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,
#2601
William M. Deen
#121177
Overall Influence
#2602
Suse Broyde
#53827
Overall Influence
Suse Broyde is an American chemical biologist who is a Professor of Biology and Affiliate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that process DNA damage induced by environmental and endogenous carcinogens, notably mutagenesis and repair.
Go to Profile#2603
Dean S. Tarbell
#110871
Overall Influence
1913 - 1999 (86 years)
Dean Stanley Tarbell was an American chemist. Tarbell was notable for his research of detection methods of chemical warfare agents during World War II, his discovery of new types of organic chemicals , and his synthesis of anti-malarial drugs. Tarbell was chairman of the chemistry department at University of Rochester, Charles Fredrick Houghton professor of Chemistry a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a recipient of Dexter Award of the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society a recipient of Ch...
Go to Profile#2604
Rex Richards
#61321
Overall Influence
1922 - 2019 (97 years)
Sir Rex Edward Richards was a British scientist and academic. He served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and as a director of the Leverhulme Trust. Education Richards was educated at Colyton Grammar School, and became the first pupil from the school to attend the University of Oxford when he went up to St John's College, Oxford in January 1942. He was awarded a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in 1945 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1948.
Go to Profile#2605
Christine Wiedinmyer
#83570
Overall Influence
Christine Wiedinmyer is an American atmospheric chemist who is research scientist in the Atmospheric Chemistry Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. She has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#2606
Jordi Llorca
#121239
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
#2607
Hiroyuki Nishide
#121242
Overall Influence
#2608
Bill Wakeham
#81642
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Sir William Arnot Wakeham FREng is a British chemical engineer. From 2001 to 2009 he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. Education Wakeham received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics at Exeter University.
Go to Profile#2609
Chu-luo Yang
#121275
Overall Influence
#2610
Leonard E. Mortenson
#121299
Overall Influence
#2611
Alexander Silberberg
#121315
Overall Influence
#2612
Frank Wania
#121318
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
#2613
Shaoyin Jiang
#121347
Overall Influence
#2614
Jesse C. Rabinowitz
#121377
Overall Influence
#2615
Jonathan Wilker
#74207
Overall Influence
Jonathan Wilker is an American scientist, engineer, and educator who focuses on developing marine animal-inspired underwater adhesives for use in surgery, construction, and other applications. His work has been profiled by The New York Times, National Public Radio, Popular Science, and his research findings appear in many scientific journals, such as Nature, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. He is a professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he teaches courses in inorganic chemistry and bioinorganic chemistry. Wilker has rec...
Go to Profile#2616
Bernd Nowack
#121459
Overall Influence
#2617
Robert De Levie
#121476
Overall Influence
#2618
Christian L. Pedersen
#121488
Overall Influence
#2619
Zhao Yufen
#94143
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Zhao Yufen is a Chinese chemist at the college of chemistry and chemical engineering at Xiamen University. She has been an outspoken critic of chemical plants. She was the youngest female member elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#2620
Olga Martín‐belloso
#121540
Overall Influence
#2621
Christoph Weder
#116965
Overall Influence
Christoph Weder is the former director of the Adolphe Merkle Institute at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and a professor of polymer chemistry and materials. He is best known for his work on stimuli-responsive polymers, polymeric materials that change one or more of their properties when exposed to external cues. His research is focused on the development, investigation, and application of functional materials, in particular stimuli-responsive and bio-inspired polymers.
Go to Profile#2622
Charles R. Goldman
#46869
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (95 years)
Charles Remington Goldman is an American limnologist and ecologist. Education and career Goldman graduated from the University of Illinois with B.A. in geology in 1952 and M.S. in zoology in 1955. He received his Ph.D. in limnology-fisheries in 1958 from the University of Michigan. From 1957 to 1958 he was a Fisheries Research Biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska. At the University of California, Davis he became in 1958 an instructor and was promoted in 1966 to full professor of zoology. There he was from 1966 to 1969, and from 1990 to 1991 he was the founding director of the Institute of Ecology and from 1971 as Distinguished Professor of Limnology.
Go to Profile#2623
Ora Kedem
#62210
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (101 years)
Ora Kedem is professor emerita at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a recipient of the Israel Prize for life sciences. In 2005, Kedem was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the thermodynamics of irreversible transport processes and the development of separation processes for the treatment of water and wastewater.
Go to Profile#2624
Florian Müller-Plathe
#117039
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Florian Müller-Plathe is a German theoretical chemist and professor for theoretical physical chemistry at Technische Universität Darmstadt. Academic career Müller-Plathe studied chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany and obtained his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, under the guidance of Geerd Diercksen. He spent several years as a post-doctoral researcher at Daresbury Laboratory, UK, and at ETH Zurich, Switzerland , with Wilfred F. van Gunsteren, where he was awarded his habilitation in physical chemistry in 1994. He led a resea...
Go to Profile#2625
Robert Cecil Brown
#121581
Overall Influence
#2626
Zafra M. Lerman
#70567
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
Zafra M. Lerman is an American chemist, educator, and humanitarian. She is the President of the Malta Conferences Foundation, which aims to promote peace by bringing together scientists from otherwise hostile countries to discuss science and foster international scientific and technical collaboration. From 1986 to 2010, she chaired the American Chemical Society's Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. She has been successful in preventing executions, releasing prisoners of conscience from jail and bringing dissidents to freedom. She is the recipient of many awards for education and science diplomacy, including the 1999 Presidential Award from U.S.
Go to Profile#2627
Mauro Maccarrone
#121597
Overall Influence
#2628
Cornelis Kluft
#121610
Overall Influence
#2629
Teruo Matsuura
#121645
Overall Influence
#2630
Brian J. Hathaway
#121647
Overall Influence
#2631
Tony Ryan
#88177
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Anthony John Ryan is an English polymer chemist and sustainability leader at the University of Sheffield. He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university's Faculty of Science from 2008 until 2016, and is currently Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures. He delivered the 2002 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and has appeared on programmes including the BBC Radio 4 comedy and popular science series The Infinite Monkey Cage. He has collaborated on a range of arts and sciences projects with Professor Helen Storey from the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London...
Go to Profile#2632
Daniel G Anderson
#121665
Overall Influence
#2633
David B. Seligson
#121702
Overall Influence
#2634
Hans Jürgen Bestmann
#121732
Overall Influence
1925 - 2005 (80 years)
#2635
Charles H. Williams
#121774
Overall Influence
#2636
Albert A. Koelmans
#121792
Overall Influence
#2637
Tehshik Yoon
#121797
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Tehshik Peter Yoon is a Canadian-born chemist who studies the new reaction methods for organic synthesis with the use of catalysis. Yoon currently is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the chemistry department. For his contributions to science, he has received numerous awards including the Beckman Young Investigator Award and National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Go to Profile#2638
William Graeme Laver
#121809
Overall Influence
#2639
Perumalsamy Ramasamy
#121830
Overall Influence
#2640
John J. Eisch
#121838
Overall Influence
#2641
Jing‑li Luo
#121844
Overall Influence
#2642
Norman J. Wagner
#107560
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Norman J. Wagner is an American engineer, currently the UNIDEL Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering at the University of Delaware. He holds a joint professorship to the Department of Physics and Astronomy as well as a professorship in the Department of Biomechanics and Movement Science.
Go to Profile#2643
Mohamed Hashish
#11534
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Mohamed Hashish is an Egyptian-born research scientist best known as the father of the abrasive water jet cutter. Youth and schooling Mohamed Hashish was born in Alexandria, Egypt to Ahmed Hashish and Zeinab Amin. Mohamed Hashish completed his elementary and high school education in Kafr El Dawwar. He subsequently attended the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University where he obtained a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering with honors. After serving as a teaching assistant for three years in the same department, 25-year-old Mohamed Hashish accepted a scholarship offer from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Go to Profile#2644
Floyd E. Romesberg
#76937
Overall Influence
Floyd E. Romesberg is an American biotechnologist, biochemist, and geneticist formerly at Scripps Research in San Diego, California. He is known for leading the team that created the first Unnatural Base Pair , thus expanding the genetic alphabet of four letters to six in 2012, the first semi-synthetic organism in 2014, and the first functional semi-synthetic organism that can reproduce its genetic material in successive offspring, in 2017. He left Scripps after a Title IX investigation.
Go to Profile#2645
Homer Jacobson
#61298
Overall Influence
1922 - Present (103 years)
Homer Jacobson is a former chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, New York City. In the 1950s he illustrated basic self-replication in artificial life with a model train set. A seed "organism" consisting of a "head" and "tail" boxcar could use the simple rules of the system to consistently create new "organisms" identical to itself, so long as there was a random pool of new boxcars to draw from.
Go to Profile#2646
Jerry Lin
#88404
Overall Influence
Dr. Jerry Y.S. Lin is a Regents' Professor of Chemical Engineering in School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy at the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, US. He publishes papers under the names “Y.S. Lin” or "Jerry Y.S. Lin". From 2006 to 2009, he served as the Chemical Engineering Department Chair at Arizona State University, and now directs the Membrane and Energy Laboratory at ASU.
Go to Profile#2647
Mark S. Ghiorso
#54428
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Mark S. Ghiorso is an American geochemist who resides in Seattle, Washington. He is best known for creating MELTS, a software tool for thermodynamic modeling of phase equilibria in magmatic systems.
Go to Profile#2648
Richard D. Noble
#121942
Overall Influence
#2649
Enrico Traversa
#121968
Overall Influence
#2650
Steven A Benner
#122029
Overall Influence
