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,
#2801
Shoukat Dedhar
#125530
Overall Influence
#2802
Susumu Nakanishi
#12711
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (96 years)
Susumu Nakanishi is a scholar of Japanese literature, particularly of the Man'yōshū. Overview He is the honorary president of the Nara Prefecture Complex of Manyo Culture, president of the Koshinokuni Museum of Literature, and has been a guest lecturer at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#2803
Stefan Laufer
#113044
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Stefan Laufer is a German pharmacist and professor for pharmaceutical chemistry at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. Laufer is author of more than 500 publications, author of 15 book chapters and inventor of more than 43 patent families with over 347 international applications.
Go to Profile#2804
Hiroshi Hikino
#125579
Overall Influence
#2805
Geerd Diercksen
#114975
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Geerd Heinrich Friedrich Diercksen is a German theoretical chemist and a pioneer in computational chemistry. In 1963 he was awarded his PhD, supervised by Heinz-Werner Preuß at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, in 1973 he was awarded his habilitation in Chemistry by the Technische Universität München and in 1983 he was appointed professor . From 1965 to 2001 he worked as scientific staff at the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik and since 2001 he works there as scientist emeritus.
Go to Profile#2806
Basil Lythgoe
#118528
Overall Influence
1913 - 2009 (96 years)
Basil Lythgoe FRS was a British organic chemist who investigated the structure of many natural substances including nucleosides, plant toxins, and vitamin D2. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Leeds.
Go to Profile#2807
Richard Winpenny
#113313
Overall Influence
Richard Eric Parry Winpenny FRSC FLSW is a British chemist and a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. Winpenny's research is within the fields of inorganic chemistry and magnetochemistry, specifically the areas of single-molecule magnetism, inorganic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry and polymetallic caged complexes.
Go to Profile#2808
Ronald N. Mcelhaney
#125682
Overall Influence
#2809
John McCaskill
#96557
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
John S. McCaskill is an Australian chemist who works in a wide variety of fields ranging from theoretical biochemistry to novel computation to artificial life. Biography After graduating from Sydney University in 1978 and obtaining his PhD in 1982 as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, McCaskill joined the group of Nobel prize-winner Manfred Eigen at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He became Professor for Theoretical Biochemistry at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in 1992, founding a multidisciplinary research group in Biomolecular Infor...
Go to Profile#2810
Barbara Lothenbach
#125701
Overall Influence
#2811
Dimitrios Tsikas
#125710
Overall Influence
#2812
Warren S. Warren
#93830
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Warren Sloan Warren is the James B. Duke Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Molecular and Biomolecular Imaging at Duke University. He is also a professor of physics, Radiology, and Biomedical Engineering at the same institution. Warren is a deputy editor of the open-access journal Science Advances. He has contributed to the theory of Quantum Coherence as well as nonlinear optical spectroscopy.
Go to Profile#2813
Christophe Copéret
#125717
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
#2814
Lasse Jensen
#96825
Overall Influence
Lasse Jensen is a professor of theoretical chemistry at Pennsylvania State University whose works have appeared in such chemistry journals as the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Journal of Chemical Physics and the Chemical Society Reviews, among others. He got his bachelor's degree from University of Copenhagen in 1998 and two years later obtained master's from the same place. Four years later he got his Ph.D. from the University of Groningen and till 2007 worked as a postdoc at the Northwestern University along with George C. Schatz. He is well-recog...
Go to Profile#2815
Gerhard Sandmann
#125745
Overall Influence
#2816
Peter C. Jurs
#125762
Overall Influence
#2817
Sterling C. Johnson
#125774
Overall Influence
#2818
Lionel G. Harrison
#103372
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Lionel George Harrison was a physical chemist, theoretical biologist, and the author of the 1993 book, Kinetic Theory of Living Pattern, which approaches problems in developmental biology from the standpoint of physical science and mathematics.
Go to Profile#2819
Dieter Landolt
#125859
Overall Influence
#2820
Frank Miles Collins
#125881
Overall Influence
#2821
Isiah Warner
#118632
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Isiah Manuel Warner is the Boyd and Phillip W. West Professor of Surface and Analytical Chemistry and the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Louisiana State University. He’s also a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Warner has won numerous national and international awards for chemistry and mentoring of students in the sciences. He has published over 350 refereed publications and has several patents.
Go to Profile#2822
Masahiro Terada
#125885
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
#2823
Petr Zuman
#102771
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Petr Zuman was a Czech chemist. Born and raised in Prague, the Second World War severely impacted Zuman and his family while he was a teenager. In 1939, when he was 13 years old, the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia and sent his father to a concentration camp. In 1943–1944, Zuman worked in a Prague laboratory for the Research Institute of the Sugar Industry. Enjoying the work he wrote three papers on the alkaline cleavage of sucrose. However, in June 1944 Zuman was himself sent to a concentration camp. He was liberated from the camp on May 6, 1945 and then returned to Prague.
Go to Profile#2824
Eric Guibal
#125935
Overall Influence
#2825
Svein Stølen
#106598
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Svein Stølen is a Norwegian chemist. He has served as Rector of the University of Oslo since 2017. Biography Stølen was born in Fredrikstad on 2 March 1960. He graduated as cand.scient. in 1985 and as dr.scient. in 1988, and was appointed professor in chemistry from 1996. His research interests have focused on structure and properties of inorganic compounds. He was elected as the Rector of the University of Oslo for the period 2017 to 2021. He was re-elected as rector for the period 2021 to 2025.
Go to Profile#2826
Gert Lubec
#126037
Overall Influence
#2827
Kenneth B. Eisenthal
#117870
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (92 years)
Kenneth B. Eisenthal is an American physical chemist. Education and career Eisenthal received a B.S. in chemistry from Brooklyn College. He graduated from Harvard University with an M.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in chemical physics. His doctoral thesis supervisor was Marshall Fixman. As a postdoc, Eisenthal worked at UCLA , where he gained experience in molecular spectroscopy in the research group of Mostafa El-Sayed. After his stay at UCLA, Eisenthal briefly worked at The Aerospace Corporation and then at the IBM Almaden Research Center, where he did research in the Chemical Physics Group. The application of lasers in chemistry became his main field of work.
Go to Profile#2828
Zachary Sharp
#89569
Overall Influence
Zachary D. Sharp is an American stable isotope geochemist. He is credited with the development of laser-based technology for measuring oxygen isotopes in silicates and oxides. His contributions include laser analyses of meteorites, paleoclimate reconstruction by oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios, and analysis of isotopic composition of volcanoes, fossils, and forensic samples.
Go to Profile#2829
Nissim Garti
#126096
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
#2830
Raymond Bonnett
#126130
Overall Influence
#2831
Peter Glarborg
#126134
Overall Influence
#2832
Kenichiro Okamoto
#126155
Overall Influence
#2833
Andrés O. M. Stoppani
#126157
Overall Influence
#2834
Christopher G. Tate
#59048
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Christopher G. Tate FRS is an English membrane protein biochemist and molecular biologist who works at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Tate is known for his contributions to the understanding of G protein-coupled receptors.
Go to Profile#2835
A. B. P. Lever
#126168
Overall Influence
#2836
Viswanathan Sasisekharan
#126221
Overall Influence
#2837
Arne Haaland
#78842
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Arne Haaland was a Norwegian chemist. He took the dr. philos. degree at the University of Oslo in 1969 and was an associate professor in chemistry at the University of Oslo from 1964 to 1984, and then professor until his retirement. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Go to Profile#2838
Madhavi Srinivasan
#126325
Overall Influence
#2839
Peter J. Meier
#126330
Overall Influence
#2840
Laurent Charlet
#66122
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Laurent Charlet is a French environmental molecular geochemist working at the Institute of Earth Science within the University of Grenoble-Alpes . In 2007, he was appointed Distinguished Professor to reflect his major scientific achievements. He holds several adjunct or affiliated positions at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory , the University of Swansea and the University of Waterloo . His research interests aim to advance our scientific knowledge for protecting our natural resources like healthy soils and clean water, using subsurface resources responsibly, and developing strategies for re...
Go to Profile#2841
Alexander Marian Bradshaw
#126395
Overall Influence
#2842
Jerome J. Schentag
#126396
Overall Influence
#2843
Tucker Carrington
#126397
Overall Influence
#2844
Masayuki Yamato
#126436
Overall Influence
#2845
Susmita Bose
#126445
Overall Influence
#2846
John H. Hartwig
#126446
Overall Influence
#2847
John C. Bailar Jr.
#112879
Overall Influence
1904 - 1991 (87 years)
John Christian Bailar Jr. was a professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.A. at the University of Colorado and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. His father was a member of the chemistry staff of the Colorado School of Mines.
Go to Profile#2848
Charles E. Myers
#126540
Overall Influence
#2849
Roland Boese
#126627
Overall Influence
#2850
Alberto Salleo
#126635
Overall Influence
