces. He developed the cryogenic bolometer as a universal detector of atomic and molecule beams that not only can detect a small flux of molecules, but also responds to the internal energy of the molecules. This is the basis for the optothermal spectroscopy technique which Scoles and others have used to obtain very high signal-to noise and high resolution ro-vibrational ...
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