Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,

#1101

Klaus Hubacek

#122516

Overall Influence

#1102

Wendy Larner

#27912

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Wendy Larner is a New Zealand social scientist who has focussed on the interdisciplinary areas of globalisation, governance and gender. She has been Vice-Chancellor and President of Cardiff University since September 2023, having previously been provost at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

#1103

Thomas Stanley Westoll

#78472

Overall Influence

1912 - 1995 (83 years)

Prof Thomas Stanley Westoll, FRS FRSE, FGS FLS LLD was a British geologist, and the long-time head of the Department of Geology at Newcastle University. Education and career He was born in West Hartlepool the son of Horace Stanley Raine Westoll. He was educated at the West Hartlepool Grammar School. He then studied Sciences on a scholarship at Durham University, specialising in geology and palaeontology, graduating BSc in 1932.

#1104

Peter A. Troch

#122596

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

#1105

Chris J. Marone

#122602

Overall Influence

#1106

Ronald M. Clowes

#102129

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Ronald M. Clowes, CM is a professor specializing in seismic and other geophysical studies of the Earth's lithosphere. For his work he has been appointed a member of the Order of Canada. He completed three degrees while attending the University of Alberta; B.Sc. , M.Sc. , Ph.D. . In 1969–1970, Clowes completed an NRC postdoctoral fellowship at Australian National University. He became a professor at the University of British Columbia in 1970. In 1987, he became the director of Lithoprobe, a national geoscience research project. Clowes continues to teach at UBC as a professor in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

#1107

Marc Parlange

#54305

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Marc Brendan Parlange is an American academic, recognised for his research expertise in environmental fluid mechanics and research in hydrology and climate change. His contributions primarily relate to the measurement and simulation of air movement over complex terrain, with a focus on how atmospheric turbulence dynamics influence urban, agricultural and alpine environments and wind energy. He has also been active in addressing water resources challenges and environmental change in remote communities, particularly West Africa.

#1108

Fabio Remondino

#122728

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

#1109

Niels Peter Revsbech

#122729

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

#1110

Heidi Cullen

#30964

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Heidi M. Cullen is the Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at MBARI, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute . Cullen was previously the chief scientist for the non-profit environmental organization, Climate Central, located in Princeton, New Jersey. In addition, she is a guest lecturer at nearby Princeton University, and the author of the book, The Weather of the Future. An expert and commentator about issues related to climate change and the environment, she was an on-air personality at The Weather Channel, and is a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsyl...

#1111

Jonathan A. Foley

#122821

Overall Influence

#1112

Paul C. Adams

#83246

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Paul C. Adams is an American geographer who is Professor and Director of Urban Studies at the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin. Adams applies various approaches from human geography to study media and communication. His research has helped develop the subdiscipline geography of media and communication by integrating studies of place representations, communication infrastructures, social processes, and routines of media use in daily life.

#1113

Sergio Ulgiati

#122957

Overall Influence

#1114

Raymond R. Rogers

#41205

Overall Influence

Raymond Robert Rogers is a professor and chair of geology at Macalester College. He earned his B.S. in geology from Northern Arizona University in 1985, his M.S. from the University of Montana in 1989, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1995 Rogers' specializations are as a sedimentary geologist and taphonomist, with a focus on the study of terrestrial and marginal marine depositional systems, particularly those with abundant fossils. He is one of the editors of the book Bonebeds: Genesis, Analysis, and Paleobiological Significance, from the University of Chicago Press .

#1115

Sebastian Mernild

#102541

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Jacob Sebastian Haugaard Mernild is a Danish professor in climate change, glaciology and hydrology, who is the pro-vice-chancellor of the University of Southern Denmark. Mernild has been an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change author for the United Nations since 2010. Initially a contributing author on the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, he was lead author on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

#1116

Jerzy Falandysz

#123020

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

#1117

David Evans

#69185

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

David Evans is an American professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University. He works on quantitative reconstruction of supercontinents. He is involved in the Snowball Earth theory of Precambrian ice ages by demonstrating that the magnetic latitudes of ancient ice deposits were tropical. He is also the head of Berkeley College, one of Yale's fourteen residential colleges.

#1118

László Makra

#79860

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

László Makra is a Hungarian climatologist and university professor. His main research area is pollen climatology and, within this, analysis of climatological relationships of ragweed pollen, as well as relationship between ragweed pollen concentration and respiratory diseases.

#1119

Matthew Zook

#71015

Overall Influence

Matthew Zook is an American geographer and professor in the Department of Geography, University of Kentucky. He studies the geography of the Internet, the GeoWeb, economic geography and domain names In 2009 Matthew Zook and Mark Graham cofounded the FloatingSheep blog to understand the interactions between the GeoWeb and the offline world. In 2011 Zook cofounded the New Mappings Collaboratory at the University of Kentucky to focus on public engagement in Lexington, 'big data' and user-generated Internet content, as well as the affordances of place-based thinking, analysis, and representation...

#1120

Kenneth A. Pye

#123242

Overall Influence

#1121

Abraham H. Oort

#64646

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Abraham Hans Oort is a Dutch-born American climatologist. Oort is the son of the Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort. He moved to the United States in 1961. Since 1971, Oort was professor at Princeton University, where from 1977 until his retirement in 1996 he worked at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA. Oort is best known for his textbook, Physics of Climate, written in conjunction with José P. Peixoto.

#1122

Michelle Scherer

#64316

Overall Influence

Michelle Marie Scherer is the Donald E. Bently Professor of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Her research considers environmental geochemistry, in particular redox-reactions at mineral-water interfaces. In 2009 she was awarded the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Distinguished Service Award.

#1123

Stephen J. Mackwell

Stephen J. Mackwell

#86562

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Stephen J. Mackwell is a researcher in geophysics, specializing in laboratory-based studies of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of geological materials. He is also interested in the transport of fluid components in mantle and crustal rocks on the microscopic and macroscopic scales, and on the effects of such components on mechanical properties. He has authored or co-authored over 80 articles in international scientific journals and is an editor of a book on comparative climatology of terrestrial planets published by the University of Arizona Press.

#1124

Dušan S. Zrnić

#123547

Overall Influence

#1125

Malin Falkenmark

#67523

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (101 years)

Malin Fredrika Sofia Sundberg-Falkenmark, born 21 November 1925water scarcity Life and career Falkenmark graduated as a Fil. Mag. in mathematics, physics, chemistry and mechanics at Uppsala University, in 1951. In 1964, she became the first Fil. Lic. of hydrology in Sweden, where she studied the “Bearing capacity of an ice sheet”. Later in 1975, she was awarded the title of PhD Honoris causa at Linköping University.

#1126

Petra Döll

#108388

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Petra Döll is a German hydrologist whose work focuses on modeling global water resources. She is a professor of hydrology and researcher at the Institute of Physical Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt.

#1127

Terje Tvedt

#30651

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Terje Tvedt is a Norwegian academic, author and documentary film maker. Tvedt is presently a professor at the Department of Geography, University of Bergen, and Professor in Global History, University of Oslo, Norway. He has previously been a professor of political science and development studies.

#1128

George M. Woodwell

#77995

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

George M. Woodwell is an American ecologist. He founded several programs in ecology, first at Brookhaven National Laboratory then at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and then at the Woods Hole Research Center, which he founded in 1985. .

#1129

Michael Gurnis

#123668

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

#1130

Ren-guang Wu

#123675

Overall Influence

#1131

Jordi Agustí

#80369

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Jordi Agustí is a Spanish paleontologist at the Instituto de Paleoecología Humana y Evolución Social at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. His research is mainly focused on the evolution of mammal fossils in relation to changing climates in the last 10 million years. He has led investigations in Europe and in North Africa, and he was part of the team that discovered some of the oldest Eurasian hominids in Dmanisi, Georgia.

#1132

David Woodward

#43785

Overall Influence

1942 - 2004 (62 years)

David Woodward was an English-born American historian of cartography and cartographer. Biography Woodward was born in Royal Leamington Spa, England. After receiving a bachelor's degree from the Swansea University , he moved to the United States to study cartography under Arthur H. Robinson at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned a doctorate in geography in 1970.

#1133

Aykut Barka

#17259

Overall Influence

1951 - 2002 (51 years)

Aykut Barka was a Turkish earth scientist specialized in earthquake research. He is best known for his contributions to understanding the behaviour of the North Anatolian Fault Zone , one of the most dangerous active faults in the world.

#1134

Anthony David Scott

#123765

Overall Influence

#1135

Fu‐yuan Wu

#123867

Overall Influence

#1136

Ellen Thomas

#118093

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Ellen Thomas is a Dutch-born environmental scientist and geologist specializing in marine micropaleontology and paleoceanography. She is the emerita Harold T Stearns Professor and the Smith Curator of Paleontology of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History at Wesleyan University, and a senior research scientist at Yale University.

#1137

Maria Dolors García Ramón

Maria Dolors García Ramón

#48723

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Maria Dolors García Ramón is a Spanish geographer. She is emeritus professor of geography of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Early life and education García Ramón was born on 7 November 1943 in Gandia, Valencia. She has a BA and PhD from the University of Barcelona and an MA from the University of California.

#1138

Eduardo Garzanti

#124018

Overall Influence

#1139

Karl-Rudolf Koch

#92755

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Karl-Rudolf Koch is a German geodesist and professor at the University of Bonn . In the global geodetic community, he is well known for his research work in geodetic statistics, particularly robust parameter estimation and in gravity field models.

#1140

Peter H. Schultz

#82291

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Peter H. Schultz is Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University specializing in the study of planetary geology, impact cratering on the Earth and other objects in the Solar System, and volcanic modifications of planetary surfaces. He was co-investigator to the NASA Science Mission Directorate spacecraft Deep Impact and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite . He was awarded the Barringer Medal of the Meteoritical Society in 2004 for his theoretical and experimental studies of impact craters.

#1141

Jørn Thiede

#124149

Overall Influence

#1142

Cathy Drennan

#45790

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Catherine Drennan is an American biochemist and crystallographer. She is the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

#1143

Giday WoldeGabriel

#24906

Overall Influence

Giday WoldeGabriel is an Ethiopian geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who co-discovered human skeletal remains at Herto Bouri, Ethiopia, now classified as Homo sapiens idaltu. Life He graduated from Case Western Reserve University.

#1144

John Sawyer

#87437

Overall Influence

1916 - 2000 (84 years)

John Stanley Sawyer FRS was a British meteorologist, and Fellow of the Royal Society. Life He was born in Wembley, Middlesex and educated at the Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith and Jesus College, Cambridge.

#1145

Sierd Cloetingh

Sierd Cloetingh

#76761

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Sierd A.P.L. Cloetingh is Professor of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University, and since 2014 President of the Academia Europaea. Education BSc degree geology with physics and mathematics, University of Groningen : March 1972MSc degree geophysics with minors in structural geology and numerical mathematics , University of Utrecht: January 1977PhD degree geophysics University of Utrecht : December 1982.

#1146

Arvin R. Mosier

#124357

Overall Influence

#1147

Henry de Lumley

Henry de Lumley

#20908

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Henry de Lumley is a French archeologist, geologist and prehistorian. He is director of the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris, and Professor Emeritus at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. He is also a corresponding member of the Academy of Humanities of the Institute of France and former director of the French National Museum of Natural History. He is best known for his work on archeological sites in France and Spain, notably Arago cave in Tautavel, Southern France, Terra Amata in Nice and Grotte du Lazaret near Nice, and Baume Bonne at Quinson, where some of the earliest ev...

#1148

Hervé Piégay

#124449

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

#1149

Georgia Destouni

Georgia Destouni

#101690

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Georgia "Gia" Destouni is a Professor of Hydrology at Stockholm University. She works on the Baltic Sea Region Programme as well as studying the impact of climate change on societies in Northern Europe. She is the chair of the Global Wetland Ecohydrology Network and was involved with the National Geosphere Laboratory.

#1150

David Beerling

#81182

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

David John Beerling FLSW is the Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate change mitigation and Sorby Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

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