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 …
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List of the most influential people in Chemistry,
#1901
Patrick G. Hatcher
#105017
Overall Influence
#1902
Marc A. Anderson
#88465
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Marc Arlen Anderson holds degrees in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Johns Hopkins University . Anderson is advisor - principal research at the IMDEA Energy Institute. He also serves as director of SolRayo Inc.
Go to Profile#1903
Kopin Liu
#58901
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Kopin Liu is a Taiwanese physical chemist. Liu is a 1971 graduate of National Tsing Hua University. He moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate at Ohio State University. Liu began his research career at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After one year, he moved to Argonne National Laboratory, where he remained until 1993. Since his return to Taiwan, Liu has held several posts at Academia Sinica. He said in 2000 that working at Academia Sinica meant a large pay cut, but that he returned to teach Taiwan's future scientists while working on research. Liu received two five-year grants ...
Go to Profile#1904
Jacob Valentine Maizel
#105118
Overall Influence
#1905
Salih J. Wakil
#96737
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Salih Jawad Wakil was an American biochemist. Wakil's laboratory discovered both Acetyl CoA Carboxylase and Fatty Acid Synthetase. Early life Wakil was born on August 16, 1927, in Karbala, Iraq to a shoemaker. After scoring in the top 5 on the national baccalaureate exam of Iraq, Wakil earned a scholarship to the American University of Beirut. Upon graduating in 1948 with a degree in chemistry, he emigrated to the United States to earn his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Washington. Upon completing his PhD, Wakil became a research associate at the Institute for Enzyme Research at t...
Go to Profile#1906
Man-fred L. Karnovsky
#105135
Overall Influence
#1907
Nissim Calderon
#104013
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
Nissim Calderon was a Goodyear executive and scientist, noted for his introduction of olefin metathesis in 1967. His work on olefin metathesis led to the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Education 1958 – MS Chemistry from Hebrew University1962 – PhD in Polymer science from the University of Akron
Go to Profile#1908
Elena Boldyreva
#88942
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Elena Vladimirovna Boldyreva is a Russian chemist. Boldyreva is a leading researcher at the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, and is Professor and Head of the Section of Solid State Chemistry at Novosibirsk State University.
Go to Profile#1909
James M. Galloway
#105200
Overall Influence
#1910
Muthupandian Ashokkumar
#105270
Overall Influence
#1911
Edward H. Jr. Ahrens
#105272
Overall Influence
#1912
Peter Hore
#74480
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Peter John Hore is a British chemist and academic. He is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of two Oxford Chemistry Primers on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and research articles primarily in the area of NMR, electron paramagnetic resonance , spin chemistry and magnetoreception during bird migration.
Go to Profile#1913
Claudio Toniolo
#105284
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#1914
Rainer Jaenicke
#105301
Overall Influence
#1915
Nicholas Winograd
#105309
Overall Influence
Nicholas Winograd is an American chemist, currently the Evan Pugh University Professor at Pennsylvania State University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#1916
Shelley D. Minteer
#99540
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Shelley D. Minteer is an American academic and chemistry professor at the University of Utah. Minteer field of study focuses on the interface between biocatalysts and enzyme-based electrodes for biofuel cells and sensors.
Go to Profile#1917
Louis B. Jaques
#105392
Overall Influence
#1918
Horst Weller
#105422
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
#1919
Zed Rengel
#105424
Overall Influence
#1920
Adam T. Woolley
#80456
Overall Influence
Adam T. Woolley is a professor of chemistry at Brigham Young University and the recipient of the 2007 Award for young investigators in Separation Science. Woolley and his group are applying microfabrication methods in making microfluidic systems for bioanalysis.
Go to Profile#1921
Nora de Leeuw
#96863
Overall Influence
Nora Henriette de Leeuw is the inaugural executive dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at University of Leeds. Her research field is computational chemistry and investigates biomaterials, sustainable energy, and carbon capture and storage.
Go to Profile#1922
Yōichi Iitaka
#105508
Overall Influence
#1923
Robert Arthur West
#105526
Overall Influence
#1924
Chen‐ho Tung
#105527
Overall Influence
#1925
James R. Fair
#78595
Overall Influence
1920 - 2010 (90 years)
James Rutherford Fair was an American chemical engineer. His professional career included 33 years working in a variety of industrial positions, primarily for Monsanto Company. In 1979, he shifted to academia, joining the University of Texas at Austin School of Chemical Engineering, where he founded the Separations Research Program, which he headed from 1982 until 1996. Although he officially retired in 1992, he remained active as professor emeritus until his death in 2010.
Go to Profile#1926
Frank J. Stevenson
#105644
Overall Influence
#1927
Aristides M. Tsatsakis
#90230
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Aristidis Tsatsakis is a Greek toxicologist. He directs the Laboratory of Forensic Science & Toxicology at the University of Crete. From 2014 to 2016, he served as President of the Federation of European Toxicologists. He also founded a commercial spinoff company, ToxPlus SA.
Go to Profile#1928
Paul Bechly
#28293
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Paul Lorin Bechly is an American chemical engineer known for his work in the development of an environmentally-oriented perfluorocarbon gas policy for DuPont and other industries. He currently works in the financial industry.
Go to Profile#1929
Bogusław Buszewski
#105772
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
#1930
Olga García Mancheño
#100011
Overall Influence
Olga García Mancheño is an organic chemistry professor at the University of Münster in Germany. García Mancheño directs an organic chemistry research group at University of Münster that focuses on development of new catalytic methods with the goal of developing sustainable synthetic routes to accomplish carbon-hydrogen functionalization, organic chemical rearrangements, and photocatalyzed chemical reactions.
Go to Profile#1931
Michael Hochella
#26028
Overall Influence
Michael F. Hochella, Jr. is an American geoscientist and currently a university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech and a laboratory fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, Geochemical Society, European Association of Geochemistry, Mineralogical Society of America, International Association of GeoChemistry, Geological Society of America and American Geophysical Union. His interests are nanogeoscience, minerals, biogeochemistry and geochemistry. Currently among greater than 22,...
Go to Profile#1932
Synnøve Liaaen Jensen
#105798
Overall Influence
1932 - 2022 (90 years)
Synnøve Liaaen Jensen was a Norwegian chemist. She took the degree in 1963 as the first woman in Norway, and became the first female professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology. She was a professor of theoretical chemistry there from 1970 to her retirement. She also received an honorary degree at the University of Zurich in 1986. She was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences.
Go to Profile#1933
Keith A. Kvenvolden
#105807
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (95 years)
#1934
Yu Jihong
#103060
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Yu Jihong is a Chinese chemist and politician who is a professor at Jilin University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yu was a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and serves as an alternate member of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
Go to Profile#1935
Carmen Nájera
#105813
Overall Influence
#1936
Warren L. Butler
#105890
Overall Influence
#1937
Derek Burke
#29085
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
Derek Clissold Burke was a British academic who served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia from 1987 to 1995. He was educated at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and at the University of Birmingham . He began his career as a research fellow in chemistry at Yale, before becoming a lecturer in biological chemistry at the University of Aberdeen. He then served as Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick from 1969 to 1982, and Eleanor Roosevelt fellow at the University of Colorado from 1975 to 1976. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia in 1987 and held the post until 1995.
Go to Profile#1938
Christopher Thiemermann
#105922
Overall Influence
#1939
R. Bruce. Martin
#105932
Overall Influence
#1940
Joseph K. Berkowitz
#105945
Overall Influence
#1941
John Christopher Lindon
#105946
Overall Influence
#1942
Shu‐li You
#105988
Overall Influence
#1943
Jacek Klinowski
#106015
Overall Influence
#1944
Augustin Scalbert
#106079
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
#1945
Janusz Leon Wiśniewski
#43083
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Janusz Leon Wiśniewski is a Polish scientist and writer mostly known for his novel S@motność w Sieci translated into English as Loneliness on the Net. Wiśniewski holds a Master in Physics and Master in Economics, both qualifications obtained from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, PhD in Information Technology from Warsaw University of Technology and Habilitation in Chemistry from the Technical University of Łódź. He is one of the authors of the computer program AutoNom, a naming tool for organic substances in the IUPAC nomenclature . Currently Wiśniewski lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany.
Go to Profile#1946
Hermann Stetter
#106158
Overall Influence
#1947
Andrew Tennent Mcphail
#106162
Overall Influence
#1948
Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh
#73078
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh is a research scientist/academician in the domain of interdisciplinary chemistry, and the former Director of the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology. He is known for his studies on supramolecular assemblies, organogels, photoresponsive materials, chemosensory and security materials systems and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific ...
Go to Profile#1949
Harry S. Mosher
#106220
Overall Influence
#1950
Marco Valgimigli
#106221
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (53 years)
