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,
#3151
Branko Stanovnik
#132740
Overall Influence
#3152
Lucy Ziurys
#118973
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Lucy Marie Ziurys is an American astrochemist known for her work on high-resolution molecular spectroscopy. She is Regent's Professor of Chemistry & Biology and of Astronomy at the University of Arizona.
Go to Profile#3153
Gerhard Knothe
#132750
Overall Influence
#3154
Yannick Allanore
#132770
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
#3155
James M. Bobbitt
#77284
Overall Influence
1930 - 2021 (91 years)
James McCue Bobbitt was an American chemist and academic who taught chemistry at the University of Connecticut from 1956 to 1991 and developed the Bobbitt reaction. Early life and education Bobbitt was born on January 18, 1930, in Charleston, West Virginia, to parents James Sterling Bobbitt and Grace McCue Bobbitt. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from West Virginia University in 1951 and a PhD from Ohio State University in 1955, working with Melville L. Wolfrom on periodate oxidations.
Go to Profile#3156
Richard Anthony Crowther
#132822
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
#3157
Howard England Zalkin
#132851
Overall Influence
#3158
William Levason
#132868
Overall Influence
#3159
Virginia Cornish
#90105
Overall Influence
Virginia Wood Cornish is the Helena Rubinstein Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. Background and education Cornish received her BA in chemistry in 1991, working with professor Ronald Breslow. Her PhD research, on site-specific protein labeling and mutagenesis, was carried out with Peter Schultz. Cornish was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at MIT with Robert T. Sauer. She is the first female graduate from Columbia College to be hired to a full-time faculty position since the College became coeducational in 1983.
Go to Profile#3160
Raghavan Srinivasan
#132930
Overall Influence
#3161
Philipp Kukura
#113735
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Philipp Kukura FRSC is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He is best known for pioneering contributions to femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy , interferometric scattering microscopy and the development of mass photometry.
Go to Profile#3162
Haruo Seto
#132935
Overall Influence
#3163
Marc A. Laruelle
#132946
Overall Influence
#3164
Anne-Marie Caminade
#130598
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Anne-Marie Caminade is a French chemist who is Director of Research Exceptional Class at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Her research considers dendrimers and heterochemistry. She was awarded the 2021 Société chimique de France Achille le Bel Grand Prize.
Go to Profile#3165
Jonathan L. Falconer
#132999
Overall Influence
#3166
Jens Ulstrup
#133013
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (84 years)
#3167
C. Arnold Beevers
#49902
Overall Influence
1908 - 2001 (93 years)
Cecil Arnold Beevers was a British crystallographer, known for Beevers–Lipson strips, a computational aid for calculating Fourier transforms to determine the structure of crystals from crystallographic data, enabling the creation of models for complex molecules.
Go to Profile#3168
Hermann Schmalzried
#108984
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (93 years)
Hermann Schmalzried is a German chemist known for his work in physical chemistry, especially on the thermodynamics and kinetics of solid state chemistry. Education and career Schmalzried received his diploma from Theodor Förster at the University of Stuttgart and received his doctorate in 1958 at the Roentgen Institute of the University of Stuttgart with Richard Glocker and was a postdoc with Carl Wagner at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, a pioneer in solid state chemistry. He habilitated in 1966 at the Leibniz University Hannover on the topic of disorder in ternary ionic crystals.
Go to Profile#3169
Bao-guo Sun
#133091
Overall Influence
#3170
Robert Matthews
#22684
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Robert A.J. Matthews , is a British physicist and science writer. After graduating in physics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, in 1981, Matthews took up a dual career in science writing and academic research. He is currently science consultant and columnist for the science magazine BBC Focus, a freelance columnist for The National in Abu Dhabi and Visiting Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Aston University. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Chartered Physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Go to Profile#3171
Robert G. Bryant
#130481
Overall Influence
Robert George Bryant is an American scientist and a professor of chemistry at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on magnetic relaxation dispersion studies, and is primarily supported by grants from the National Institute of Health.
Go to Profile#3172
François Robert
#98025
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
François Robert, born in Paris, France the 26th of January, 1951, is a French researcher specializing in isotope geochemistry and cosmochemistry. His work on the isotopes of hydrogen has enhanced the understanding of the origin of water and of organic matter in the solar system. He is famous for his work on lithium, beryllium and boron, light elements formed by the irradiation of interstellar matter. He received a Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society in 2011 for his work on the isotopic composition of stable nuclei.
Go to Profile#3173
Koichi Eguchi
#133150
Overall Influence
#3174
Jingdong Zhang
#53364
Overall Influence
1968 - 2020 (52 years)
Jingdong Zhang was a Chinese–Danish chemist and Professor of Chemistry at the Technical University of Denmark. Her research considered nanochemistry and the novel materials for catalysis, as well as the development of advanced characterisation techniques such as scanning tunnelling microscopy and atomic force microscopy. She was elected to the Akademiet for de Tekniske Videnskaber in 2017.
Go to Profile#3175
Bessel Kok
#133223
Overall Influence
#3176
Katja Loos
#115363
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (54 years)
Katja Loos is professor at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands holding the chair of Macromolecular Chemistry and New Polymeric Materials. Biography Katja Loos studied chemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany and graduated in 1996. During her graduate studies she focused her studies on Organic Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry. In 1992 and 1993 she was an international exchange student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA.
Go to Profile#3177
Laura M. Herz
#133235
Overall Influence
#3178
Michael J. Pabst
#133250
Overall Influence
#3179
Aleksandra Kornhauser Frazer
#104509
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Aleksandra Kornhauser Frazer was a Slovenian chemist. She was a Professor of Chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering and Director at the International Centre for Chemical Studies, of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Go to Profile#3180
Donald M. Hilvert
#133323
Overall Influence
#3181
Leslie S. Ettre
#133354
Overall Influence
#3182
Andrew Turberfield
#108208
Overall Influence
Andrew J Turberfield is a British Professor of Physics based at the University of Oxford. Turberfield's research is largely based on DNA nanostructures and photonic crystals, and his work on both nanomachines and photonic crystals has been highly cited. Turberfield is a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#3183
Volker Presser
#133382
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (43 years)
#3184
Babak Anasori
#133401
Overall Influence
#3185
Michael J. Mumma
#117506
Overall Influence
Michael J. Mumma is an American astrobiologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center; he is best known for his investigation of the chemistry of comets. Education Mumma graduated Franklin and Marshall College in 1963, with an A.B. in physics. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970, and joined NASA's GSFC thereafter.
Go to Profile#3186
Teresa Head-Gordon
#119224
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Teresa Lyn Head-Gordon is an American chemist and the Chancellor's Professor of Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a faculty scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a fellow of both the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Chemical Society .
Go to Profile#3187
Rachel A. Segalman
#111361
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Rachel A. Segalman is the Edward Noble Kramer Professor and Department Chair of Chemical Engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara . Her laboratory works on semiconducting block polymers, polymeric ionic liquids, and hybrid thermoelectric materials. She is the associated director of the Center for Materials for Water Energy System, an associate editor of ACS Macro Letters, and co-editor of the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Go to Profile#3188
Marco Mascini
#133435
Overall Influence
#3189
Luc Avérous
#133461
Overall Influence
#3190
And Franck Tessier
#133463
Overall Influence
#3191
Wen-chang Chen
#133474
Overall Influence
#3192
Leonardo Palmisano
#133483
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
#3193
Edward J. Maginn
#133534
Overall Influence
#3194
Robert Englman
#133541
Overall Influence
#3195
Michael A. J. Rodgers
#133558
Overall Influence
#3196
Lola Eniola-Adefeso
#45859
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Omolola Eniola-Adefeso is a Nigerian-American chemical engineer and the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Eniola-Adefeso is also a co-founder and chief scientific officer of Asalyxa Bio. Her research looks to design biocompatible functional particles for targeted drug delivery.
Go to Profile#3197
Robert W. MacVicar
#98578
Overall Influence
1918 - 1998 (80 years)
Robert William MacVicar was an American chemist and academic administrator who served as the chancellor of Southern Illinois University, and the 11th president of Oregon State University from 1970 and 1984.
Go to Profile#3198
Alan J. Russell
#95484
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Alan J. Russell , is Vice President of Biologics for Amgen, one of the world’s leading Biopharmaceutical companies. Until 2020, Alan was the Highmark Distinguished Career Professor and Director of the Disruptive Health Technology Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. From 2013 through spring of 2016 he was also the Chief Innovation Officer, Allegheny Health Network.
Go to Profile#3199
Paul Flowers
#133609
Overall Influence
#3200
Francis Andrew Leslie Dullien
#133624
Overall Influence
