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).

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List of the most influential people in Chemistry,

#2751

Franklin Aigbirhio

#89465
Overall Influence
Franklin Imo Aigbirhio, is a Nigerian-born British chemist and academic specialising in biomedical imaging research. Since 2014 he has been the Professor of Molecular Imaging Chemistry at the University of Cambridge.
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#2752

Marianne Baudler

#124150
Overall Influence
1921 - 2003 (82 years)
Marianne Baudler was a German chemist. She is known for her research on phosphorus. Life Marianne Baudler was born in Stettin. She started studying Chemistry at the TH Dresden in April 1940 and finished her studies with a Diplom in 1943. From 1943 to 1946, she worked on her dissertation in the group of Franz Fehér at the University of Göttingen. Starting in 1949, Baudler performed research at the University of Cologne. In 1952, she finished her habilitation. In 1963 she became extraordinary professor at the University of Cologne. In 1968, the full professorship followed. From 1986 on, she was...
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#2753

Fabrizio Cavani

#124535
Overall Influence
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#2754

Josephus J. Heijnen

#124558
Overall Influence
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#2755

Shun‐ichi Murahashi

#124563
Overall Influence
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#2756

Goverdhan Mehta

#124567
Overall Influence
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#2757

Remko Marcel Boom

#124568
Overall Influence
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#2758

Bohumil Volesky

#124601
Overall Influence
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#2759

I. F. Islas Bernal

#124603
Overall Influence
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#2760

Eric Gerard Derouane

#124617
Overall Influence
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#2761

Abhik Ghosh

#81100
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Abhik Ghosh is an Indian inorganic chemist and materials scientist and a professor of chemistry at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Norway. Early life and education Abhik Ghosh was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, in 1964. He attended St. Lawrence High School and South Point High School . As a child, he learned Sanskrit from his grandmother Ila Ghosh , a language he still speaks and reads fluently.
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#2762

Hai-Lung Dai

#104308
Overall Influence
Hai-Lung Dai is a Taiwanese-born American physical chemist and university administrator. He currently is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Chemistry and Vice President for International Affairs at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
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#2763

Heinrich Lang

#124681
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
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#2764

Christel Marian

#117750
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Christel Maria Marian is a German chemist. She is a full professor and the director of the institute of theoretical and computational chemistry at the University of Düsseldorf. Education and professional life Marian studied chemistry in Cologne and Bonn. She finished her doctorate in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Sigrid D. Peyerimhoff in 1980. She did a postdoc in the Theoretical Physics Department of Stockholm University in the group of Per E. M. Siegbahn. She completed her habilitation at the University of Bonn in 1991. In 2001, she joined the University of Düsseldorf as a full professor.
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#2765

Barbara J. Garrison

#123215
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Barbara Jane Garrison is an American chemist who is emeritus professor at Pennsylvania State University. She is the former Shapiro Professor of Chemistry and head of the department. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Vacuum Society.
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#2766

Wing-yin Tsang

#124780
Overall Influence
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#2767

Kuniaki Nagayama

#124832
Overall Influence
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#2768

Bo G. Leckner

#124843
Overall Influence
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#2769

Andreas Prof Dr-in Seidel-morgenstern

#124865
Overall Influence
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#2770

Serge Cosnier

#124870
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
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#2771

Arun Kumar Ghosh

#124887
Overall Influence
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#2772

Jacques Lalevée

#124921
Overall Influence
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#2773

Naresh Dalal

#29516
Overall Influence
Naresh Dalal is a physical chemist who specializes in materials science. He is the Dirac Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University, where he is affiliated with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
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#2774

Thomas Rades

#124950
Overall Influence
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#2775

Sean Smith

#99943
Overall Influence
Sean Smith is the director of NCI Australia with a conjoint position of professor of computational nanomaterials science and technology at the Australian National University . Education and research Smith received a BSc and PhD in chemistry at University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand before postdoctoral work at University of California, Berkeley and the University of Göttingen .
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#2776

Judy Hirst

#39561
Overall Influence
Judy Hirst is a British scientist specialising in mitochondrial biology. She is Director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Early life and education Hirst grew up in Lepton, a village near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and attended King James's School and Greenhead College, Huddersfield. She studied for an M.A. in chemistry at St John's College, Oxford, and then was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1997, for research supervised by Fraser Armstrong on electron transport in redox enzymes.
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#2777

Eiji Yashima

#124986
Overall Influence
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#2778

Kristina Edström

#112454
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Kristina Edström is a Swedish Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University. She also serves as Head of the Ångström Advanced Battery Centre and has previously been both Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Science and Technology and Chair of the STandUp for Energy research programme.
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#2779

Grigoriy Yablonsky

Grigoriy Yablonsky
#71038
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Grigoriy Yablonsky is an expert in the area of chemical kinetics and chemical engineering, particularly in catalytic technology of complete and selective oxidation, which is one of the main driving forces of sustainable development.
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#2780

Bruce C. Garrett

#125029
Overall Influence
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#2781

Anderson Janotti

#125035
Overall Influence
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#2782

Thomas A. Darden

#125059
Overall Influence
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#2783

Ren‐geng Xiong

#125080
Overall Influence
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#2784

Kathleen C. Taylor

#68524
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Kathleen C. Taylor is a chemist who won the Garvan–Olin Medal in 1989, and is notable for developing catalytic converters for cars. Education Taylor attended Douglass College at Rutgers University, earning a bachelor's in chemistry in 1964. She completed her Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1968 at Northwestern University working with Robert Burwell, Jr. on the surface chemistry of catalysts. Following her Ph.D., she did postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh with Charles Kemball where she worked on the use of deuterium to track reactions on catalysts.
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#2785

Jeremy Hutson

#109006
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Jeremy Mark Hutson is noted for his research into ultra cold physics and he heads up the Cold Molecules Theory research group. His research led to his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society He is a fellow of the Institute of Physics and is currently Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Durham University.
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#2786

David L. Andrews

#113839
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
David Leslie Andrews, , is a British scientist appointed as Professor of Chemical Physics at the University of East Anglia, where he was the Head of Chemical Sciences and Physics, from 1996 to 1999.
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#2787

Wyndham John Albery

#125132
Overall Influence
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#2788

Jaqueline Kiplinger

Jaqueline Kiplinger
#87199
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Jaqueline Kiplinger is an American inorganic chemist who specializes in organometallic actinide chemistry. Over the course of her career, she has done extensive work with fluorocarbons and actinides. She is currently a Fellow of the Materials Synthesis and Integrated Devices group in the Materials Physics and Applications Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory . Her current research interests are focused on the development of chemistry for the United States’ national defense and energy needs.
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#2789

Cathleen Crudden

#60850
Overall Influence
Cathleen M. Crudden is a Canadian chemist. She is a Canada Research Chair in Metal Organic Chemistry at Queen's University at Kingston. In February 2021, she took up the role of Editor-in-chief at ACS Catalysis.
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#2790

William C. Purdy

#125214
Overall Influence
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#2791

F. Ann Walker

#98969
Overall Influence
Frances Ann Walker was an American chemist known for her work on heme protein chemistry. She was an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society.
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#2792

K.sivasubramanian Kalyanasundaram

#125347
Overall Influence
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#2793

Rakesh Agrawal

#60099
Overall Influence
Rakesh Agrawal is a chemical engineer known for contributions to separations, cryogenic gas separation and liquefaction, and for contributions to renewable energy including the conversion of biomass to chemicals and fuels, inorganic solar cell fabrication, and the synergistic use of solar energy. He is the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
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#2794

Otto Glatter

#125391
Overall Influence
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#2795

Stefan Niewiarowski

#125396
Overall Influence
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#2796

Michael H. Ebert

#125406
Overall Influence
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#2797

Colin A. Fyfe

#125471
Overall Influence
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#2798

Alfred Burger

#105797
Overall Influence
1905 - 2000 (95 years)
Alfred Burger was a prominent chemist and a pioneer in medical chemistry. Burger was born in Vienna, the capitol of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on 6 September 1905. He was the son of S. L. Burger and Clariss Burger.
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#2799

Toshio Masuda

#125506
Overall Influence
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#2800

Paolo Fornasiero

#125519
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
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