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,
#2201
John D. Hoffman
#57289
Overall Influence
1922 - 2004 (82 years)
John Drake Hoffman was an American chemist and author who was awarded the Soldier's Medal, the United States Army's highest award for an act of valor in a non-combat situation, and the only one awarded to a member of the Manhattan District. After the war he worked for the National Bureau of Standards, becoming the director of its national measurements laboratory. He was a professor and director of the engineering materials program at the University of Maryland from 1982 to 1985, director of the Michigan Molecular Institute, and a professor of materials science and engineering at Johns Hopkins...
Go to Profile#2202
Arthur B. Metzner
#81927
Overall Influence
1927 - 2006 (79 years)
Arthur B. Metzner was a Canadian born United States professor of chemical engineering and noted rheologist. Life Metzner was born 13 April 1927 in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan and grew up in Barrhead, Alberta. He gained a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta in 1948 and a doctorate Sc.D from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951. He joined the faculty of University of Delaware in 1953 and remained there until his retirement in 1993. He became a full professor in 1961, and in 1991 the H. Fletcher Brown Professor of Chemical Engineering, which title he held emeritus until his death.
Go to Profile#2203
Lynda Soderholm
#42575
Overall Influence
Lynda Soderholm is a physical chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory with a specialty in f-block elements. She is a senior scientist and the lead of the Actinide, Geochemistry & Separation Sciences Theme within Argonne's Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division. Her specific role is the Separation Science group leader within Heavy Element Chemistry and Separation Science , directing basic research focused on low-energy methods for isolating lanthanide and actinide elements from complex mixtures. She has made fundamental contributions to understanding f-block ...
Go to Profile#2204
Ullrich Scherf
#112017
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#2205
Arvind Varma
#74692
Overall Influence
1947 - 2019 (72 years)
Arvind Varma was the R. Games Slayter Distinguished Professor, School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. His research interests are in chemical and catalytic reaction engineering, and new energy sources.
Go to Profile#2206
Leonard. Jarett
#112044
Overall Influence
#2207
Jean-Claude Bradley
#62229
Overall Influence
2000 - 2014 (14 years)
Jean-Claude Bradley was a chemist who actively promoted Open Science in chemistry, including at the White House, for which he was awarded the Blue Obelisk award in 2007. He coined the term "Open Notebook science". He died in May 2014. A memorial symposium was held July 14, 2014 at Cambridge University, UK.
Go to Profile#2208
Jorge Gardea-Torresdey
#26597
Overall Influence
Jorge Gardea-Torresdey is a Mexican-American chemist and academic. He is the Dudley Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso . In 2002, he led a team that discovered the ability of alfalfa to take up gold from soil and to store it in the form of nanoparticles.
Go to Profile#2209
Seik weng Ng
#112120
Overall Influence
#2210
Joachim Jose
#69758
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Joachim Jose is professor for pharmaceutical and medical chemistry at the University of Münster, and focuses primarily on the research of bacterial development of drugs and biocatalysts by autodisplay.
Go to Profile#2211
Silvio Aime
#112166
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
#2212
Jiang Hualiang
#111814
Overall Influence
1965 - 2022 (57 years)
Jiang Hualiang was a Chinese pharmacist who served as director of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Jiang was a member of the China Democratic League. He was a member of the 10th and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Go to Profile#2213
Thomas R. Cundari
#104157
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Thomas R. Cundari is regents professor of chemistry at the University of North Texas and co-director of the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling . Career Dr. Cundari received his B.S. in 1986 from Pace University in New York City and his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Florida. From 1990–1991 he was a postdoctoral fellow at North Dakota State University. After serving 11 years on the faculty at the University of Memphis, Dr. Cundari joined the UNT faculty in Fall, 2002.
Go to Profile#2214
S. Morris Kupchan
#112196
Overall Influence
#2215
Nelson Durán
#112201
Overall Influence
#2216
Gabriel T. Csanady
#112202
Overall Influence
#2217
Larry Taylor
#106640
Overall Influence
1938 - 2017 (79 years)
Lawrence August Taylor was an American geochemist and petrologist working at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the University of Tennessee. He is the founder of the UT Planetary Geosciences Institute and was also its director until late 2017.
Go to Profile#2218
Arnold Thackray
#63813
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Arnold Thackray is an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Initially an English chemist, he became an entrepreneurial American. Thackray founded or extended a series of institutions, initially in Philadelphia , then on a wider scale within the History of Science Society and through Science History Consultants, and the Life Sciences Foundation.
Go to Profile#2219
Robert C. Weast
#112234
Overall Influence
#2220
Toshinobu Higashimura
#112250
Overall Influence
#2221
Eric R. Bittner
#82111
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Eric R. Bittner is a theoretical chemist, physicist, and distinguished professor of chemical physics at the University of Houston. Biography Bittner obtained his B.S. in chemistry and in physics from Valparaiso University in 1988. From 1988 to 1994 he worked with John C. Light at the University of Chicago and obtained his Ph.D. thesis in 1994 on Quantum Theories of Energy Exchange at the Gas-Surface Interface. Subsequently, he worked at the University of Texas at Austin until 1996 as postdoctoral fellow of the National Science Foundation, with Peter J. Rossky as his mentor. He was visiting scholar at Stanford University from 1995 to 1997, with Hans C.
Go to Profile#2222
John I. Hedges
#112344
Overall Influence
1946 - 2022 (76 years)
#2223
John Derek Woollins
#87539
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
John Derek Woollins is a chemist who was Provost of Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi having previously been Vice Principal , Provost of St Leonard's College, at the University of St Andrews. Woollins' reagent is named after him.
Go to Profile#2224
Steven Zimmerman
#60214
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Steven Charles Zimmerman is an American organic chemist who is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Early life He was born in Chicago in 1957, the second son of organic chemist Howard Zimmerman. He attended public schools in Madison, Wisconsin where he received a B.S. degree in 1979 working for Hans J. Reich. In 1983 he received a Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York City where he worked with Ronald Breslow on pyridoxamine enzyme analogs.
Go to Profile#2225
Eugene I. Shakhnovich
#112369
Overall Influence
#2226
Clifford Kubiak
#99351
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Clifford P. Kubiak is an American inorganic chemist, currently a Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Harold C. Urey Chair in Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Over the course of his career, Kubiak has published over 200 scientific articles. He has also received the American Chemical Society Award in Inorganic Chemistry, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Chemical Society. In 2020 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#2227
Christopher Bielawski
#94874
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Christopher William Bielawski is a distinguished professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology and group leader of the Synthesis Group in the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials. His research in synthesis and polymer chemistry has resulted in more than 290 publications and multiple patents.
Go to Profile#2228
Irving Shain
#110618
Overall Influence
1926 - 2018 (92 years)
Irving Shain was a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He served as Chancellor of the university from 1977 to 1986. Born in Seattle, Washington, Shain served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. He then attended the University of Washington, where he received his BS in 1949 and his Ph.D. in 1952, both in chemistry. He began teaching chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1952, and later served as the vice chancellor from 1970 to 1975. From 1975 to 1977, he went to the University of Washington in order to serve as the vice president of academic affairs, before returning to UW–Madison to become the chancellor in 1977.
Go to Profile#2229
Alessandro Gandini
#112434
Overall Influence
#2230
Alexander Filippou
#111195
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Alexander C. Filippou has been a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Bonn since 2005. Biography He studied chemistry at the Technical University of Munich from 1976 to 1982, receiving his diploma in 1982 with the thesis "Synthesis of anionic carbyne complexes", in the group of Professor Dr. E.O. Fischer. In 1984 he completed his dissertation "New pathways of synthesis of anionic ketene- and carbyne complexes of 16 Group elements through neutral substituted carbyne-carbonyl complexes" also in the group of Professor Dr. E.O. Fischer at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Technical University of Munich.
Go to Profile#2231
Jehane Ragai
#59392
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Jehane Noureldin Ragai is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the American University in Cairo . She is the author of the two editions of The Scientist and the Forger. The first edition, published in 2015 by Imperial College Press, was translated into Korean. The second edition, published in 2018 by World Scientific Publishing, was translated into Chinese. Her recent Textbook Technical Art History , published in 2021 by World Scientific Publishing, which she co-authored with Tamer Shoeib has won the "Most Promising New Textbook Award " by the Textbook and Academic Authors Association in th...
Go to Profile#2232
Hara P. Misra
#112479
Overall Influence
#2233
Geoffrey Sir Wilkinson
#112499
Overall Influence
#2234
José M. Bioucas-dias
#112546
Overall Influence
#2235
Peter B. Armentrout
#56622
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Peter B. Armentrout is a researcher in thermochemistry, kinetics, and dynamics of simple and complex chemical reactions. He is a Chemistry Professor at the University of Utah. Career Armentrout received his B.S. degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1975 and earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1980. During these studies he determined that much of the published information on thermodynamic states was not reliable, or was presented in differing formats. When he became a research professor he used this frustration as motivation to invent and construct the guided ion-beam tandem mass spectrometer, which provided highly accurate thermodynamic measurements.
Go to Profile#2236
John A. Gladysz
#112438
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
John A. Gladysz, an organometallic chemist, is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Dow Chair in Chemical Invention at Texas A&M University. Professor Gladysz is a native of the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. He obtained his B.S. degree from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University . He subsequently held faculty positions at UCLA and the University of Utah . He then accepted the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. In 2008, he returned to North America as a distinguished professor and holder of the Dow Chair in Chemic...
Go to Profile#2237
René Janssen
#44900
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
René A.J. Janssen is a Dutch chemist who is Professor of the Moleculair Materials and Nanosystems group within the department of Chemical engineering and Chemistry at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Go to Profile#2238
D. W. F. Van Krevelen
#112578
Overall Influence
#2239
Zhu Meifang
#96968
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Zhu Meifang is a Chinese materials scientist, former vice-president of Donghua University, and currently serving as its dean of School of Materials Science and Engineering. Education Zhu was born in Rugao, Jiangsu in August 1965. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemical fiber in 1986, a master's degree in chemical fiber in 1988, and a doctor's degree in materials science in 1999, all from China Textile University .
Go to Profile#2240
Robert J. P. Corriu
#112642
Overall Influence
#2241
Lyndon Emsley
#90810
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
David Lyndon Emsley FRSC is a British chemist specialising in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and a professor at EPFL . He was awarded the 2012 Grand Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer of the French Académie des Sciences and the 2015 Bourke Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Go to Profile#2242
Jean-marie A. Frère
#112750
Overall Influence
#2243
Francis J. Doyle III
#44557
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Francis "Frank" J. Doyle III is an American engineer and academic administrator. He is the dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Doyle is also affiliated with the Division of Sleep Medicine of Harvard Medical School. On December 15, 2022, it was announced that Doyle will serve as the 14th provost of Brown University starting in the 2023 academic year.
Go to Profile#2244
Jeffry D. Madura
#112849
Overall Influence
#2245
Ralph Louis Wain
#87173
Overall Influence
1911 - 2000 (89 years)
Ralph Louis Wain CBE FRS was a British agricultural chemist. He read Chemistry at the University of Sheffield on scholarship, and with first class honours degree, and a Master of Science and PhD. He was advised by G.M. Bennett.
Go to Profile#2246
Christiane Timmel
#104998
Overall Influence
Christiane Renate Timmel is a German chemist who is Director of the Centre for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance at the University of Oxford. Her group make use of electron-spin resonance to understand long-range structures in chemical and biological systems. Timmel was awarded the Tilden Prize on 2020 by the Royal Society of Chemistry for her contributions to electron-spin resonance.
Go to Profile#2247
Paul Herrling
#12096
Overall Influence
Paul Herrling is the head of corporate research at Novartis and the chairman of board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, Singapore since 2002. Prior to this, he was the head of Global Research of Novartis Pharma.
Go to Profile#2248
Tomoh Masaki
#113019
Overall Influence
#2249
Ueli Aebi
#113083
Overall Influence
#2250
Shaowei Chen
#113118
Overall Influence
