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,

#3801

Paul Saltman

#97606
Overall Influence
1928 - 1999 (71 years)
Paul Saltman was a Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego, for more than three decades, and an internationally renowned nutrition expert. He received a B.S. in chemistry and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He commenced employment at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, until 1967, when he accepted the position of provost of Revelle College at the University of California, San Diego, "to bring undergraduate education to the same high level of academic excellence that marks the graduate program at the heavily science-oriented college." In 1972 Saltman was appointed Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
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#3802

Eula Bingham

#47981
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
Eula Bingham was an American scientist, best known as an Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. During her tenure as the head of OSHA, she eliminated more than 1,000 pedantic regulations and shifted the agency's focus to health and safety risks, establishing strict standards for workers' rights to know about their exposure to hazardous substances.
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#3803

Yuan‐gang Zu

#144958
Overall Influence
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#3804

Yuta Shibamoto

#144963
Overall Influence
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#3805

Charles A. Eckert

#144995
Overall Influence
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#3806

Vladimir Privman

#126713
Overall Influence
1955 - 2018 (63 years)
Vladimir Privman was a professor of physics at Clarkson University, where he held the Robert A. Plane Endowed Professorship. He also held joint appointments in the departments of Chemistry and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was best known for his work on bio-inspired information processing, synthesis of colloids and nanoparticles, spintronics and quantum computing, statistical mechanics, polymer science, and chemical kinetics. He also made numerous contributions to the field of unconventional computing. In total, he authored over 250 academic papers and books.
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#3807

Sang-jae Kim

#145043
Overall Influence
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#3808

Imre Dékány

#145051
Overall Influence
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#3809

Kenneth J. Ivin

#145075
Overall Influence
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#3810

James D. Potter

#145095
Overall Influence
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#3811

Tetsuo Shiba

#145117
Overall Influence
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#3812

Bernhard Kuster

#145119
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
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#3813

Benon H. J. Bielski

#145153
Overall Influence
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#3814

Shun-ichi Yamada

#145212
Overall Influence
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#3815

George Garratty

#145225
Overall Influence
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#3816

Alexey G. Murzin

#145227
Overall Influence
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#3817

Arthur Squires

#32585
Overall Influence
1916 - 2012 (96 years)
Arthur M. Squires was a chemical engineer and member of the Manhattan Project. He was later on the chemical engineering faculties of the City College of New York and Virginia Tech, where he was professor.
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#3818

Robin Smith

#145245
Overall Influence
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#3819

Chun-xia Li

#145261
Overall Influence
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#3820

Solomon Habtemariam

#145264
Overall Influence
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#3821

Elizabeth H. Head

#145280
Overall Influence
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#3822

Clifford E. Dykstra

#145282
Overall Influence
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#3823

Karl-j. Lackner

#145309
Overall Influence
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#3824

Dorothea Fiedler

#120406
Overall Influence
Dorothea Fiedler is a chemical biologist and also the first female director of the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie in Berlin, Germany. Early life and education Fiedler grew up in Hamburg. She studied inorganic chemistry at the University of Würzburg, then carried out doctorate research on organometallic chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley.
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#3825

Ajaikumar Bahulayan Kunnumakkara

#145333
Overall Influence
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#3826

Ken Buesseler

#90831
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Kenneth "Ken" Owen Buesseler is an American marine radiochemist. He is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Education Buesseler studied biochemistry and cell biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he obtained a BA in 1981. In 1986 he obtained his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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#3827

Jean Louis Luche

#145349
Overall Influence
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#3828

Shuichi Takayama

#145355
Overall Influence
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#3829

Junji Watanabe

#145381
Overall Influence
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#3830

Antonio Abate

#145382
Overall Influence
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#3831

Charles Russell Middaugh

#145383
Overall Influence
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#3832

Barbara H. Stuart

#67939
Overall Influence
Barbara Stuart is a specialist in spectroscopy. Background Stuart studied her B.Sc. at the University of Sydney in 1987, tutoring at the university for 3 years, then studied a M.Sc. biophysical chemistry, graduating in 1990. Stuart then moved to the UK and studied a PhD in polymer engineering at Imperial College London, graduating in 1993. Stuart then began lecturing in Physical Chemistry at the University of Greenwich for 2 years before returning to Australia to lecture at the University of Technology Sydney.
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#3833

Carl Redshaw

#145466
Overall Influence
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#3834

James William Emsley

#145467
Overall Influence
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#3835

Patricia Ann Floyd

#145491
Overall Influence
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#3836

Henry N. Chapman

#145501
Overall Influence
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#3837

Jodie Lutkenhaus

#129635
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Jodie L. Lutkenhaus is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University who develops redox active polymers for energy storage and smart coatings. In 2019 Lutkenhaus and Karen L. Wooley demonstrated the world's first biodegradable peptide battery. Lutkenhaus is a World Economic Forum Young Scientist.
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#3838

David Robinson Goodlett

#145518
Overall Influence
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#3839

H. C. H. Meyer

#145520
Overall Influence
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#3840

Yong-feng Hu

#145541
Overall Influence
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#3841

Tatsuo C. Kobayashi

#145557
Overall Influence
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#3842

Yoshiaki Nishibayashi

#145562
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
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#3843

Jan Tytgat

#145564
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
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#3844

Martin Scheringer

#145611
Overall Influence
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#3845

Keitaro. Yoshihara

#145628
Overall Influence
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#3846

Olav Spigset

#145633
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
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#3847

Douglas G. Brookins

#145643
Overall Influence
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#3848

Nityananda Saha

#128080
Overall Influence
1940 - 2005 (65 years)
Nityananda Saha was a Bengali Indian academic administrator and a professor of inorganic chemistry. Between February 2000 and March 2005, he served as the vice chancellor of the University of Kalyani
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#3849

Blanka Wladislaw

#115314
Overall Influence
1917 - 2012 (95 years)
Blanka Wladislaw was a Brazilian chemist of Polish-Jewish descent. Biography Wladislaw was born Blanka Wertheim on 3 June 1917, in Warsaw, Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire. Her family emigrated to Brazil when she was 14, where they have faced great financial difficulty on their arrival in São Paulo. She decided to dedicate herself to her studies in order to enter the University of São Paulo and in 1937 accomplished this, entering the university's Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters and graduated in 1941. Wladislaw's professional career began when she was hired by , but she was determined to go to graduate school.
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#3850

Nathalie Katsonis

#48386
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Nathalie Helene Katsonis is a Professor of Active Molecular Systems at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen. In 2016 she was awarded the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society Gold Medal.
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