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,
#1501
Christopher D. Elvidge
#138898
Overall Influence
#1502
Bin Jiang
#43536
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Bin Jiang is a professor in geographic information science, geographic information systems or geoinformatics at the University of Gävle, Sweden. He is affiliated to the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm through the KTH Research School at Gävle. He has been coordinating the Nordic Network in Geographic Information Science , and has organized a series of NordGISci summer schools for the Nordic young researchers. He is the founder and chair of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Geospatial Analysis and Modeling, and has established an ICA workshop series on the research topic.
Go to Profile#1503
Peter Molnar
#37950
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
Peter Molnar was a professor in Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado. His research focused on aspects of how mountain ranges form and continental lithosphere deforms. Molnar was born August 25, 1943, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Oberlin College in 1965 and his Ph.D. in seismology from Columbia University in 1970.
Go to Profile#1504
Vladimir E. Romanovsky
#139059
Overall Influence
#1505
Chris Walley
#73426
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Chris Walley is a geologist, author, and tertiary education lecturer. Life and career Chris Walley was born in Wales in 1954; however, he grew up in northern England. He received a Bachelor of Science in geology from Sheffield University and a Phd from the University of Wales, Swansea. He taught at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon from 1980 to 1984, where he met his wife and where his two sons John and Mark were born.
Go to Profile#1506
Gary D. Egbert
#139114
Overall Influence
#1507
Phil Ineson
#115870
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Phil Ineson is a chair in Global Change Ecology at the University of York. Ineson is particularly noted for his work with stable isotopes . Ineson received his BSc from Manchester Polytechnic in 1982, receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool in 1986. He was then a NERC Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at the University of Exeter until 1989. NERC Research Fellow at ITE Merlewood and later Senior Scientific Officer . Between 1996 and 1999 he was at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Merlewood. Between 1998 and 2000 he was visiting professor at Lancaster University. He was mad...
Go to Profile#1508
Christopher W. Fairall
#139307
Overall Influence
#1509
Renyi Zhang
#139315
Overall Influence
Renyi Zhang is an American geoscientist, currently a university distinguished professor and Harold G. Haynes Chair at Texas A&M University and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Geophysical Union.
Go to Profile#1510
Robert B. Hargraves
#117112
Overall Influence
1928 - 2003 (75 years)
Robert B. Hargraves was an American geologist who worked as a professor at Princeton University. Career Hargraves was born in Durban, South Africa. He started in his career as mining geologist in 1948, after receiving his BS from Natal University. In 1952, he emigrated to the United States, and after service in the United States Army he went to graduate school at Princeton. After completion of his Ph.D. in 1959, he first worked at University of the Witwatersrand and then at Princeton.
Go to Profile#1511
James Rankin Maxwell
#139402
Overall Influence
#1512
Robert H. Gardner
#139445
Overall Influence
#1513
Shoichiro Fukao
#139457
Overall Influence
#1514
Viorel Bădescu
#139461
Overall Influence
#1515
Angelo Peccerillo
#139589
Overall Influence
#1516
Jan-Gunnar Winther
#89365
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Jan-Gunnar Winther is Pro-rector for research and development at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and Specialist Director at the Norwegian Polar Institute located in Tromsø. He served as Director of the Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic from 2018-2023, first affiliated with Nofima later at UiT.
Go to Profile#1517
Yoshiyuki Tatsumi
#139649
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#1518
John Tarney
#139692
Overall Influence
#1519
Daniel Fritz Stockli
#139770
Overall Influence
#1520
Hans Avé Lallemant
#106085
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Hans G. Avé Lallemant was a Dutch-born American geologist. He was a professor of Earth Sciences at Rice University. Career Avé Lallemant was born on 2 May 1938 in Bengkulu, then in the Dutch East Indies. He completed his university education in the Netherlands, obtaining a BA in geology from Leiden University in 1960, an MA in 1964, and finally his PhD in 1967.
Go to Profile#1521
Jemma Wadham
#93333
Overall Influence
Jemma L Wadham is a British glacial biogeochemist. Early life and education Wadham completed her BA and MA in physical geography at Cambridge University. She then completed her PhD at the University of Bristol in 1998.
Go to Profile#1522
Mauricio D. Sacchi
#139858
Overall Influence
#1523
Kevin R. Cox
#82473
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Kevin R. Cox is an Anglo-American geographer , who holds the position of Distinguished University Professor, in the Department of Geography, of The Ohio State University Biography He holds a BA degree from Cambridge University and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign , and has since then taught at Ohio State. He is commonly seen as a political geographer.
Go to Profile#1524
Christian Sonne
#139973
Overall Influence
#1525
Nidal H. Abu‐hamdeh
#139979
Overall Influence
#1526
Nick Clifford
#133659
Overall Influence
Nicholas John Clifford is a British geographer and academic. Education and career Clifford graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first-class geography BA and then completed a PGCE before undertaking doctoral studies there; his PhD was awarded in 1989 for his thesis "The formation, nature and maintenance of riffle-pool sequences in gravel-bedded rivers".
Go to Profile#1527
Rainer Schulin
#140153
Overall Influence
#1528
Eric J. Essene
#140155
Overall Influence
#1529
Hisayoshi Yurimoto
#140180
Overall Influence
#1530
Wayne T. Swank
#140272
Overall Influence
#1531
Richard P. Dick
#140281
Overall Influence
#1532
John Terence Coppock
#104192
Overall Influence
1921 - 2000 (79 years)
John Terry Coppock CBE FBA FRSE was a British geographer who was the Ogilvie Professor of Human Geography at University of Edinburgh from 1966 to 1986 and Secretary and Treasurer of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland from 1986 to 2000. He was a pioneer in three areas of scholarship – agricultural geography, land-use management and computer applications.
Go to Profile#1533
Joseph R. Curray
#140289
Overall Influence
#1534
James B. Thompson Jr.
#114583
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
James Burleigh Thompson Jr. was an American mineralogist and geologist. He was known for his research into the thermodynamics of minerals and the relationship to structure. He introduced the term polysomatic series for describing layered structures with chemically distinct layers.
Go to Profile#1535
Graham Feingold
#140314
Overall Influence
#1536
Bhaskar Vira
#51492
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Bhaskar Vira is an Indian academic, professor of Political Economy, and the current Pro Vice Chancellor for Education for Cambridge University. From 2019 until 2022 he was Head of Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. He was the founding director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and is a fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. In 2018, he was awarded the Busk Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his contributions in the fields of environment, development and economy. In 2021, he was elected to a Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences fo...
Go to Profile#1537
Joseph E. Schwartzberg
#55820
Overall Influence
1928 - 2018 (90 years)
Joseph E. Schwartzberg was an American writer, peace activist, and a world federalist, who was a tenured professor at the University of Minnesota. Author of numerous books, he was the editor and principal author of the Historical Atlas of South Asia, which in 1980 won the Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association. In 1984 the American Association of Geographers honored him with their annual award. His several substantial chapters in Book One of Volume Two of The History of Cartography were instrumental in that work receiving the R. R. Hawkins Award for Best Scholarly Book for 1992 from the Association of American Publishers.
Go to Profile#1538
Douglas W. Burbank
#140339
Overall Influence
#1539
Alan Bruce Thompson
#140353
Overall Influence
#1540
Ronald Freedman
#48350
Overall Influence
1917 - 2007 (90 years)
Ronald Freedman was an international demographer and founder of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. He led pioneering survey research on fertility in Asia. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Freedman grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. He received a BA in history and economics from the University of Michigan in 1939, and a master's degree in sociology in 1940. At the University of Chicago he completed prelims for his PhD in sociology before joining the U.S. Army in 1942 to serve in the Air Corps Weather Service.
Go to Profile#1541
Sandra Postel
#65336
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Sandra Postel is the founding director of the Global Water Policy Project. She is a world expert on fresh water and related ecosystems. From 2009-2015, she served as Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. She is the author of scores of articles and several books on global freshwater issues, including Last Oasis, which appears in eight languages, and most recently Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity. She is the recipient of four honorary doctor of science degrees. From 1988 to 1994 she served as the Vice President for Research at the Worldwatch Institute. Postel has taught water policy courses at Tufts University and Mount Holyoke College.
Go to Profile#1542
Ming Xue
#140413
Overall Influence
#1543
Mark A. Friedl
#140445
Overall Influence
#1544
Michael I. Luster
#140498
Overall Influence
#1545
Stephen A. Rutledge
#140693
Overall Influence
#1546
Isabel P. Montañez
#83328
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Isabel Patricia Montañez is a paleoclimatologist specializing in geochemical records of ancient climate change. She is a distinguished professor and a Chancellor's Leadership Professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences at University of California, Davis. As of 2021, Montañez is the director of the UC Davis Institute of the Environment.
Go to Profile#1547
Marilyn Raphael
#112689
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Marilyn N. Raphael is a Trinidadian climatologist, best known for her work on climate change and variability in the high latitude southern hemisphere. She is a professor and former chair of the Department of Geography at UCLA, has authored an award-winning text, and sits in leadership positions on a number of international polar research initiatives.
Go to Profile#1548
Bo‐cai Gao
#140892
Overall Influence
#1549
Zucong C. Cai
#140939
Overall Influence
#1550
Zbigniew Klimont
#141040
Overall Influence
