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,
#2001
Joseph C. Muhler
#73363
Overall Influence
1923 - 1996 (73 years)
Joseph Charles Muhler was an American biochemist and dentist who was responsible for the development of Crest Toothpaste. Early life and education Muhler was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He attended Indiana University from 1942 to 1944 until he was drafted into the Navy. He returned to Indiana University as a dental student through the support of the Navy. In 1948, he received his D.D.S and in 1951, he received his Ph.D. in chemistry. He joined the IU faculty in 1951 as an assistant professor. In 1978, he was named research professor of dental science and director of the dentistry's research institute.
Go to Profile#2002
Philip J. Stephens
#107563
Overall Influence
#2003
Augustine Ong
#84354
Overall Influence
Augustine Ong Soon Hock is a Malaysian scientist, academic, and board member. He is internationally recognized in the field of lipid chemistry. Education Hock graduated from the University of Malaya and King's College London . He is a student of St. Francis Institution, in Malacca.
Go to Profile#2004
William C. Drinkard
#90749
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
William Charles Drinkard, Jr. was an American industrial chemist and the inventor of the catalytic hydrocyanation process for making adiponitrile, a key intermediate in nylon production. Scientific education Drinkard received a Bachelor of Arts degree at Huntingdon College in 1950, followed by a Master of Science at Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1952. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of Illinois in 1956. Initially, he was an assistant professor at UCLA prior to becoming an industrial research scientist at the DuPont Co at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delawar...
Go to Profile#2005
Alexander George Harrison
#107632
Overall Influence
#2006
Kieron Burke
#107650
Overall Influence
#2007
Tsoo E. King
#107670
Overall Influence
#2008
Matthias Ballauff
#104226
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Matthias Ballauff is a German chemist and physicist, and is a professor of physics at the Free University of Berlin. His postdoctoral research and training was directed by Paul Flory. He contributed to various areas of physical chemistry, in particular to polymer science, colloidal chemistry and nanomaterials, as well as to soft matter physics. Ballauff is particularly known for having developed new catalyst materials in the form of functionalized metallic nanoparticles dispersed in liquid phase, which can greatly speed up the reaction kinetics of organic molecules.
Go to Profile#2009
Michael Fischbach
#62171
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (45 years)
Michael Andrew Fischbach is an American chemist, microbiologist, and geneticist. He is an associate professor of Bioengineering and ChEM-H Faculty Fellow at Stanford University and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator.
Go to Profile#2010
N. M. P.n. Ross Markovic
#107756
Overall Influence
#2011
Anne Klibanski
#107777
Overall Influence
#2012
Liberato Manna
#107812
Overall Influence
#2013
Charles Vacanti
#12582
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Charles Alfred "Chuck" Vacanti is a researcher in tissue engineering and stem cells and the Vandam/Covino Professor of Anesthesiology, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School. He is a former head of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, now retired.
Go to Profile#2014
Ilya Moiseev
#97920
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
Ilya Iosifovich Moiseev was a Soviet and Russian chemist. An expert in both kinetics and the coordination chemistry of transition metals, he made significant advances in metal-complex catalysis. Biography Moiseev was born in Moscow. He studied organic chemistry at Moscow State University of Fine Chemical Technologies . After graduating in 1952, his first jobs were as an engineer, a junior researcher in physical chemistry, then a senior researcher in organic chemistry. From 1963, he worked at the N. S. Kurnakov of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Moscow, as head of the laboratory of metal-complex catalysis and coordination chemistry.
Go to Profile#2015
Virgil Boekelheide
#105044
Overall Influence
1919 - 2003 (84 years)
Virgil Boekelheide was an American organic chemist and a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Oregon. He is known for his work on aromatic compounds, particularly cyclophanes, and a name reaction, the Boekelheide reaction, is named after him.
Go to Profile#2016
Kevin K. Lehmann
#51448
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Kevin K. Lehmann is an American chemist and spectroscopist at the University of Virginia, best known for his work in the area of intramolecular and collisional dynamics, and for his advances in the method of cavity ring down spectroscopy .
Go to Profile#2017
Avram Goldstein
#69048
Overall Influence
1919 - 2012 (93 years)
Avram Goldstein was a professor of pharmacology who was one of the discoverers of endorphins and a noted expert on addiction. Goldstein established the Pharmacology Department at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was awarded the Franklin Medal and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He was an atheist.
Go to Profile#2018
Enric Brillas
#107894
Overall Influence
#2019
Lars Skattebøl
#94819
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (98 years)
Lars Skattebøl FRSC is a Norwegian scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Oslo. The Skattebøl rearrangement, a chemical reaction, was named after his discovery. He was born in Bærum.
Go to Profile#2020
Bernard L. Shaw
#107963
Overall Influence
#2021
Chi Ming Chan
#90162
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Chi Ming Chan, is a Chinese chemical engineer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology . Education Chan obtained his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1975. He then pursued research and received his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1979 respectively.
Go to Profile#2022
Meyya Meyyappan
#108006
Overall Influence
#2023
Michael Laing
#73444
Overall Influence
Michael Laing taught chemistry at the University of Natal, Durban from 1964 until he retired as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in 1997. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in the field of x-ray crystallography, specializing in the determination of molecular structure. He has published papers on bonding, coordination compounds, and molecular geometry; and many articles in US and UK about the periodic table, and chemical education.
Go to Profile#2024
W. Keith Hall
#108038
Overall Influence
#2025
Joachim Seelig
#53582
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Joachim Heinrich Seelig is a German physical chemist and specialist in NMR Spectroscopy. He is one of the founding fathers of the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. He reached emeritus status in 2012.
Go to Profile#2026
Katsumi Kaneko
#107730
Overall Influence
Katsumi Kaneko was born in Yokohama , Japan. He graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1969 from Yokohama National University , Yokohama. He received a master's degree in physical chemistry at The University of Tokyo, in 1971. He received Doctor of Science in solid state chemistry in 1978 for submitted thesis from The University of Tokyo, entitled “Electrical Properties and Defect Structures of Iron Hydroxide Oxide
Go to Profile#2027
Vivek Ranade
#77437
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Vivek Vinayak Ranade is an Indian chemical engineer, entrepreneur and a professor of chemical engineering at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of the Queen's University, Belfast. He is a former chair professor and deputy director of the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. He is known for his work on bubble column, stirred and trickle-bed reactors and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy. and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India ...
Go to Profile#2028
Garikapati Narahari Sastry
#39249
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Garikapati Narahari Sastry is an Indian chemist. He has taken charge as Director of CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam on 19 February 2019. After taking charge as the Director, he has worked towards converting knowledge in the areas of computational modelling and Artificial intelligence from basic to translational research, by working closely with society and industry. Ultimately, revitalizing the strength of science and technology is essential in achieving the self-reliant and strong India. In the era of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, combining our traditional wisdom w...
Go to Profile#2029
Stephen R. Langhoff
#108185
Overall Influence
#2030
Mark H. Engelhard
#108215
Overall Influence
#2031
Kenneth W. Bruland
#108253
Overall Influence
#2032
Shou‐zhuo Yao
#108265
Overall Influence
#2033
Alfred B. C. Anderson
#108289
Overall Influence
#2034
Burtron H. Davis
#108361
Overall Influence
#2035
Viktor Zhivopistsev
#103919
Overall Influence
1915 - 2006 (91 years)
Viktor Petrovich Zhivopistsev was a Soviet and Russian chemist. Honored Scientist of the RSFSR . Biography Zhivopistsev was born on 22 September 1915 in the village Sabarka in Suksunsky District of Perm Oblast . After graduating with honours from the Okhansk Pedagogical College in 1933, he entered the Department of Chemistry of Perm State University and graduated in 1938. After that he stayed at university and worked as an assistant at the Department of Analytical Chemistry.
Go to Profile#2036
Jong Seung Kim
#108383
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#2037
Keith Fagnou
#101206
Overall Influence
1971 - 2009 (38 years)
Keith Fagnou was a Canadian organic chemist and studied education and was a professor of chemistry at University of Saskatchewan and associate professor of organic chemistry at the University of Ottawa. His research focused on developing new reactions that avoid unnecessary activation of substrates and that can instead directly functionalize C–H bonds of simple molecules and introduce C–C bonds.
Go to Profile#2038
Stanford Robert Ovshinsky
#108392
Overall Influence
#2039
Donald A. Bryant
#108403
Overall Influence
Donald A. Bryant is an American bioscientist, currently the Ernest Pollard Chair of Biotechnology at the Eberly College of Science, Pennsylvania State University and a published author. He is widely cited by his peers and widely held in libraries.
Go to Profile#2040
Ilan Marek
#73026
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Ilan Marek is a bi-national French-Israeli chemist. He is particularly interested in the design and development of new stereo- and enantioselective strategies for the creation of several contiguous stereogenic centres and by the functionalization of organic molecules at the least reactive position. These processes are carried out in a single chemical step and lead to the synthesis of complex molecular structures. Understanding reaction mechanisms provides insight into the origins of stereoselectivity and governs optimization for the development of the most effective and general methodologies ...
Go to Profile#2041
Oleg Jardetzky
#108457
Overall Influence
#2042
Martin Schröder
#91907
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Martin Schröder in an inorganic chemist. He is Vice President and Dean for the Faculty of Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester since June 2015. He served previously as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science from 2011 to 2015 and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Nottingham from 1995 to 2015.
Go to Profile#2043
Peter Gray
#92150
Overall Influence
1926 - 2012 (86 years)
Peter Gray FRS was Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds and subsequently Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Early life and education Gray attended Newport High School. Gray was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Natural Sciences in 1946 and a PhD in Chemistry three years later.
Go to Profile#2044
Dean Astumian
#88225
Overall Influence
Raymond Dean Astumian is an American physical chemist. Astumian earned a bachelor's degree, followed by a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1978 and 1982. He obtained a doctorate in mathematical science and physical chemistry from the same institution the next year. Astumian is a professor at the University of Maine. In 2000, he was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society "[f]or fundamental contributions to understanding the thermodynamics and mechanism of transduction of energy from a non-equilibrium chemical reaction to drive directed transpo...
Go to Profile#2045
Jean Roncali
#108554
Overall Influence
#2046
Yang
#108596
Overall Influence
#2047
Melvin E. Andersen
#108620
Overall Influence
#2048
Jiannian N. Yao
#108647
Overall Influence
#2049
Zhuo Renxi
#94058
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Zhuo Renxi was a Chinese chemist who specialized in biomaterial research. He served as professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry of Wuhan University. He was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering.
Go to Profile#2050
Walter Gratzer
#41339
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (93 years)
Walter Bruno Gratzer was a German-born British biophysical chemist. He was professor of biophysical chemistry at King's College London and an author and reviewer of popular science. He was the first Nature news correspondent appointed by editor John Maddox. Oliver Sacks of Nature writes that his reviews have high literary quality and show knowledge of a wide range of topics. He was a friend of James D. Watson, and wrote the introduction and afterword of his A Passion for DNA.
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