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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,

#1701

Eiji Ito

#147612

Overall Influence

#1702

Robert S. Coe

#147653

Overall Influence

#1703

Phil Hubbard

#103498

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Philip Hubbard is a British geographer. He is currently Professor of Urban Studies at King's College London, having previously served as the head of the School of Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research, University of Kent. Hubbard has written widely cited work on urban sociology, urban geography, and social geographies. This work has often engaged with questions of gentrification, social segregation and housing.

#1704

Chiu-wen Chen

#147784

Overall Influence

#1705

Claudio Vita-Finzi

#74999

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Claudio Vita-Finzi, is an Australian-British geologist and academic. He was Professor of Neotectonics at University College London from 1987 to 2001, and has been a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum, London since 2001. His research is interdisciplinary, and involves the application of tectonics and planetary science on landscape change: this has led to him working alongside archaeologists and climatologists among others.

#1706

Hui‐jun Wang

#148004

Overall Influence

#1707

Kenneth M. Creer

#148075

Overall Influence

#1708

Robert L. Sinsabaugh

#148098

Overall Influence

#1709

Bernard John Smith

#117893

Overall Influence

1951 - 2012 (61 years)

Professor Bernard John Smith was an English geomorphologist and a physical geographer. He was born in the English village of Beer in Dorset where he attended the local school until the family's relocation to London.

#1710

Daniel K. Schlenk

#148342

Overall Influence

#1711

Almut Iken

#142883

Overall Influence

1933 - 2018 (85 years)

Almut Iken was a German glaciologist most noted for her work on the role of basal meltwater in subglacial motion. In 2011, she was awarded the Seligman Crystal award from the International Glaciological Society and remains the only female recipient.

#1712

Floyd A. Huff

#148384

Overall Influence

#1713

Ota Kulhánek

#124776

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Ota Kulhánek is a Czech seismologist who currently resides in Uppsala, Sweden, where he is emeritus professor of geophysics at Uppsala University. He is also the author of the book Anatomy of Seismograms, released in 1990.

#1714

Nick Petford

#57549

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Nick Petford is a British academic and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Northampton. Previously he was Pro-Vice Chancellor at Bournemouth University and before that Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Kingston University. He has also worked for BP and on academic and commercial research projects throughout the world. As an academic he is known for his expertise in magmatic systems and volcanology. His publicly available Google Scholar Nick Petford account records over 200 journal articles, pieces of journalism, published abstracts and book chapters in this and other fields.

#1715

Teresa Jordan

#96600

Overall Influence

Teresa Jordan is a sedimentary geologist known for her research on the geology and hydrology of the Atacama Desert and the use of water and geothermal heat from sedimentary rocks. Education and career Jordan has a B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University . Following her Ph.D. she moved to Cornell University initially in a research position, and then she joined the faculty in 1984 where she was named the J. Preston Levis Professor of Engineering in 2005.

#1716

Neil C. Sturchio

#148614

Overall Influence

#1717

Kenneth Sassen

#148631

Overall Influence

#1718

Michael S. Zhdanov

#148640

Overall Influence

#1719

Petrica Novosel Žic

#101298

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Petrica Novosel Žic was a Croatian cartographer and geography professor at the University of Zagreb. Early life Petrica Novosel was born in Draga Bašćanska, on the island Krk. She trained as a teacher in Rijeka. She earned a bachelor's degree in geography at the University of Zagreb in 1959, and a master's degree in 1970. In 1978, she became the first woman in Croatia to earn a PhD in geography, with a dissertation about Krk .

#1720

Donald D. Bogard

#148655

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

#1721

Carl I. Steefel

#148674

Overall Influence

#1722

Shunsō Ishihara

#148702

Overall Influence

#1723

L. E. Jr. Casida

#148708

Overall Influence

#1724

Simon Klemperer

#76279

Overall Influence

Simon L. Klemperer is a geophysicist and professor of Geophysics and Geological Sciences at Stanford University. He is best known for his contribution in lithospheric structure and tectonics studies.

#1725

Felix J. Herrmann

#148788

Overall Influence

#1726

Alok Krishna Gupta

#87493

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Alok Krishna Gupta is an Indian mineralogist, petrologist and a former Raja Ramanna Fellow of the Department of Atomic Energy at the National Centre of Experimental Mineralogy and Petrology of the University of Allahabad. He is known for his studies on the genesis of alkaline rocks and is an elected fellow of all three major Indian science academies viz. the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him th...

#1727

Stephen C. Porter

#148923

Overall Influence

1934 - 2015 (81 years)

Stephen Cummings Porter was an American geologist who taught in the department of Geological Sciences and directed the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington. He was chief editor of the journal Quaternary Research from 1976 until his retirement in 2001. He died in 2015 at the age of 80.

#1728

Lindsay Collins

#122373

Overall Influence

1944 - 2015 (71 years)

Lindsay Boyd Collins was an Australian marine geologist and sedimentologist, and a faculty member in the Department of Applied Geology at Curtin University in Western Australia. He was interested in studying the continental shelf of Western Australia and coral reefs. Collins was a prominent scholar, and completed projects on continental shelf mapping of Australian shelves, microbialites and seagrass banks at Shark Bay, and coral reef studies at the Abrolhos, Ningaloo, Scott Reef, the Rowley Shoals and the Kimberley.

#1729

Ronald F. Scott

#149097

Overall Influence

#1730

Trevor D. Ford

#92208

Overall Influence

1925 - 2017 (92 years)

Trevor David Ford was an English geologist and author, best known for publishing the first report on the Precambrian fossil Charnia masoni in 1958. In addition to paleontology, his wide-ranging research encompassed geomorphology, speleology, studies of minerals and mineralisation, and mining history, and mainly focused on the Peak District. His academic career was at the Department of Geology of the University of Leicester, where he rose to be a senior lecturer and associate dean for combined studies in science. He was the founding editor of the journal now entitled Cave and Karst Science ,...

#1731

Trevor Chinn

#102777

Overall Influence

1937 - 2018 (81 years)

Trevor James Hill Chinn was a New Zealand glaciologist, who conducted extensive surveys of the glaciers of New Zealand's Southern Alps. Early life Chinn was fascinated by glaciers from an early age, having grown up near the farming settlement of Te Taho in South Westland, near the Franz Josef Glacier. While at the University of Canterbury Chinn joined the tramping club, and graduated with a BSc in geology. Chinn was the second of four children to Alfred and Myrtle Chinn.

#1732

Lorenzo Tomatis

#149191

Overall Influence

#1733

Joann Stock

#66222

Overall Influence

Joann Stock is a professor at California Institute of Technology known for her research into plate tectonics, particularly on changes in plate boundaries over geological time. Education and career Stock earned her B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981, and went on college field trip to Greece which grabbed her interest in geology. She "liked learning things that nobody knew before" and was particularly interested in earthquakes on the sea floor. She went on to earn an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology . From 1988 until 1992 she was on the Geology an...

#1734

Rachel Pinker

#135577

Overall Influence

Rachel T. Pinker is a professor of meteorology at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she has worked since 1976. Education Pinker received her M.S. degree from Hebrew University in 1965 and her PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1976.

#1735

Yoshio Fukao

#149295

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

#1736

Günter Meyer

#72065

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Günter Meyer is a German Geographer and Orientalist. He is chairman of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies and director of the Center for Research on the Arab World at the University of Mainz. Meyer focuses mainly on the Political Geography of the Arab World, and the economic as well as urban development in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and the UAE, but also in Germany. He became known to a wider German-speaking audience through more than 1100 interviews on the Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War and on the Libyan Civil War 2011 and 2014.

#1737

Carol D. Frost

#145903

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Carol Denison Frost is an American isotope geologist, petrologist and professor. Her primary research focuses on the evolution of the continental crust and granite petrogenesis. She has spent over thirty-five years investigating the geologic history of the Wyoming Province and the formation and geochemical classification of granite. Other contributions include isotopic fingerprinting of natural waters, including water associated with energy production. She served as Director of the Earth Sciences Division, National Science Foundation, from December 2014 to January 2018.

#1738

Leszek Marks

#56865

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Leszek Eugeniusz Marks is a Polish geologist, professor ordinarius , currently at the Warsaw University, Department of Climate Geology; and the Polish Geological Institute-National Research Institute , president of Committee for Quaternary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. At present , member of editorial boards of scientific journals Boreas, "Litosfera", "Geography and Geology", and Studia Quaternaria .

#1739

George Malcolm Brown

#78960

Overall Influence

1925 - 1997 (72 years)

Sir George Malcolm Brown, FRS was one of the most respected geologists of the second half of the twentieth century. His formidable reputation as an igneous petrologist enabled him to become one of the few scientists invited by NASA to work on the Moon rock samples recovered from the Apollo 11 lunar mission.

#1740

Suzanne M. Bianchi

#88765

Overall Influence

1952 - 2013 (61 years)

Suzanne M. Bianchi was an American sociologist. She was known for her work studying the evolving American family and gender roles. Personal life Suzanne M. Bianchi was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to Rita and Pesho Bianchi. Her mother was a housewife and her father was a meat packing plant employee. Bianchi was the oldest of six children. She and her husband, Mark Browning, had three children.

#1741

Samuel C. Colbeck

#149432

Overall Influence

#1742

Lance F. Bosart

#149443

Overall Influence

#1743

Maria D. Mastalerz

#149538

Overall Influence

#1744

Bhaskar J. Choudhury

#149555

Overall Influence

#1745

David D. Breshears

#149675

Overall Influence

#1746

Lisa Alexander

#145408

Overall Influence

Lisa Victoria Alexander is an international expert on heatwaves. She received the Dorothy Hill Medal for her research on climate extremes, the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, and has provided evidence that the frequency and intensity of heatwaves will be influenced by the quantity of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide. She was a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, including the fifth assessment report.

#1747

Dennis E. Hayes

#149753

Overall Influence

#1748

Joe N. Perry

#149781

Overall Influence

#1749

Edward T. Elliott

#149807

Overall Influence

#1750

Lorraine Whitmarsh

#93017

Overall Influence

Lorraine Elisabeth Whitmarsh is a British psychologist and environmental scientist at the University of Bath. She serves as Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations. Her research considers how the public engage with climate change, energy and transport.

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Image Attributions

Image Source for Günter Meyer