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 Earth Sciences,
#551
Lindsay Zanno
#33290
Overall Influence
Lindsay E. Zanno is an American vertebrate paleontologist and a leading expert on theropod dinosaurs and Cretaceous paleoecosystems. She is the Head of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University.
Go to Profile#552
Bronwen Konecky
#64334
Overall Influence
Bronwen Konecky is a paleoclimatologist and climatologist whose particular area of focus lies in the past and present effect of climate change in the tropics. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Go to Profile#553
Charles R. Bacon
#64976
Overall Influence
Charles R. Bacon is an American geologist and volcanologist at the United States Geological Survey in the Volcano Hazards Team, and who is best known for his work on the volcanic history of Crater Lake National Park and Mount Mazama.
Go to Profile#554
Ivan Kostov Nikolov
#52171
Overall Influence
1913 - 2004 (91 years)
Ivan Kostov Nikolov Hon HonFMinSoc , aka Ivan Kostov, was a Bulgarian geologist, mineralogist and crystallographer. Honors and recognitions President of the International Mineralogical Association Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of LondonHonorary Member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and IrelandHonorary Member of the German Academy of Sciences LeopoldinaForeign Honorary Member of the Russian Mineralogical SocietyForeign Member of the USSR Academy of SciencesFounder and Honorary President of the Bulgarian Mineralogical SocietyDoctor Honoris Causa of the Bulgarian...
Go to Profile#555
William W. Hay
#63317
Overall Influence
1934 - 2022 (88 years)
William Winn Hay was an American geologist, marine geologist, micropaleontologist, paleoceanographer, and paleoclimatologist, primarily associated with the University of Colorado. Biography Hay was born October 12, 1934, in Dallas, Texas, the second son of Stephen John and Avella Hay.
Go to Profile#556
Edouard Bard
#57197
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Edouard Bard, born on September 1, 1962, is a French climatologist, Professor of Climate and Ocean Evolution at the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. Biography After studying geological engineering in Nancy, Edouard Bard began his research at the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique in Gif-sur-Yvette and continued at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York as a postdoctoral fellow in 1988 and as an associate researcher in 1989. Back in France, he first joined the CEA as a researcher, then began teaching as a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille in 1991 and at the Collège de France in 2001.
Go to Profile#557
Peter J. Webster
#60884
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Peter John Webster is a meteorologist and climate dynamicist relating to the dynamics of large-scale coupled ocean-atmosphere systems of the tropics, notably the Asian monsoon. Webster holds degrees in applied physics, mathematics and meteorology. Webster studies the basic dynamics of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system in the tropics and has applied this basic knowledge to developing warning systems for extreme weather events in Asia. He has served on a number of prestigious national and international committees including the World Climate Research Program's Joint Scientific Committee , chair...
Go to Profile#558
Charles Swithinbank
#71956
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Charles Winthrop Molesworth Swithinbank, MBE was a British glaciologist and expert in the polar regions who has six places in the Antarctic named after him. Early life and education He was born in Pegu, British Burma, the son of Bernard Swithinbank of the Indian Civil Service, and educated at Bryanston School. He served for two years with the Royal Navy before going up to Pembroke College, Oxford to read Geography in 1946, graduating DPhil in 1955.
Go to Profile#559
Alan R. Hildebrand
#25122
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Alan Russell Hildebrand is a planetary scientist and Associate Professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary. He has specialized in the study of asteroid impact cratering, fireballss and meteorite recovery. His work has shed light on the extinction event caused by the Chicxulub asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period. Hildebrand is one of the leaders of the Prairie Meteorite Network search project.
Go to Profile#560
John E. Kutzbach
#75528
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
John E. Kutzbach was a climate scientist who pioneered the use of climate models to investigate the causes and effects of large changes of climate of the past. Career John Elmer Kutzbach was Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was a former Director and a Senior Scientist in the Center for Climatic Research .
Go to Profile#561
Norman A. Phillips
#15962
Overall Influence
1923 - 2019 (96 years)
Norman A. Phillips was an American meteorologist notable for his contributions to geophysical fluid dynamics. In 1956, he developed a mathematical model that could realistically depict monthly and seasonal patterns in the troposphere, which became the first successful general circulation model of climate.
Go to Profile#562
Raymond Pierrehumbert
#18651
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Raymond Thomas Pierrehumbert is the Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. Previously, he was Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was a lead author on the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC and a co-author of the National Research Council report on abrupt climate change.
Go to Profile#563
Dietmar Müller
#77635
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Dietmar Müller is a professor of geophysics at the school of geosciences, the University of Sydney. Early life and education Müller received his undergraduate degree from the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel in Germany, followed by a PhD in earth science from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California in 1993.
Go to Profile#564
Suzanne O'Reilly
#74977
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Suzanne Yvette O'Reilly is an Australian professor of geology noted for her pioneering contributions to mapping the deep Earth with an interdisciplinary approach. In 2007, the Royal Society of New South Wales awarded her the Clarke Medal for outstanding contributions to Australian geology. She has over 350 peer-reviewed publications with over 40,000 citations , and has supervised more than 40 PhD students to graduation.
Go to Profile#565
Dennis Keeney
#55404
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
Dennis R. Keeney is an American scientist in soil science and water chemistry. He was the first director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Ames, Iowa. Early life and education Keeney grew up on his family's dairy farm near Runnells, Iowa not far from Des Moines.
Go to Profile#566
Isaac Held
#68493
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Isaac Meyer Held is an American meteorologist. He is a retired senior research scientist at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Held was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2003.
Go to Profile#567
Torben Larsen
#31605
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Torben Larsen is a noted Danish scientist working in the field of hydrology and water pollution. Biography Torben Larsen was born in Copenhagen on 1 May 1942. He graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering from the Polyteknisk Læreanstalt in 1966.
Go to Profile#568
John Lee Prof Margrave
#93736
Overall Influence
#569
Laurence L. Sloss
#90522
Overall Influence
1913 - 1996 (83 years)
Laurence L. Sloss was an American geologist. He taught geology at Northwestern University from 1947 until his retirement in 1981. He was president, Geological Society of America , with his tenure beginning in 1980. The GSA's Laurence L. Sloss Award is named in his honor. He was also president of the Society for Sedimentary Geology and American Geosciences Institute.
Go to Profile#570
Gediminas Motuza
#62139
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Gediminas Motuza-Matuzevičius is a Lithuanian geologist and author of geology textbooks. He is currently professor in the Faculty of the Natural Sciences at Vilnius University and honorary professor of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#571
Stuart Corbridge
#33499
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Stuart Edward Corbridge, FRGS is a British geographer and academic specialising in geopolitics, development studies, and India. From September 2015 to July 2021, he was Vice-Chancellor and Warden of Durham University. From 2013 to 2015, he was Provost and Deputy Director of the London School of Economics. He was also Professor of Development Studies at LSE.
Go to Profile#572
Betsy Weatherhead
#58048
Overall Influence
Elizabeth C. Weatherhead, more commonly known as Betsy Weatherhead, is an American climatologist, atmospheric scientist, government official, and professor. She was appointed in 2020 by United States president Donald Trump to head the National Climate Assessment .
Go to Profile#573
M. Levent Kurnaz
#61490
Overall Influence
M. Levent Kurnaz is a Turkish climate scientist, Boğaziçi University Physics Department Faculty Member, and Director of the Center for Climate Change and Policy Studies . Academic life Kurnaz works as a professor in the Physics Department at Boğaziçi University. In 2014, he founded Boğaziçi University Center for Climate Change and Policy Studies . Kurnaz is the director and iklimBU contributes to the regions of Central Asia, Middle East North Africa , and Australasia for the International Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment lead by the World Climate Research Programme. He is ...
Go to Profile#574
Richard H. Sibson
#83572
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Richard Hugh Sibson is a New Zealand structural geologist and emeritus professor at the University of Otago, who has received numerous honors and awards for his work in the field of earthquake research. He has caused a 'fundamental shift' in the interpretation of the relationship between earthquakes and fault zone geology and on the origin of fault-hosted mineral deposits.
Go to Profile#575
George Plafker
#57229
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (96 years)
George Plafker is an American geologist and seismologist who has made significant contributions to both fields, with research focused on subduction, tsunami, and the geology of Alaska. Following prolonged study of the region of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, Plafker correctly concluded that the largest earthquakes are the result of fault slip at convergent boundaries. This was at a time when the theory of plate tectonics was still not completely accepted by the scientific community. Additional studies were done in Chile in the late 1960s regarding the series of earthquakes there.
Go to Profile#576
David Brown
#41705
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
David Brown is former Australian retired meteorologist for Seven News. Brown was formerly the weather presenter on Seven News Sydney, as well as on the national Seven Morning News and Seven Afternoon News bulletins, on Sunrise and Seven News Melbourne.
Go to Profile#577
Ronald Greeley
#70706
Overall Influence
1939 - 2011 (72 years)
Ronald Greeley was a Regents’ Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University , the Director of the NASA-ASU Regional Planetary Image Facility , and Principal Investigator of the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory at NASA-Ames Research Center. He was involved with lunar and planetary studies since 1967 and most recently focused his research on understanding planetary surface processes and geologic histories.
Go to Profile#578
M. Gordon Wolman
#94430
Overall Influence
#579
Vandana Shiva
#400
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as "Gandhi of grain" for her activism associated with the anti-GMO movement.
Go to Profile#580
William A. Berggren
#94557
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (94 years)
#581
Sherwood B. Idso
#52668
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Sherwood B. Idso is the president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Previously he was a Research Physicist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona, where he worked since June 1967. He was also closely associated with Arizona State University over most of this period, serving as an adjunct professor in the Departments of Geology, Geography, and Botany and Microbiology. His two sons, Craig and Keith, are, respectiv...
Go to Profile#582
Geerat J. Vermeij
#29447
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Geerat J. Vermeij is a Dutch-born paleoecologist and evolutionary biologist in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He studies marine molluscs, both as fossils and as living creatures, as well as influence creatures have on each other's evolutionary fates, alongside having worked on plants, crabs, extinction, biological invasions, and biogeography. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992, and in 2000, was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. He was also a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences ...
Go to Profile#583
Nicola Masini
#57324
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Nicola Masini is an Italian scientist with CNR, noted for his work on exploring traces of Andean civilizations in Peru and Bolivia using spatial technologies and Remote Sensing. Biography He graduated in Engineering in 1990. He became Researcher with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in 1995, Senior scientist at CNR-IBAM in 2003, Research Director of CNR-Institute of heritage Science in 2020, Professor of Fundamentals of Restoration and Science for Conservation at the University of Basilicata since 2002. His dominant scientific interest is the application and the development of new appr...
Go to Profile#584
Günter Blöschl
#51711
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Professor Günter Blöschl is an Austrian hydrologist, engineer and academic. In 2020, Blöschl was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Engineering for international leadership in the prediction and management of extreme hydrological events.
Go to Profile#585
Ben Abell
#81576
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Benjamin F. Abell was a professor of meteorology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Saint Louis University , where he was a member of the faculty from 1962-2011. He also volunteered as the sole meteorologist for St. Louis, Missouri, public radio station KWMU-FM since the station began broadcasting in 1972 through early 2007. To recognize and preserve his contributions as an outstanding member of the St. Louis radio community, Abell was a 2005–2006 inductee to the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#586
Harold Brookfield
#22440
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
Harold Chillingworth Brookfield was a British and Australian geographer specialising in the analysis of rural development, small-scale societies, family farming, and the relationship between land use and society in developing countries. He retired from the Australian National University in 1991.
Go to Profile#587
Verner E. Suomi
#53162
Overall Influence
1915 - 1995 (80 years)
Verner Edward Suomi was a Finnish-American educator, inventor, and scientist. He is considered the father of satellite meteorology. He invented the Spin Scan Radiometer, which for many years was the instrument on the GOES weather satellites that generated the time sequences of cloud images seen on television weather shows. The Suomi NPP polar orbiting satellite, launched in 2011, was named in his honor.
Go to Profile#588
Yoshitaka Nagahama
#95400
Overall Influence
#589
Julian Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton
#30413
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (84 years)
Julian Charles Roland Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton is a British meteorologist who was Director General and Chief Executive of the British Meteorological Office from 1992 to 1997. He was made a Life peer of the Labour Party by Tony Blair in 2000 where he sat until 30th October 2021. He was the leader on the Labour group of Cambridge City Council in the 1970s.
Go to Profile#590
Samuel H. Preston
#31335
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
Samuel Hulse Preston is an American demographer and sociologist. He is one of the leading demographers in the United States. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1968. Preston is a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the former dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1987. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986 and the American Philosophical Society in 1992.
Go to Profile#591
M. Qasim Jan
#47654
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
M. Qasim Jan is a geologist and research scientist from Pakistan. He has been the vice-chancellor of three Pakistani universities. His research has been in geology, mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, and tectonics. He has authored or edited a dozen books, and has published numerous papers on geology and tectonics of the North-West Himalayas. Presently, he is Professor Emeritus at the National Centre of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar. Jan is also currently the Secretary General of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, and of the Association of the Academies of Sciences in Asia. He...
Go to Profile#592
David E. Sugden
#70549
Overall Influence
David Edward Sugden FRSE, FRSGS is an emeritus professor and senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He is a glaciologist and glacial geomorphologist. His research focuses in particular on glacial and polar landforms, Antarctic ice sheet stability, and the dynamics of the Patagonian ice cap under a changing climate. He has served as President of the Geography Section of the British Association, Vice President of the Royal Geographical Society, President of the Institute of British Geographers, and Director of SAGES . At the University of Edinburgh, Sugden has twice been Departme...
Go to Profile#593
Huang Wanli
#47415
Overall Influence
1911 - 2001 (90 years)
Huang Wanli was a Chinese hydrologist. Huang was a professor at Tsinghua University from 1953 to 2001. Biography Huang was born in Chuansha County, Jiangsu on 20 August 1911, the fourth of nine children of Huang Yanpei and Wang Jiusi . In 1924, he enrolled in Wuxi Industrial School. He entered Tangshan Jiaotong University in 1927 and graduated in 1932. After college, he worked as an apprentice engineer at Hangzhou-Zhejiang Railway. In 1934, Huang went to the United States. He received a master's degree from Cornell University in hydrology in 1935 and a doctor of engineering degree from Univ...
Go to Profile#594
Ariel E. Lugo
#95878
Overall Influence
#595
David M. Boore
#95929
Overall Influence
#596
William G. Moseley
#23058
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
William G. Moseley is an American academic. He is the DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, and director of the Food, Agriculture & Society Program at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His research interests include tropical agriculture, food security, and development policy. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed articles, as well as eight books. In 2013 he won the Media Award, and in 2016 the Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang Distinguished Africa Scholar Award, both from the American Association of Geographers. He serves on the International Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of...
Go to Profile#597
Ghazi Falah
#57159
Overall Influence
Ghazi-Walid Falah is a Bedouin Palestinian-Canadian geographer, who is a tenured professor at the University of Akron, Ohio. He is an expert on political, social and urban geography of the Middle East and the Arab World, with special emphasis on Israel. He has published over 45 articles in 23 peer-reviewed journals, and he has given papers at conferences. He is author and co-editor of five books and monographs, including Geographies of Muslim Women , co-edited with Caroline Nagel. He also has co-authored articles with two colleagues, David Newman and Colin Flint, with whom he has conducted jo...
Go to Profile#598
John W. Valley
#96095
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
#599
James Vaupel
#79359
Overall Influence
1945 - 2022 (77 years)
James W. Vaupel was an American scientist in the fields of aging research, biodemography, and formal demography. He was instrumental in developing and advancing the idea of the plasticity of longevity, and pioneered research on the heterogeneity of mortality risks and on the deceleration of death rates at the highest ages.
Go to Profile#600
James Freeman Gilbert
#37355
Overall Influence
1931 - 2014 (83 years)
James Freeman Gilbert was an American geophysicist, best known for his work with George E. Backus on inverting geophysical data, and also for his role in establishing an international network of long-period seismometers.
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