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,
#2051
Emil Makovicky
#163279
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
#2052
Caren Kaplan
#37049
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Caren Kaplan is Professor Emerita of American Studies at University of California at Davis, and a figure in the academic discipline of women's studies. Together with Inderpal Grewal, Kaplan has worked as a founder of the field of transnational feminist cultural studies or transnational feminism.
Go to Profile#2053
Jennifer Jacquet
#112277
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Life Born in 1980, she grew up in Ohio. She graduated from Western Washington University, from Cornell University, and from University of British Columbia. Jacquet is Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami.
Go to Profile#2054
Dimitar Ouzounov
#21104
Overall Influence
Dimitar Ouzounov is a Bulgarian–American geophysicist, research scientist, academic, and author. He is a research professor of geophysics at Institute for Earth, Computing, Human and Observing , Chapman University.
Go to Profile#2055
Richard G. Burns
#163359
Overall Influence
#2056
G. Jeffrey Taylor
#163399
Overall Influence
#2057
Anthony George Kafatos
#163437
Overall Influence
#2058
Hugues Goosse
#163438
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#2059
Frank. T. Manheim
#163452
Overall Influence
#2060
Donald L. Phillips
#163503
Overall Influence
#2061
Daniel W. Gade
#80732
Overall Influence
1936 - 2015 (79 years)
Daniel Wynne Gade was a professor of Geography at the University of Vermont and a prominent member of the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography. His main interests were in the fields of cultural geography and historical geography, as well as ethnobotany, cultural ecology, and mountain research. His regional focus was on the Central Andes of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia; moreover, Gade also investigated cultural landscapes of francophone Canada, Spain and Portugal, highland Madagascar, southern France and northern Italy. He was born in Niagara Falls, New York.
Go to Profile#2062
Hugh H. Kieffer
#163651
Overall Influence
#2063
Mark Edward Siddall
#163673
Overall Influence
#2064
Raphael A. Viscarra Rossel
#163692
Overall Influence
#2065
C. Derek Martin
#163760
Overall Influence
#2066
Siwan Davies
#44811
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Siwan Davies FLSW is a Welsh professor of Physical Geography in the department of science at Swansea University. Research Davies' research focus is to analyze past climate change and to reconstruct past climate changes. Together with a team of lecturing staff, technicians, PhD students and post doctoral researchers Davies is looking at rapid climatic changes. One of the challenges to understand why these changes occur is understanding where these events happen, are there triggers in the oceans or are there triggers in the atmosphere? By analyzing ash layers that have been spread across and therefore incorporated into ice and terrestrial matter from erupted volcanoes.
Go to Profile#2067
Raymond V. Ingersoll
#163841
Overall Influence
#2068
Graham John Borradaile
#163853
Overall Influence
#2069
Charles R. Stern
#163886
Overall Influence
#2070
Emmanouil Nikolaos Anagnostou
#163889
Overall Influence
#2071
Antonello Provenzale
#163901
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#2072
Yuk-shan Wong
#163996
Overall Influence
#2073
George P. Malanson
#164010
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#2074
Ray Ison
#93125
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Raymond L. Ison is an Australian-British cybernetician, systems scholar/scientist, and Professor of Systems at the Open University in the UK. He is currently President of the International Federation for Systems Research . He was also Professor Systems for Sustainability at Monash University, and fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, and President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in the year 2014-15. He is known for his work on systems praxeology within rural development, sustainable management, systemic governance and the design and enactment of learning systems.
Go to Profile#2075
Amaelle Landais-Israël
#64280
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Amaelle Landais-Israël is a French glaciologist and climatologist. She is research director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences at the French National Centre for Scientific Research .
Go to Profile#2076
Hans‐joachim Massonne
#164085
Overall Influence
#2077
Chidong Zhang
#164324
Overall Influence
#2078
James Lee Wilson
#164394
Overall Influence
#2079
Robert H. Meade
#164417
Overall Influence
#2080
Giuliano Di Baldassarre
#149677
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Giuliano Di Baldassarre is a professor of hydrology at Uppsala University and the Director of the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science, Sweden. He was awarded the American Geophysical Union Whiterspoon Lecture in 2020 and the European Geosciences Union Plinius Medal in 2021.
Go to Profile#2081
Bruce D. Smith
#164455
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#2082
Peter Barrett
#115301
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Peter John Barrett is a New Zealand geologist who came to prominence after discovering the first tetrapod fossils in Antarctica in 1967. Early life and family Barrett was born in Hamilton on 11 August 1940, and educated at Hamilton High School. He went on to study at Auckland University College from 1958 to 1962, graduating Bachelor of Science in 1961, and Master of Science in 1963. The title of his master's thesis was The Te Kuiti group in the Waitomo-Te Anga area : a study of structures, sedimentation and paleogeography of calcareous sediments.
Go to Profile#2083
Donald Huisingh
#164516
Overall Influence
#2084
Morgan D. Bazilian
#164525
Overall Influence
#2085
Kanwar Lal Sahrawat
#164529
Overall Influence
#2086
Bill Brass
#117710
Overall Influence
1921 - 1999 (78 years)
William Brass was a Scottish demographer. He developed indirect methods for estimating mortality and fertility in populations with inaccurate or incomplete data, often dubbed "Brass methods" after him.
Go to Profile#2087
Kevin Righter
#164588
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
#2088
Kingtse C. Mo
#164597
Overall Influence
#2089
Thomas M. Cronin
#164608
Overall Influence
#2090
Svante Björck
#160184
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Svante Björck is a Swedish Quaternary geologist and professor emeritus active at Lund University. In 2006 he was named Geologist of the Year by Geosektionen of Naturvetarna.
Go to Profile#2091
Cassandra Chamberlain
#164897
Overall Influence
#2092
Dana Cordell
#88098
Overall Influence
Dana Cordell is a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, where she directs and undertakes international and Australian research on sustainable food and phosphorus futures. Cordell's work in sustainability research has been recognised with the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research , a Banksia Mercedes-Benz Environmental Research Award, the Advance Food and Agriculture Award and she was named one of Australia's 100 Women of Influence .
Go to Profile#2093
Martin Jakobsson
#164984
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#2094
Basil Tikoff
#164995
Overall Influence
#2095
Páll Einarsson
#165048
Overall Influence
#2096
Alberto Palloni
#143732
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Alberto Palloni is an Italian-American demographer and sociologist who works for the RAND Corporation. He was previously the Samuel H. Preston Professor of Sociology, and the E.T. Young Professor of Population and International Studies, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2006, he was the president of the Population Association of America.
Go to Profile#2097
Heinz Jagodzinski
#149585
Overall Influence
1916 - 2012 (96 years)
Heinz Ernst Jagodzinski was a German physicist, mineralogist and crystallographer known for his research in disordered materials and diffuse X-ray scattering. He also introduced the Jagodzinski notation for the description of polytypism in silicon carbide.
Go to Profile#2098
Carmen Nicole Moelders
#145326
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Carmen Nicole Moelders is an American atmospheric scientist. Her work is mainly focused on hydrometeorology, mesoscale meteorology, cloud physics, land-atmosphere interaction, air pollution, wildfire modeling, and wind power modeling.
Go to Profile#2099
David Hugh Mainprice
#165366
Overall Influence
#2100
Bruce Thom
#118601
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Bruce Graham Thom is an Australian geoscientist and educator. He is a founding member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney in Australia and founding President of the Australian Coastal Society. Educated at The Scots College in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, Australia and the University of Sydney, where he served as Professor of Geography and Pro-Vice Chancellor . He is also former Vice Chancellor of the University of New England and former Chair of the Australian State of the Environment Committee. Professor Thom has written widely in the areas of physical geography, coastal management, coastal policy, coastal geology, and geomorphology.
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