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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,

#1251

Thomas C. Hanks

#29877

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Thomas C. Hanks is an American seismologist. He works for the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California. Dr. Hanks is a member of the Seismological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, the Geological Society of America, the Peninsula Geological Society at Stanford, and many related geological societies. Dr. Hanks has authored dozens of scholarly papers in strong-motion seismology and tectonic geomorphology.

#1252

Yoshihide Wada

#129231

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#1253

Jian-zhou Wang

#129253

Overall Influence

#1254

J. Christopher Taylor

#129320

Overall Influence

#1255

Christopher N. Beaumont

#129334

Overall Influence

#1256

Thorsten Wagener

#129335

Overall Influence

#1257

Carmelo Giacovazzo

#129366

Overall Influence

#1258

Gordon Walker

#109450

Overall Influence

Gordon P. Walker is professor in the Department of Geography and Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University. Walker is the author of many publications on environmental justice and inequality, and community energy initiatives which involve embedding renewable energy at the local level.

#1259

Charles J. Weschler

#129452

Overall Influence

#1260

Emile A. Okal

#129470

Overall Influence

#1261

George Kukla

#75558

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

George Kukla was a climatologist who was senior research scientist at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Kukla was a member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences prior to emigrating to the US, and a pioneer in the field of astronomical climate forcing. In 1972 he became a central figure in convincing the United States government to take the dangers of climate change seriously.

#1262

Roland Paskoff

#82432

Overall Influence

1933 - 2005 (72 years)

Roland Paskoff was a French geologist expert in coastal geomorphology including Holocene tectonics and sea level change. While he was active studying the coast of the countries where he held university positions—that is Chile, France and Tunisia— he also conducted studies in Bahrain, Malta, the Seychelles and the Mascarene Islands.

#1263

John Dallas Bredehoeft

#129592

Overall Influence

#1264

Louise H. Kellogg

#50392

Overall Influence

1959 - 2019 (60 years)

Louise H. Kellogg was an American geophysicist with expertise in chemical geodynamics and computational geophysics and experience in leading multidisciplinary teams to advance geodynamics modeling and scientific visualization. Kellogg was a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis and director of the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. She was also a major contributor to the Deep Carbon Observatory project of the Sloan Foundation.

#1265

Rónadh Cox

#47832

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Rónadh Cox is an Irish geologist who is the Edward Brust Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Williams College, Massachusetts. Her research considers the impact of storms on coastal boulders. She is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of both the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#1266

Keith Cox

#85535

Overall Influence

1933 - 1998 (65 years)

Keith Gordon Cox FRS was a British geologist and academic at the University of Oxford. He had a particular interest in flood basalts and was regarded as one of the leading experts in this area. Life and career Cox was born in Birmingham, England, where his father, Sir Gordon Cox FRS, was a university lecturer in chemistry. After wartime evacuation to Canada, Cox attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and Leeds Grammar School. He completed national service in the Royal Engineers between 1950 and 1952. He then took a scholarship to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree in geology in 1956.

#1267

T. Mark Harrison

#76102

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

T. Mark Harrison is an isotope geochemist based in California. He is Distinguished Professor of Geochemistry in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California – Los Angeles.

#1268

Sonia Kreidenweis

#124738

Overall Influence

Sonia Maria Kreidenweis is an American Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University. Her research considers aerosols and their impact on weather and the climate. She has previously served as President of the American Association for Aerosol Research and was a board member of the American Meteorological Society. She was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2019.

#1269

Chris Rizos

#129828

Overall Influence

#1270

Teruyuki Nakajima

#129840

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#1271

Wei‐kuo Tao

#129924

Overall Influence

#1272

Conway B. Leovy

#98384

Overall Influence

1933 - 2011 (78 years)

Conway Leovy was a professor emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysics at the University of Washington, RAND author, former University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Trustee, Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and American political activist. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and was a co-recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Newcomb Cleveland Prize. In 2000 he won The Gerard P. Kuiper Prize, awarded annually by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society for outstanding lifetim...

#1273

Edzer J. Pebesma

#130130

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

#1274

Roger Mason

#67473

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Roger Mason is an English geologist. He is known as the discoverer of the original type fossil for species Charnia masoni of the genus Charnia. He is now a professor at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China.

#1275

Sarah Whatmore

#102837

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Dame Sarah Jane Whatmore is a British geographer. She is a professor of environment and public policy at Oxford University. She is a professorial fellow at Keble College, moving from Linacre College in 2012. She was associate head of the Social Sciences Division of the university from 2014 to 2016, and became pro-vice chancellor of Oxford in January 2017. From 2018 she has been head of the Social Sciences Division.

#1276

Phil Christensen

Phil Christensen

#50224

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Philip Russel Christensen is a geologist whose research interests focus on the composition, physical properties, processes, and morphology of planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on Mars and the Earth. He is currently a Regents' Professor and the Ed and Helen Korrick Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University .

#1277

Carolien Kroeze

#130359

Overall Influence

#1278

Jerry Straka

#78592

Overall Influence

Jerry Michael Straka is an American atmospheric scientist with expertise microphysics of clouds, cloud modeling, and dynamics of severe convection in conjunction with weather radar. He was in leadership roles in both the VORTEX projects and subsequent field research focusing on tornadogenesis.

#1279

David W. Krause

#48744

Overall Influence

David W. Krause is a Canadian-born vertebrate paleontologist currently working as Senior Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which he joined in 2016. Prior to that he was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University, where he was employed for 34 years. His work primarily focuses on fossils from the Cretaceous period of Madagascar, and he often travels to the island to uncover new fossils. He is most famous for his discoveries of Majungasaurus crenatissimus and Beezlebufo ampinga. Rapetosaurus krausei, another dinosaur from Madagascar, is named in his honor.

#1280

Meyer Rubin

#64725

Overall Influence

1924 - 2020 (96 years)

Meyer Rubin was an American geologist known for his radiocarbon dating work with the United States Geological Survey. Early career After graduating from Englewood High School, South Side, Chicago, in 1941, he attended the Woodrow Wilson Junior College, Chicago . In the spring of 1943, Rubin enlisted into a University of Chicago run pre-meteorology training program for the United States Army Air Forces ; active duty effective March 3, 1943. Basic training was at Fort Sheridan with classes held at the University of Michigan. Rubin finished his training in September 1943, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

#1281

Georgi Bardarov

#82196

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Georgi Kostadinov Bardarov is a Bulgarian scientist and writer. He teaches in the Geology and Geography department of Sofia University, where he is also vice-dean. His debut novel Аз още броя дните came out of the first intellectual reality show on Bulgarian television which Bardarov won in 2015. The book is based on a real-life cross-cultural romance during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war.

#1282

Gifford H. Miller

#115431

Overall Influence

Gifford H. Miller is an American paleoclimatologist. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder. Early life and education Miller was born into an academic family as his father, Robert, worked at the University of Michigan and specialized in the endemic fish populations of the western US. He enrolled at the University of Michigan and Albion College for his undergraduate degree but left after his sophomore year to join the Volunteers in Service to America program in western Alaska. Miller eventually enrolled at the Univer...

#1283

William. W. Symes

#130686

Overall Influence

#1284

Ellen Kandeler

#130760

Overall Influence

#1285

Weiping Liu

#130828

Overall Influence

#1286

Nico van Breemen

#121799

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Nico van Breemen is a Dutch soil scientist. He was a professor of pedogenesis at Wageningen University and Research Centre between 1986 and 2004. Career Van Breemen was born in Haarlem on 9 July 1942. He obtained a degree in soil science and soil chemistry in 1968. He obtained his doctorate at Wageningen University in 1976. His thesis was titled :"Genesis and solution chemistry of acid sulfate soils in Thailand". Between 1986 and 2004 he was a professor of pedogenesis at Wageningen University.

#1287

Robert Balling

#47549

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Robert C. Balling, Jr. is a professor of geography at Arizona State University, and the former director of its Office of Climatology. His research interests include climatology, global climate change, and geographic information systems. Balling has declared himself one of the scientists who oppose the consensus on global warming, arguing in a 2009 book that anthropogenic global warming "is indeed real, but relatively modest", and maintaining that there is a publication bias in the scientific literature.

#1288

Kirk R. Smith

#56768

Overall Influence

1947 - 2020 (73 years)

Kirk R. Smith was an American expert on the health and climate effects of household energy use in developing nations. He held a professorship in Global Environmental Health at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research focused on the relationships among environmental quality, health, resource use, climate, development, and policy in developing countries. Smith contributed a great deal to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , and the work of the IPCC was recognized by the joint award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Smith was a recipient of the 2012 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for his work with cookstoves, health, and climate.

#1289

James G. Ogg

#130874

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

#1290

Emily Brodsky

#98672

Overall Influence

Emily E. Brodsky is a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She studies the fundamental physical properties of earthquakes, as well as the seismology of volcanoes and landslides. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

#1291

Ming′an Shao

#130970

Overall Influence

#1292

Bruce P. Luyendyk

Bruce P. Luyendyk

#64321

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

#1293

Mark McMenamin

#20525

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Mark A. S. McMenamin is an American paleontologist and professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College. He has contributed to the study of the Cambrian explosion and the Ediacaran biota. He is the author of several books, most recently Deep Time Analysis and Dynamic Paleontology . His earlier works include The Garden of Ediacara: Discovering the Earliest Complex Life , one of the only popular accounts of research on the Ediacaran biota, and Science 101: Geology . He is credited with co-naming several geological formations in Mexico, describing several new fossil genera and species, and naming the Precambrian supercontinent Rodinia.

#1294

Robert C. Finkel

#130989

Overall Influence

#1295

Nobumichi Shimizu

#131083

Overall Influence

#1296

Stuart R. Phinn

Stuart R. Phinn

#131084

Overall Influence

#1297

Dieu Tien Bui

#131112

Overall Influence

#1298

Andrew Cunningham Scott

#102029

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Andrew Cunningham Scott is a British geologist, and professor emeritus at Royal Holloway University of London. He won the 2007 Gilbert H. Cady Award from the Geological Society of America for outstanding contributions to coal geology. He is widely regarded an expert on wildfire and charcoal and has highlighted the role of fire in deep time. He also contributes as a palaeobotanist and science communicator.

#1299

Anthony Fiorillo

#93755

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Anthony Ricardo Fiorillo is Executive Director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, as well as a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University. For many years he was vice president of research & collections and chief curator at the Perot Museum of Nature & Science. A native of Connecticut, he received his bachelor's at the University of Connecticut, his master's at the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D. in Vertebrate Paleontology from the University of Pennsylvania.

#1300

Clifford H. Thurber

#131153

Overall Influence

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