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,
#851
Peter M. Shearer
#109964
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
#852
Rosina Bierbaum
#59017
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Rosina M. Bierbaum is currently the Roy F. Westin Chair in Natural Economics and Research Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. She is also a professor and former dean at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment . She was hired in October 2001, by then-University of Michigan President, Lee Bollinger. She is also the current Chair of The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the GEF on its policies, strategies, programs, and projects.
Go to Profile#853
Mark Myers
#47896
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Mark D. Myers is an American geologist who currently serves as a commissioner for the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He also served as the fourteenth Director of the U.S. Geological Survey . He was nominated by President George W. Bush on May 3, 2006, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn in September 26, 2006. Dr. Myers replaced prior director Charles G. Groat, who had resigned effective June 17, 2005.
Go to Profile#854
Jonathan T. Overpeck
#110040
Overall Influence
#855
Ole Humlum
#91319
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Ole Humlum is a Danish professor emeritus of physical geography at the University of Oslo , Department of Geosciences and adjunct professor of physical geography at the University Centre in Svalbard. His academic focus includes glacial and periglacial geomorphology and climatology.
Go to Profile#856
Stephen W. Pacala
#36396
Overall Influence
Stephen W. Pacala is the Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. He has worked on climate change, population ecology, and global interactions between the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Since 2021, he has been a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology .
Go to Profile#857
Leon Silver
#18934
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Leon Theodore "Lee" Silver was an American geologist who was professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology . He was an instructor to the Apollo 13, 15, 16, and 17 astronaut crews. Working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration , he taught astronauts how to perform field geology, essentially creating lunar field geology as a new discipline. His training is credited with a significant improvement in the J-Mission Apollo flights' scientific returns. After the Apollo program, he became a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1974. He retired in 1996 as the W.
Go to Profile#858
Costanza Bonadonna
#97777
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (54 years)
Costanza Bonadonna is an Italian earth scientist who is a Full Professor of volcanology and geological risk at the University of Geneva. In 2020, she was named President-Elect of volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology at the American Geophysical Union .
Go to Profile#859
Daniela Rubatto
#104794
Overall Influence
Daniela Rubatto is a Professor of geochemistry at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her areas of interest and expertise are in isotope geochemistry, metamorphic petrology, mineralogy, tectonics, inorganic geochemistry, and geochronology.
Go to Profile#860
F. Ian. Woodward
#110327
Overall Influence
#861
Mauri S. Pelto
#53181
Overall Influence
Mauri S. Pelto is a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts and director of the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project. Work Mauri Pelto has been studying the glaciers in the North Cascades located in the U.S. state of Washington since 1984. Pelto's research team has recorded the mass balance of numerous glaciers, all of which are retreating due to global warming, which has raised temperatures and decreased the amount of snowfall in the accumulation zone of the North Cascade glaciers. More recently, Pelto has used Landsat imagery from the past and compare...
Go to Profile#862
Herb Wright
#83891
Overall Influence
1917 - 2015 (98 years)
Herbert Edgar Wright Jr. was an American Quaternary scientist. He contributed to the understanding of landscape history and environmental changes over the past 100,000 years in many parts of the world. He studied arid-region geomorphology and landscape evolution, as well as glacial geology and climate history. His study of these topics led him to the study of vegetation development and environmental history and allowed him to define the timing and mechanisms of climate-driven vegetational shifts in North America during the last 18,000 years and to recognize the role of natural fire in the dynamics of northern coniferous forests.
Go to Profile#863
Lisa Graumlich
#62115
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Lisa J. Graumlich is an American paleoclimatologist who studies the interactions between the climate, ecosystems and humans. She is the inaugural dean of College of the Environment at the University of Washington. Graumlich is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America, and is president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.
Go to Profile#864
Jack E. Oliver
#110476
Overall Influence
#865
Anthony Brian Watts
#98399
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Anthony Brian Watts FRS is a British marine geologist and geophysicist and Professor of Marine Geology and Geophysics in the Department of Earth Sciences, at the University of Oxford. Education Watts was born in Essex and educated at Sidcot School, a Quaker school in Somerset, and University College, London where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Physics in 1967. He also earned a PhD in Marine Geophysics from University of Durham in 1970 supervised by Professor Martin H. P. Bott and a Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford in 2003.
Go to Profile#866
Michael Raupach
#95987
Overall Influence
1950 - 2015 (65 years)
Michael Robin Raupach was an Australian climate scientist. He is credited with developing the concept of a carbon budget, the amount of that is emitted and absorbed in the global ecosystem in the course of a year. When the in balance, emissions and absorption in carbon sinks are roughly the same, but when disturbed, possibly large changes in the ecosystem ensue. He was a founding co-chair of the Global Carbon Project , a network of the world's leading carbon cycle researchers. He was instrumental in publishing the Annual Carbon Budget, which draws on a large amount of scientific data to det...
Go to Profile#867
William James Kennedy
#49205
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
William James "Jim" Kennedy is a British geologist. Jim Kennedy studied at the University of London. Kennedy was a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. He was curator of the Geological Collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Go to Profile#868
Abhijit Mukherjee
#109530
Overall Influence
Abhijit Mukherjee is an Indian professor, scientist and currently Professor of Geology and Geophysics and the School of Environmental Science and Engineering of IIT Kharagpur. He has been selected for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2020 in the field of Earth Atmosphere Ocean and Planetary Sciences.
Go to Profile#869
Allison Macfarlane
#40830
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Allison M. Macfarlane directs the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. She is the former director of the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University, where she was Professor of Science Policy and International Affairs. She was the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission from July 9, 2012, to December 31, 2014.
Go to Profile#870
Vit Klemes
#69005
Overall Influence
1932 - 2010 (78 years)
Vit Klemes was a Canadian hydrologist of Czech origin. Bipgraphy Klemes received a Civil Engineering degree from the Brno University of Technology, a CSc degree in hydrology and water resources from the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava and a DrSc degree from the Czech Technical University in Prague.
Go to Profile#871
Jérôme Chappellaz
#60192
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Jérôme Chappellaz is a French glaciologist, geochemist and paleoclimatologist who is director of the French Polar Institute. A senior researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research , he is a co-founder and chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation.
Go to Profile#872
Jean Tricart
#44024
Overall Influence
1920 - 2003 (83 years)
Jean Tricart was a French geomorphologist. In 1948, he became a professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he remained for the rest of his career. The Tricart's doctoral thesis dealt with the Paris Basin and resulted in a publication acclaimed in France. He often collaborated with his friend André Cailleux. From 1962 to 1974, he and Callieux published five works on the subject of geomorphology and climate. Most of his works were published in French.
Go to Profile#873
Michael Bickle
#82347
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Michael James Bickle FRS is a British geologist, and professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He won a 2003 Coke Medal, from the Geological Society. His research combines field research projects, and physical modelling, including carbon capture and storage.
Go to Profile#874
Andreas Stohl
#110863
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
#875
Maria Crawford
#51645
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Maria Luisa Crawford was an American geologist/petrologist. She was born on July 18, 1939, in Beverly, Massachusetts, and died on November 4, 2023 in Haverford, PA Obituary. In 1960, Crawford received a bachelor of arts degree in geology from Bryn Mawr College, located in Pennsylvania. 5 years later, she received her doctorate degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she met her husband, William Crawford. Shortly after graduating, Crawford became employed by Bryn Mawr College in the department of geology. Throughout her career, she had a wide range of interests. She was known to be one of the first scientists to use the electron micro probe on metamorphic rocks.
Go to Profile#877
Alan Pears
#26039
Overall Influence
Alan Pears, AM, is an environmental consultant, and a pioneer of energy efficiency policy in Australia since the late 1970s. In the 1980s, Pears worked on the Home Energy Advisory Service, star-rating appliance energy labels, and mandatory home insulation regulations, while with the Victorian Government's Energy Information Centre. He has been an environmental consultant since 1991, involved in energy/environmental rating and regulation of buildings, green building developments, and efficient appliance development. He is an adjunct professor at RMIT University, and writes a regular column for ...
Go to Profile#878
Henry Wai-chung Yeung
#111049
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
#879
Paul Segall
#110666
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Paul Segall is a geophysicist best known for his studies on earthquake and volcanism. He is currently a professor in the department of geophysics at Stanford University. He has served in Board of Directors in Southern California Earthquake Center since 2007.
Go to Profile#880
Melissa Leach
#29031
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Melissa Leach, is a British geographer and social anthropologist. She studies sustainability and development concerns in policy-making and has a focus on the politics of science and technology of Africa. As of 2017 she was the Director of the Institute of Development Studies located on the University of Sussex campus.
Go to Profile#881
Charles R. Marshall
#45028
Overall Influence
Charles Richard Marshall is an Australian paleobiologist and the director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology, where he is also a professor in the department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#882
Anson W. Mackay
#96959
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Anson W. Mackay is a Professor of Geography in the Environmental Change Research Centre at University College London. They work on the impact of climate change on freshwater ecosystems. Mackay is editor-in-chief of the Royal Geographical Society journal Geo: Geography and Environment and sits on the board of Open Quaternary.
Go to Profile#883
Gabriel G. Katul
#111232
Overall Influence
#884
Nikolas I. Christensen
#111325
Overall Influence
#885
Thomas Schmugge
#110658
Overall Influence
Thomas J. Schmugge is an American physicist and hydrologist. Schmugge graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965 with a doctorate in physics, and joined the faculty of Trinity College in Connecticut as an assistant professor of physics. From 1970 to 1986, he worked for Goddard Space Flight Center's Hydrological Sciences Branch. Schmugge was subsequently employed by the Agricultural Research Service until 2004. After leaving the federal government, Schmugge was the Gerald Thomas Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at New Mexico State University from 2005 to 2008. He was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and received the AGU's Robert E.
Go to Profile#886
Barbara Sherwood Lollar
#87062
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, is a Canadian geologist and academic known for her research into billion-year-old water. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto. In 2007, she was made a Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment. It was renewed in 2014.
Go to Profile#887
Jeffrey A. Wilson
#67549
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Jeffrey A. Wilson, also known as JAW, is a paleontologist and professor of geological sciences and assistant curator at the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan. His doctoral dissertation was on sauropod evolution and phylogeny, and he has continued this work in cladistic analysis and revision of the group . With Paul Sereno, he defined the clades Macronaria and Somphospondyli .
Go to Profile#888
Gail Atkinson
#105733
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Gail Marie Atkinson is a Canadian seismologist. She is a former professor at the University of Western Ontario and Canada Research Chair in Earthquake Hazards and Ground Motions. In 2014, Atkinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for being an "international leader in the development of models to predict earthquake ground motions as a function of magnitude and distance."
Go to Profile#889
Sue Grimmond
#110923
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Christine Susan Betham Grimmond is a New Zealand scientist and professor of urban meteorology at the University of Reading. She currently holds the post of Met Office Joint Chair. Grimmond is a pioneer of the fields of urban meteorology and micrometerology, which deal with the atmospheric boundary layer.
Go to Profile#890
Alice Coleman
#39430
Overall Influence
1923 - 2023 (100 years)
Alice Mary Coleman was a British geographer. A professor at King's College London, she was noted for directing the 1960s Second Land Use Survey of Britain, as well as for analyses of land use planning and urban design which have influenced the design of residential developments since the 1980s. She was a member of the Freedom Association.
Go to Profile#891
Mark Pelling
#111581
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
#892
Hugh M. Raup
#54716
Overall Influence
1901 - 1995 (94 years)
Hugh Miller Raup was an American botanist, ecologist and geographer working on natural history and natural resource management in diverse regions—from tropical and temperate to arctic. Biography He was born in Springfield, Ohio to Gustavas Philip and Fanny Mitchell Raup on February 4, 1901. The American philosopher, Dr. Robert Bruce Raup, was his older brother.
Go to Profile#893
Sten Rudberg
#70218
Overall Influence
1917 - 1996 (79 years)
Sten Rudberg was a Swedish geologist and geomorphologist. He was the son of Gunnar Rudberg. Sten Rudberg was appointed chair professor of the Göteborg University in 1958 after incumbent professor Karl-Erik Bergsten moved to Lund University. In 1959 Rudberg was elected into the Royal Society of Sciences and Letters in Gothenburg. Subsequently, in 1961 Rudberg's professorship was transformed into a professorship in Physical geography. In 1964 Rudberg went to head the department of Physical geography after the Geography department of the Göteborg University was dissolved and Human geography formed its own department.
Go to Profile#894
Roger Pulwarty
#75033
Overall Influence
Roger S. Pulwarty is a scientist from Trinidad and Tobago and contributed to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Pulwarty is the Senior Scientist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Physical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
Go to Profile#895
Budiman Minasny
#111766
Overall Influence
#896
John Mortvedt
#34625
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
John Jacob Mortvedt was an American soil scientist who worked with micronutrient fertilizer. Early life and education Born and raised on a Dell Rapids, South Dakota, farm to Ernest and Clara Mortvedt, John Mortvedt earned a bachelor's degree in agronomy from South Dakota State University in 1953. After a brief return to the farm, Mortvedt was a pilot for a US Army aviation unit stationed in Colorado, between World War II and the Korean War. He married Marlene Fodness in Rapid City, South Dakota, on January 23, 1955. Mortvedt studied for a master's degree in soil science from SDSU and graduated in 1959, continuing for his Ph.D.
Go to Profile#897
Jerry X. Mitrovica
#53779
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Jerry X. Mitrovica is the Frank Baird Jr. Professor of Science in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. He produced important early work showing that tectonic plates heave, tilt, and fall in addition to drifting across the surface of the planet. He is known for his work on modeling past and predicting future uneven rises and falls in sea level due to the interactions between melting ice caps, local gravitational forces, and plate tectonics, which yield what some might find to be counterintuitive results.
Go to Profile#898
Adam Tickell
#25282
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Adam Tickell FAcSS is a British economic geographer, whose work explores finance, English local governance, and the politics of ideas. He is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, and was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex. He also edited the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
Go to Profile#899
Edgar G. Hertwich
#111966
Overall Influence
#900
Victor D. Vacquier
#112007
Overall Influence
