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,
#951
Peter Gould
#94914
Overall Influence
1932 - 2000 (68 years)
Peter Gould was an Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Geography at Penn State University. Throughout his tenure at Penn State University, Gould received many awards including the Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud, the Retzius Gold Metal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, as well as an honorary Doctor of Science from the Universitaire de Strasbourg. Dr. Gould was a main contributor to the quantitative revolution in the field of Geography.
Go to Profile#952
Vijay P. Singh
#77748
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Vijay P. Singh is a Distinguished Professor and a Regents Professor, and holds the Caroline and William N. Lehrer Distinguished Chair in Water Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research interests include Surface-water Hydrology, Groundwater Hydrology, Hydraulics, Irrigation Engineering, Environmental Quality, and Water Resources.
Go to Profile#953
Larry Soderblom
#67646
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Laurence A. Soderblom is a geophysicist with the Astrogeology Science center at the United States Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has served as Chief of the Branch of Astrogeology. Soderblom is best known for his work in imaging science.
Go to Profile#954
Judith C. Chow
#114157
Overall Influence
#955
Martin Beniston
#98467
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Martin Beniston was born in England in 1953 and holds three passports . He has studied in the UK , France , and ETH-Zurich . After more than 40 years of academic life, he retired in the Summer of 2017, and is now an Honorary Professor at the University of Geneva.
Go to Profile#956
Paul Younger
#72407
Overall Influence
1962 - 2018 (56 years)
Paul Younger was a British hydrogeologist, environmental engineer and writer. He worked both on water resources , and water pollution . Biography Younger respectively obtained in 1984 a B.Sc. degree with first class honours in Geology from Newcastle University, in 1986 an M.Sc. degree in Hydrogeology from Oklahoma State University, and in 1990 a Ph.D. degree with as subject "Numerical Modelling of Water Resource Systems" from the Newcastle University. His PhD thesis at Newcastle University involved the use of numerical modelling techniques to assess pollution risks in coupled river / groundwater systems in the London Basin.
Go to Profile#957
Colin Thorne
#49253
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Colin Reginald Thorne is Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Nottingham. A fluvial geomorphologist with an educational background in environmental sciences, civil engineering and physical geography; he has published 9 books and over 120 journal papers and book chapters.
Go to Profile#958
Mark Diesendorf
#20664
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mark Diesendorf is an Australian academic and environmentalist, known for his work in sustainable development and renewable energy. He currently teaches environmental studies at the University of New South Wales , Australia. He was formerly professor of environmental science and founding director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney and before that a principal research scientist with CSIRO, where he was involved in early research on integrating wind power into electricity grids. His most recent book is Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change...
Go to Profile#959
Mallavarapu Megharaj
#114328
Overall Influence
#960
Robert Walter Steel
#56838
Overall Influence
1915 - 1997 (82 years)
Robert Walter Steel CBE was a British geographer, who was Professor of Geography at Liverpool University from 1957 to 1974 and Principal of the University College of Swansea from 1974 to 1982. Life He was born in Reading, United Kingdom. Son of Rev Frederick Grabham and Winifred Barry Steel. He was the eldest of four children.
Go to Profile#961
Akira Hasegawa
#114517
Overall Influence
#962
Domenico Giardini
#114565
Overall Influence
#963
Sharon Mosher
#83287
Overall Influence
Sharon Mosher is an American geologist. She did her undergraduate work at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After earning an MSc from Brown University, she returned to the University of Illinois to get her PhD in Geology in 1978. Since 2001 she has held the William Stamps Farish Chair at University of Texas, and, since 2009 she has served as the dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at Texas. In 2013 she became the president of the American Geosciences Institute.
Go to Profile#964
Ronald G. Burns
#114693
Overall Influence
#965
Reginald H. Mitchell
#114708
Overall Influence
#966
Olav Orheim
#105547
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Olav Orheim is a Norwegian glaciologist. He served as director of the Norwegian Polar Institute from 1993 to 2005. He was appointed associate professor in glaciology at the University of Bergen in 1989. Orheim was a central participant in the establishment of the research station Troll in Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. Orheim has probably landed atop more icebergs than anyone in the world and was once stranded overnight on one with David Attenborough, the English broadcaster and voice of the nature series "Planet Earth".
Go to Profile#967
Smriti Mallapaty
#114763
Overall Influence
#968
Jean‐michel Léger
#114764
Overall Influence
#969
Frank D. Stacey
#114828
Overall Influence
#970
An Yin
#96429
Overall Influence
1959 - 2023 (64 years)
An Yin was a Chinese-American earth scientist and a Distinguished Professor of Geology at the University of California, Los Angeles . His early work explores the mechanical origin and kinematic evolution of low-angle normal faults and thrust systems in the North American Cordillera. He is perhaps best known for his work on the tectonic evolution of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau. His research interests shifted in later years to slow-earthquake mechanics, early Earth tectonics, and planetary studies.
Go to Profile#971
David Legates
#56558
Overall Influence
David Russell Legates is a former professor of geography at the University of Delaware. He is the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the same university and a former Delaware state climatologist. In September 2020, the Trump administration appointed him as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Go to Profile#972
Craig E. Manning
#88082
Overall Influence
Craig E. Manning is a professor of geology and geochemistry in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as department chair between 2009 and 2012. Manning's research interests include water chemistry, thermodynamics, gas chemistry, geochemistry, igneous petrology, and metamorphic petrology.
Go to Profile#973
Ikuo Kushiro
#115028
Overall Influence
#974
Nerilie Abram
#65980
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Nerilie Abram is an Australian professor at the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Her areas of expertise are in climate change and paleoclimatology, including the climate of Antarctica, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and impacts on the climate of Australia.
Go to Profile#975
Joachim Kuettner
#88251
Overall Influence
1909 - 2011 (102 years)
Joachim Kuettner , also spelled Küttner, was a German-American atmospheric scientist. Germany Born and raised in Breslau, Germany, Joachim Kuettner put his early interest in the atmosphere aside to complete a doctorate in law and economics at age 21. He worked in small-town courts and gazed at cumulus clouds while on the road. As Germany's legal and political structure deteriorated in the 1930s, Kuettner switched gears to earn a second doctorate, this time in meteorology. For his dissertation, he deployed 25 instrumented gliders to gather data on lee waves, the newly discovered features forming downwind of mountains.
Go to Profile#976
Kuo-Fong Ma
#59822
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Kuo-Fong Ma is a Taiwanese seismologist. She is primarily known for research conducted on the Chelungpu Fault, the cause of one of the most devastating earthquakes in Taiwan, the 1999 Jiji earthquake.
Go to Profile#977
Andrew Dessler
#72245
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Andrew Emory Dessler is a climate scientist. He is Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and holder of the Reta A. Haynes Chair in Geoscience at Texas A&M University. He is also the Director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies. His research subject areas include climate impacts, global climate physics, atmospheric chemistry, climate change and climate change policy.
Go to Profile#978
David Titley
#95670
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
David William Titley is a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and the founding director of their Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He was also NOAA's chief operating officer from 2012 to 2013. Before assuming these positions, he was a rear admiral in, and the chief oceanographer of, the U.S. Navy, in which he served for 32 years. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
Go to Profile#979
James Monger
#84796
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
James W.H. Monger is an emeritus scientist of the Geological Survey of Canada and a world leader in the application of plate tectonics to the study of mountain chain formation. Education Monger obtained his BSc at the University of Reading, his MSc at the University of Kansas, and his PhD at the University of British Columbia .
Go to Profile#980
Margaret Anne LeMone
#89412
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Margaret Anne LeMone is an atmospheric scientist who uses both atmospheric observations and computer models to study the formation and development of clouds, the development of precipitation, and the structure of storms.
Go to Profile#981
Doreen B. Massey
#115199
Overall Influence
#982
Michael Foote
#65320
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Michael J. Foote is a paleontologist and co-author, with Arnold I. Miller, of Principles of Paleontology . He was awarded the Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society in 2000. He is currently on the faculty at the University of Chicago, where he is Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology.
Go to Profile#983
Jim Salinger
#78256
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Michael James Salinger is a New Zealand climate change researcher and teacher who has worked for a range of universities in his home country and around the world. He was a senior climate scientist for a Crown Research Institute, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research , and President of the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology of the World Meteorological Organization . He has received several awards and other honours for his work with climate change and is involved in researching and monitoring past and current climate trends. Within his area of specialist scientific knowledge, Salinger has co-authored and edited a range of reports, articles and books.
Go to Profile#984
Ian S. E. Carmichael
#94539
Overall Influence
1930 - 2011 (81 years)
Ian Stuart Edward Carmichael, was a British-born American igneous petrologist and volcanologist who established extensive quantitative methods for research in the thermodynamics of magmas. Education Carmichael was educated at Westminster School in London. He obtained a B.A. and M.A. in geology from the University of Cambridge in 1954, and his Ph.D. in 1958 from Imperial College London, where he wrote his thesis on Iceland's Thingmuli volcano.
Go to Profile#985
Michael Sarnthein
#115641
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#986
John Alan Glennon
#89503
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
John Alan Glennon is an American geographer and explorer. His work has been mapping and describing caves and geysers. Discoveries and research Caves In 1996, Glennon and Jon Jasper discovered an entrance to the Martin Ridge Cave System, Kentucky, and explored connections to nearby Jackpot and Whigpistle Caves . The combined cave system is long . The cave is hydrologically connected to Mammoth Cave---the world's longest cave . Glennon also was involved in the discovery of one of the largest cave chambers in Kentucky .
Go to Profile#987
Andrew J. Tatem
#115762
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#988
Timothy Beatley
#27798
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Dr Timothy Beatley is an internationally recognized sustainable city researcher and author. His writings have focused on creative strategies cities can use to reduce their ecological footprints and become more livable and equitable places in the process. Beatley coined the term green urbanism and uses it frequently in his writings to describe the planning process used to create a sustainable city.
Go to Profile#989
B. Clark Burchfiel
#65103
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Burrell Clark Burchfiel is an American structural geologist. Born in Stockton, California, he earned his Ph.D. in 1961 at Yale University. His first academic appointment was to the Geology department at Rice University. He is the Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Geology at MIT. Research interests: Origin, development, and structural evolution of the continental crust. His current work involves study of the geological history and evolution of the Tibetan plateau.
Go to Profile#990
Guang‐guo Ying
#115946
Overall Influence
#991
Ian McDougall
#101348
Overall Influence
1935 - 2018 (83 years)
Ian McDougall was an Australian geologist and geochemist. McDougall was born in Hobart and studied at the University of Tasmania and Australian National University, before taking up a research position at ANU. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Australian Academy of Science, and the American Geophysical Union. McDougall also served as Vice President of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior.
Go to Profile#992
Marcelo Lopes de Souza
#46132
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Marcelo Lopes de Souza is a professor of socio-spatial development and political ecology at the Department of Geography of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he co-ordinates the Núcleo de Pesquisas sobre Desenvolvimento Sócio-Espacial/NuPeD . He received the first prize of the German Society of Research on Latin America in 1994 for his PhD thesis about the urban question in Brazil, and the Jabuti Award for his book O desafio metropolitano in 2001. His book Fobópole: O medo generalizado e a militarização da questão urbana , published in 2008, was nominated for the Jabuti Award ...
Go to Profile#993
John Robert Victor Prescott
#64621
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
John Robert Victor Prescott FASSA was a British and Australian academic, writer, and professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne. A political geographer, most of Prescott's work focused on international boundary issues, particularly maritime boundaries.
Go to Profile#994
Athanasios Nenes
#116232
Overall Influence
#995
Otto. Hutzinger
#116289
Overall Influence
#996
Thomas Bard Mccord
#116313
Overall Influence
#997
Maria Cristina Facchini
#94877
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Maria Cristina Facchini is a geoscientist and a research director at the National Research Council. Her studies focus on the physics and chemistry of aerosols and clouds, and their effect on our atmosphere and climate.
Go to Profile#998
Karl Hans Wedepohl
#116383
Overall Influence
#999
Tony Wrigley
#11278
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Sir Edward Anthony Wrigley was a British historical demographer. Wrigley and Peter Laslett co-founded the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure in 1964. Wrigley was born in Manchester on 17 August 1931. Wrigley's scholarly works focus on demographic history, and the long-term causes and effects of urbanization and industrialization. Among his many publications, Wrigley is known for the book Continuity, Chance and Change, published in 1988, in which he explained why Malthus was wrong about the law of diminishing returns slowing population growth. His most celebrat...
Go to Profile#1000
John Fraser Hart
#87001
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
John Fraser Hart is an American geographer. Over the course of his career he published over 150 scholarly papers, over a dozen books, and taught over 50,000 university students in his 65 years of teaching from 1949 until his retirement in 2015.
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