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,

#2101

Zhou‐ping Shangguan

#165440
Overall Influence
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#2102

Sidney Goldstein

#124267
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Sidney Goldstein was an American demographer. He was George Hazard Crooker University Professor at Brown University from 1977 to 1993. Life Sidney Goldstein was born in New London, Connecticut; he attended the University of Connecticut, graduating with high distinction with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1949, and then completing a Master of Arts degree in 1951. He then completed his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania; his PhD was awarded in 1953.
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#2103

Daniel Curtis Nepstad

#165491
Overall Influence
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#2104

Michael Peter Coward

#165492
Overall Influence
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#2105

J. Murray Roberts

#165532
Overall Influence
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#2106

Ian. P. Williamson

#165553
Overall Influence
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#2107

Georges Bonani

#165578
Overall Influence
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#2108

Cathy Whitlock

#144632
Overall Influence
Cathy Lynn Whitlock is an American Earth Scientist and Professor at Montana State University. She is interested in Quaternary environmental change and palaeoclimatology and was a lead author of the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment. Whitlock has served as president of the American Quaternary Association and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.
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#2109

Ian Douglass Hutcheon

#165610
Overall Influence
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#2110

C. Fred Bentley

#89690
Overall Influence
1914 - 2008 (94 years)
C. Fred Bentley, was a Canadian soil scientist. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 and a Master of Science degree in 1942 from the University of Alberta. He received a Ph.D. in 1945 from the University of Minnesota.
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#2111

Adriana Dutkiewicz

#94578
Overall Influence
Adriana Dutkiewicz is an Australian sedimentologist at the University of Sydney. She was awarded the Dorothy Hill award in 2006 and is an ARC Future Fellow. Career Dutkiewicz's research is focussed on sedimentology, and covers a suite of rocks and sediments ranging in age from Archaean to Quaternary. Her research is multi-disciplinary and focusses on global carbon cycles, combining traditional sedimentology with more recent technologies.
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#2112

Stewart B. Rood

#165717
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
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#2113

Yousif K. Kharaka

#165796
Overall Influence
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#2114

Gudmundur S. Bodvarsson

#165844
Overall Influence
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#2115

Hans-Georg Bohle

#126116
Overall Influence
1948 - 2014 (66 years)
Hans-Georg Bohle was a German geographer and international development researcher. Background Bohle studied at the University of Göttingen from 1968 to 1974, and conducted PhD research in Madras, India from 1976 to 1977, gaining his Promotion and Habilitation from that university. He was Lecturer and assistant professor in the Geography Department at Göttingen from 1977 to 1986, then relocated to the Department for Cultural Geography, University of Freiburg as Professor, until 1995. From 1995 to 2004 he was Professor and chair for Geography of South Asia at the University of Heidelberg, an...
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#2116

Kaveh Madani

Kaveh Madani
#16001
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Kaveh Madani is a scientist, activist, and former Iranian politician. He previously served as the Deputy Head of Iran's Department of Environment . He also served as the Vice President of the United Nations Environmental Assembly Bureau from 2017 to 2018.
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#2117

Matthew Flinders

#91326
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Matthew V. Flinders is a British academic and political scientist. From July 2014 until April 2017 he was Chair of the Executive Committee of Trustees of the Political Studies Association. Flinders did his undergraduate degree at Loughborough University before completing his PhD in public policy and governance at the University of Sheffield. He teaches on the undergraduate politics degree at the University of Sheffield and has written a number of academic books. His main area of expertise is British governance. He obtained a departmental chair in 2009, and is deputy head of the department. He...
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#2118

Siegfried D. Schubert

#166109
Overall Influence
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#2119

Ross J. Norstrom

#166124
Overall Influence
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#2120

Yoram N. Rubin

#166134
Overall Influence
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#2121

Isabella Velicogna

#151990
Overall Influence
Isabella Velicogna is a geoscientist known for her work using gravity measurements from space to study changes in the polar ice sheets and water storage on Earth. Education and career Velicogna has a B.S. and M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. from the University of Trieste, Italy. Following her Ph.D. she moved to the University of Colorado, Boulder where she worked from 1999 until 2007. Velicogna started an appointment at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2006. At the same time, she joined the faculty at the University of California, Irvine where she ...
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#2122

Emmanuel P. Baltsavias

#166180
Overall Influence
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#2123

George Zandt

#166226
Overall Influence
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#2124

Avik Sinha

#166264
Overall Influence
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#2125

Michel Jébrak

#83667
Overall Influence
Michel Jébrak is a Franco-Canadian geologist, academic and a researcher. He is an emeritus professor at University of Quebec’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He is a former Vice-Rector for Research and Creation at UQAM and holder of the UQAT-UQAM Mining Entrepreneurship Chair.
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#2126

Stephen E. Kesler

#166377
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
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#2127

Lisa Rossbacher

#54739
Overall Influence
Lisa A. Rossbacher is an American scientist, writer and academic administrator. She is the president emerita of Southern Polytechnic State University. She has also held the posts of President of Humboldt State University, Vice Chancellor of the University System of Georgia and Chair of Metro Atlanta’s Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
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#2128

Egbert Matzner

#166455
Overall Influence
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#2129

Ilya N. Bindeman

#166498
Overall Influence
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#2130

Tobias Bolch

#166510
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
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#2131

Philippe Hinsinger

#166517
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
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#2132

Susan M. Kidwell

#100915
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Susan M. Kidwell is an American paleontologist and geologist at the University of Chicago. Her research has focused on the relationships between fossil concentrations and sequence stratigraphy, experimental taphonomy, and the implications of the very recent fossil record for understanding modern ecological changes.
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#2133

Robin Elizabeth Sheriff

#166560
Overall Influence
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#2134

R. Kerry Turner

#166723
Overall Influence
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#2135

Bernardo Rodríguez‐iturbe

#166842
Overall Influence
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#2136

Victoria Reyes-García

#157863
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Victoria Reyes-García is a Spanish scientist who is a professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies . She studies ecological knowledge systems and their contributions on development.
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#2137

S. C. Gupta

#166882
Overall Influence
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#2138

Ri‐xiang Zhu

#166886
Overall Influence
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#2139

Naba Kumar Mondal

#166894
Overall Influence
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#2140

Robyn Longhurst

#139235
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Robyn Longhurst is a New Zealand human geography academician, and as of 2006 is a full professor at the University of Waikato. Academic career After a 1996 PhD titled 'Geographies that matter: Pregnant bodies in public places' at the University of Waikato, Longhurst joined the staff, rising to full professor. Notable students include Lynda Johnston and Angeline Greensill.
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#2141

Chin‐hoh Moeng

#166969
Overall Influence
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#2142

Harald Behrens

#166989
Overall Influence
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#2143

Christopher G. A. Harrison

#167041
Overall Influence
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#2144

Matthew H. Edney

#119964
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Matthew H. Edney is a British geographer who is both the Osher Professor in the History of Cartography, at the University of Southern Maine; and the Project Director of the History of Cartography Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Edney maintains a blog, Mapping as Process, where he discusses the study of mapping processes: production, circulation, and consumption.
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#2145

Christian France‐lanord

#167099
Overall Influence
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#2146

Katrien Devos

#92643
Overall Influence
Katrien M. Devos is an American plant geneticist who is distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia. Her research considers the structure, function and evolution of the genomes of grasses. In particular, Devos considers halophytic turfgrasses, cereals and bioenergy crops. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2016.
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#2147

Brian C. O’neill

#167290
Overall Influence
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#2148

Giovanni Ferraris

#167292
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
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#2149

Everette Joseph

#126437
Overall Influence
Everette Joseph is an American atmospheric scientist who serves as the director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Education and career Joseph graduated from State University of New York College at Cortland with a B.S. in Physics. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University at Albany in 1997 with an atmospheric science emphasis.  He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University at Albany's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center .
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#2150

C. Anthony J. Appelo

#167450
Overall Influence
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