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,
#2001
Rasmus Fensholt
#161140
Overall Influence
#2002
Brendon A. Bradley
#161145
Overall Influence
#2003
Joan Albaigés
#161162
Overall Influence
#2004
James Mark Brooks
#161212
Overall Influence
#2005
John Edward Guest
#161281
Overall Influence
#2006
Richard J. Harrison
#100236
Overall Influence
Richard J. Harrison is a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and director of Studies for Earth and Mineral Sciences at St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge. He works in the field of palaeomagnetism.
Go to Profile#2007
David Catling
#138652
Overall Influence
David C. Catling is a Professor in Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist whose research focuses on understanding the differences between the evolution of planets, their atmospheres, and their potential for life. He has participated in NASA's Mars exploration program and contributed research to help find life elsewhere in the solar system and on planets orbiting other stars. He is also known for his work on the evolution of Earth's atmosphere and biosphere, including how Earth's atmosphere became rich in oxygen, allowing complex...
Go to Profile#2008
Zvi. Garfunkel
#161365
Overall Influence
#2009
Nicholas Blomley
#119494
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Nicholas K. Blomley is a British-Canadian legal geographer. He is a Professor and former Chair of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Career In 1989, Blomley joined the faculty of Geography at Simon Fraser University as a temporary replacement for a professor. He ended up impressing the department and was hired full-time. In 1994, Blomley published "Law, Space, and the Geographies of Power" through the Guilford Press. This book examined the geographies of law through critical theory. In 1997, Blomley began to develop a computerized geographical information system with data on Vancouver's downtown eastside land market as a way to combat gentrification.
Go to Profile#2010
Akio Amy Kitoh
#161480
Overall Influence
#2011
Vibjörn Karlén
#156003
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Vibjörn Karlén was a Swedish geologist who was professor emeritus of physical geography and quaternary geology at Stockholm University. In an article which describes Karlén as a paleoclimatologist, he is quoted as saying: "One of the big problems with trying to determine long-term temperature changes, is that weather records only go back to about 1860. By relying on statistical reconstruction of the last 1000 years, using only the temperature patterns of the last 140 years instead of actual temperature readings, the IPCC report and Summary missed both a major cooling period as well as a sign...
Go to Profile#2012
Egill Hauksson
#161579
Overall Influence
#2013
Harrison Schmitt
#15247
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Harrison Hagan Schmitt is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person—and only person without a background in military aviation—to have walked on the Moon.
Go to Profile#2014
Jin-shui Wu
#161723
Overall Influence
#2015
Peter Jackson
#72252
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Peter Jackson, FBA, FAcSS is a British human geographer. Since 1993, he has been professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield. Career Jackson graduated from Keble College, Oxford, with a BA in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Geography. He then lectured at University College London from 1980 to 1993, the last year as a senior lecturer, before moving to the University of Sheffield to take up his professorship.
Go to Profile#2016
Andreas Fichtner
#161808
Overall Influence
#2017
Ghislain De Marsily
#161885
Overall Influence
#2018
Adam Żurowski
#115914
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Adam Roman Żurowski was a geodesist, Professor of technical sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering , and Head of the Department of Geodesy at the Gdańsk University of Technology.
Go to Profile#2019
Van Jones
#1411
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones is an American political analyst, media personality, lawyer, author, and civil rights advocate. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a CNN host and contributor, and an Emmy Award winner.
Go to Profile#2020
Kenneth S. Gage
#161947
Overall Influence
#2021
Remko Uijlenhoet
#162021
Overall Influence
#2022
Heejun Chang
#140438
Overall Influence
Heejun Chang is a professor of geography and associate dean for research and graduate programs at Portland State University. Early life and education He holds a BA and a MA from the Seoul National University and obtained a PhD from the Pennsylvania State University. His research and teaching focus on water sustainability in a changing climate, land cover, and management. Chang has been leading transdisciplinary water research from a coupled natural and human system lens.
Go to Profile#2023
Maurice Lelubre
#144488
Overall Influence
1916 - 2005 (89 years)
Maurice Lelubre was a French geologist who undertook a number of explorations in the Sahara desert. He served as geologist for the Geological Map of Algeria , lecturer at the University of Toulouse , and then professor of geology and petrography. From 1977 until his retirement in 1983, he directed the Laboratory of Geology-Petrology at the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse. He received the Fontannes Prize from the Société géologique de France .
Go to Profile#2024
Allen Jay Gandolfi
#162112
Overall Influence
#2025
John Catt
#97625
Overall Influence
1939 - 2017 (78 years)
John Catt was a British geologist and soil scientist. Catt spent most of his research career at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, where he made major contributions Quaternary paleopedology and soil management. After retiring from Rothamsted, he was appointed an honorary professor at University College London, and worked on Hertfordshire Geology and Landscape , which was acclaimed as a definitive text on the natural history of Hertfordshire.
Go to Profile#2026
Xiaoye Source Zhang
#162187
Overall Influence
#2027
David Alan Laird
#162201
Overall Influence
#2028
Alexander Zipf
#162236
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#2029
Jan Smit
#97749
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Jan Smit is a Dutch paleontologist. He was affiliated with the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2003 to 2013 as a professor of event stratigraphy, studying rapid changes in the geological record related to mass extinctions.
Go to Profile#2030
Gary J. Gates
#162327
Overall Influence
#2031
Philip Stott
#28650
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Philip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a former editor of the Journal of Biogeography. Background In the early 1970s, Stott and his wife, a historian and biographer, lived in Thailand and he was carrying out field research at Kalasin. He has two daughters.
Go to Profile#2032
Manuel B. Aalbers
#162359
Overall Influence
#2033
Jianping Huang
#162444
Overall Influence
#2034
Marilyn A. Brown
#73514
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Marilyn A. Brown is a Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She joined Georgia Tech in 2006 after 22 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she held various leadership positions. Her work was cited by President Clinton as providing the scientific justification for signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. With Eric Hirst, she coined the term "energy efficiency gap" and pioneered research to highlight and quantify the unexploited economic potential to use energy more productively.
Go to Profile#2035
Richard A. Bilonick
#162533
Overall Influence
#2036
Demian Saffer
#161061
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Demian Saffer is an American geophysicist based at The University of Texas at Austin where he is director of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and professor at the Department of Geological Sciences of the Jackson School of Geosciences . He studies the role of fluids and friction in the mechanics of subduction megathrust earthquakes.
Go to Profile#2037
Rong Fu
#142791
Overall Influence
Rong Fu is a Chinese-American climatologist, meteorologist, researcher, professor, and published author with more than 100 articles, books, and projects detailing changes that occur in Earth's atmosphere and how they affect climate, seasons, rainfall, and the like. Fu has been invited to present over 115 presentations and seminars, and has administered more than 32 projects that received over 11 million dollars in funding. The focus areas of Fu's research are convection; cloud and precipitation processes and their role in climate; atmospheric transport in the upper troposphere and lower strato...
Go to Profile#2038
Jonathan Rigg
#162701
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#2039
Kathleen Kahn
#162757
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#2040
Russell Coope
#150243
Overall Influence
1930 - 2011 (81 years)
Russell Coope, also Geoffrey Russell Coope and G. Russell Coope was a Quaternary paleoentomologist and neontologist and a paleoclimatologist specializing in the British Pleistocene. He was an expert and leader in the reconstruction of Quaternary paleoenvironmental conditions from fossil beetles. The relatively young age of his fossils allowed Coope to explore construction sites for fossils, in addition to geological field sites.
Go to Profile#2041
Allan E. Konopka
#162837
Overall Influence
#2042
Johannes Leonardus Ger Hermens
#162853
Overall Influence
#2043
Ligia Gargallo
#68356
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Ligia Gargallo is a Chilean chemist and university professor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Career She works at the University of Tarapacá and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago. She received a bachelor's degree in chemical pharmaceutical at the University of Chile in 1959, degrees in chemistry from Paris Dauphine University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, a doctorate in chemical sciences at the University of Liège in Belgium in 1972, and a doctorate in chemistry from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her areas of investigation are focused in Polymers and Macromolecules.
Go to Profile#2044
Julie Brigham-Grette
#118240
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Julie Brigham-Grette is a glacial geologist and a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she co-directs the Joseph Hartshorn Quaternary Laboratory. Her research expertise is in glacial geology and paleoclimatology; she has made important contributions to Arctic marine and terrestrial paleoclimate records of late Cenozoic to recent, the evolution of the Arctic climate, especially in the Beringia/Bering Strait region, and was a leader of the international Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project in northeastern Russia.
Go to Profile#2045
Amy Leventer
#61156
Overall Influence
Amy Leventer is an American Antarctic researcher specialising in micropaleontology, with specific research interests in marine geology, marine biology, and climate change. Leventer has made over a dozen journeys to the Antarctic, which began at the age of 24 and led to the pursuit of her PhD.
Go to Profile#2046
Jean-bernard H. Minster
#163028
Overall Influence
#2047
Michael Perfit
#125632
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Michael Roger Perfit is an American geologist who is currently an emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Florida. Perfit grew up on Long Island, New York where he got his love for the ocean that has continued today in his personal and professional life. He attended St. Lawrence University in upstate New York where he graduated with a BS in Geology in 1971. He first entered the graduate program at Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory/Columbia University as a student of Maurice Ewing and later, Bruce Heezen receiving an M. Phil. in Marine Geology in 1974. He continued to obtain a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#2048
Richard F. Wright
#163147
Overall Influence
#2049
Maureen D. Long
#76953
Overall Influence
Maureen D. Long is an observational seismologist studying mantle and Mesosphere dynamics. She currently serves as a professor at Yale University within the Department of Geology and Geophysics. Early life and education Long began her love of science in the eight grade while enrolled in an Earth science course, giving her an initial look into plate tectonics. She continued her education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, receiving her bachelor's degree in 2000, graduating summa cum laude. In June 2006, Long earned her doctorate in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#2050
Paul R. Bierman
#163224
Overall Influence
