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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Chemistry,
#2551
Lara Mahal
#47600
Overall Influence
Lara K. Mahal is an American chemist who is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is also a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Alberta. She is notable both for her pioneering work establishing lectin microarrays as a new technology for glycomics, her work on miRNA regulation of glycosylation and her graduate work with Carolyn R. Bertozzi on unnatural carbohydrate incorporation. Work in her laboratory focuses on understanding the role of carbohydrates in human health using systems- and chemical biology-based ap...
Go to Profile#2552
Ernest Wenkert
#120053
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Ernest Wenkert, was an Austrian-born American chemist. Wenkert received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from the University of Washington. In 1951, he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from Harvard University, where he studied under Robert Burns Woodward. From 1951, he served as a faculty member at Iowa State University, and was in 1961 appointed as the Herman T. Briscoe Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University. In 1974, he took the position as E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemistry at Rice University, also serving as chair of the chemistry department. In 1980, he moved to...
Go to Profile#2553
Markus Reiher
#120066
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (54 years)
#2554
Ashutosh Sharma
#104908
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Ashutosh Sharma is an Institute Chair Professor and C V Seshadri Chair Professor at the Department of chemical engineering of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He is the founding Coordinator of DST Thematic Unit of Excellence on Soft Nanofabrication and Chairman of Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He is best known for his pioneering research work in the areas of colloids, thin film, interfaces, adhesion, patterning and in the fabrication and application of self-assembled nano-structures.
Go to Profile#2555
George Albert Samara
#120127
Overall Influence
#2556
Winnie Wong-Ng
#40814
Overall Influence
Winnie Kwai-Wah Wong-Ng is a Chinese-American physical chemist. She is a research chemist at the ceramics division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research includes energy applications, crystallography, thermoelectric standards, metrology, and data, sorbent materials for sustainability, and high throughput combinatorial approach for novel materials discovery and property optimization for energy conversion applications. She is a fellow of the International Centre for Diffraction Data, American Ceramic Society, American Crystallographic Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#2557
L. -f. Liu
#120132
Overall Influence
#2558
Marcos N Eberlin
#120140
Overall Influence
#2559
Alexandre Tkatchenko
#120171
Overall Influence
#2560
Kimberly Prather
#107893
Overall Influence
Kimberly A. Prather is an American atmospheric chemist. She is a distinguished chair in atmospheric chemistry and a distinguished professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and department of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego. Her work focuses on how humans are influencing the atmosphere and climate. In 2019, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for technologies that transformed understanding of aerosols and their impacts on air quality, climate, and human health. In 2020, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She is also ...
Go to Profile#2561
Werner H. Baur
#120217
Overall Influence
#2562
Dimitri Gidaspow
#120231
Overall Influence
#2563
Jan Dirk Kramers
#120241
Overall Influence
#2564
Peter J. Knowles
#120259
Overall Influence
#2565
N. W. (nathaniel Warren) Alcock
#120262
Overall Influence
#2566
Pierangelo Metrangolo
#107293
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (53 years)
Pierangelo Metrangolo is an Italian chemist with interests in supramolecular chemistry and functional materials. He also has an interest in crystal engineering, in particular by using the halogen bond. He is Vice-President and President-Elect of the Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division of IUPAC.
Go to Profile#2567
Randall V Martin
#120293
Overall Influence
#2568
Larry Robinson
#85566
Overall Influence
Larry Robinson is an American professor and academic administrator, who is the current President of Florida A&M University, a historically black university. Career Robinson, an African American, started his college education at LeMoyne-Owen College and graduated from Memphis State University now the University of Memphis, in 1979 with summa cum laude honors and a B.S. degree in chemistry. He received a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1984. In that same year, he joined the research staff of Oak Ridge National Laboratory , where he was a research scientist and served as a group leader, of the neutron activation analysis facility.
Go to Profile#2569
Michael R. Baer
#120315
Overall Influence
#2570
Kazimierz Boratyński
#73945
Overall Influence
1906 - 1991 (85 years)
Kazimierz Boratyński was a Polish chemist. He specialised in the field of soil science. In his research work, he dealt with the chemistry of mineral fertilisers, soil chemistry and physics, humus processes in soil, and soil geography.
Go to Profile#2571
Hans‐rolf Schulten
#120376
Overall Influence
#2572
Arthur Israel Vogel
#120395
Overall Influence
#2573
Radoslav R. Adžić
#120503
Overall Influence
#2574
Holm-kjetil Holmsen
#120512
Overall Influence
#2575
Richard A. Vaia
#120588
Overall Influence
#2576
Paul Nealey
#103688
Overall Influence
Paul Franklin Nealey is an American molecular engineer. Nealey studied chemical engineering at Rice University, then earned a doctorate in the subject from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He undertook postdoctoral research at Harvard University before working for Solvay et Compagnie in Brussels. During his teaching career at University of Wisconsin–Madison, Nealey received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1997, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2001, and was subsequently named Shoemaker Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He was granted fellowsh...
Go to Profile#2577
Frank A. L. Anet
#120634
Overall Influence
#2578
Everett Shock
#66607
Overall Influence
Everett L. Shock is an American geochemist and former experimental rock singer and songwriter. He is currently a professor with joint appointments in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and School of Molecular Sciences at Arizona State University. Shock and his research group work within a framework of chemical thermodynamics applied to field, experimental, and theoretical geochemical investigations to understand how geochemical processes provide energy to support microbial life on Earth and potentially on other ocean worlds.
Go to Profile#2579
Julia Kalow
#115236
Overall Influence
Julia Ann Kalow is an assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. She is primarily a synthetic chemist, who works on polymers, photochemistry and tissue engineering. She is interested in synthetic strategies that can turn molecular structure and chemical reactivity into macroscopic properties. She has been awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Thieme Award and was selected by the University of Chicago as a Rising Star in Chemistry.
Go to Profile#2580
Israel H. Silman
#120730
Overall Influence
#2581
Michael J. Prather
#120739
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
#2582
Stuart Linn
#120778
Overall Influence
#2583
Keld Danø
#120782
Overall Influence
#2584
Thorsten Bach
#120789
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
#2585
Jennifer Garden
#90875
Overall Influence
Jennifer "Jenni" A. Garden is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, where she leads a research group investigating how catalyst design and organometallic chemistry can be used to develop sustainable and degradable plastics using renewable sources.
Go to Profile#2586
Tomislav Rovis
#120839
Overall Influence
#2587
Anna Lee Waldo
#64067
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (100 years)
Anna Lee Waldo is an American historical fiction author. She is most noted for her novel Sacajawea. Biography Anna Lee Waldo was born February 16, 1925, in Great Falls, Montana, and grew up in Whitefish. She claims her interest in the subject of Native Americans began as a child when she collected spear points on the shores of Whitefish Lake in Montana and listened to stories of Blackfeet and Crow grandmothers. Growing up though, she was interested and had a talent for science; graduating from Montana State University majoring in chemistry. She attended the University of Maryland gaining a master's degree in organic chemistry, where she also met her future husband, Willis H.
Go to Profile#2588
S. Ravi P. Silva
#120861
Overall Influence
#2589
Roderick A. Capaldi
#120866
Overall Influence
#2590
Alexander Ivanovich Popov
#120873
Overall Influence
#2591
Andreas Züttel
#120894
Overall Influence
#2592
Yoshio Sakka
#120908
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#2593
Cornelis Altona
#120921
Overall Influence
#2594
Jan V. Sengers
#120082
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (94 years)
Jan Vincent Sengers is a Dutch–American physicist and a distinguished university professor emeritus at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology of the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. He is known for seminal contributions in critical and non-equilibrium phenomena in soft condensed matter.
Go to Profile#2595
Ivor Rex Harris
#120999
Overall Influence
#2596
Peter Wardman
#121047
Overall Influence
#2597
Curt Wentrup
#121059
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
#2598
Walter Edgar Harris
#90978
Overall Influence
1915 - 2011 (96 years)
Walter E. Harris was a Canadian analytical chemist and academic. Born near Wetaskiwin, Alberta, he received Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the University of Alberta and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Minnesota during World War II. Harris returned to the University of Alberta in 1946 to teach, and was a professor until 1980, at which time he was granted the title professor emeritus. He served as the Chair of the Department of Chemistry from 1974 to 1980. In 1998, he was honoured by being made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Go to Profile#2599
Huw O. Pritchard
#117308
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Huw Owen Pritchard was a Welsh-born Canadian chemist who was a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at York University.
Go to Profile#2600
Archie E. Hamielec
#121149
Overall Influence
