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,

#2351

Karen M. Fischer

#167747
Overall Influence
Karen Fischer is an American seismologist known for her research on the structure of Earth's mantle, its lithosphere, and how subduction zones change over geologic history. Education and career Fischer has a B.S. in geology and geophysics from Yale University . While an undergraduate, Fischer had summer research experiences at Yale University and Lamont–Doherty Geological Observatory. In 1989, she earned a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a dissertation titled "The morphology and dynamics of subducting lithosphere". After a postdoctoral appointment at La...
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#2352

Derek Keir

#172018
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Derek Keir has been an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Southampton since 2015. In 2013 he received the Bullerwell Lecture award from the British Geophysical Association for significant contributions to geophysics.
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#2353

Mark Jayne

#169553
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Mark Jayne is a British geographer and academic. From 2015 to 2019, he had been Professor of Human Geography at Cardiff University. He is now a Professor at the School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University.
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#2354

Jes Vollertsen

#168820
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Jes Vollertsen is a Danish professor of environmental studies at Aalborg University. He holds a degree in environmental engineering from 1989 from Aalborg University and began his career working in the private and public sector on topics related to polluted waters. During this time he honed his skills on environmental engineering as well as computer modelling and operation control.
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#2355

William W. Woessner

#174778
Overall Influence
William W. Woessner is an American hydrogeologist and Regents Professor Emeritus of Hydrogeology at the University of Montana. He is a recipient of Meinzer Award for his works on the "hyporheic zone, virus transport, and the occurrence/transport of pharmaceutical chemicals in groundwater."
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#2356

Jeffrey T. Bury

#101397
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jeffrey T. Bury is an American geographer and researcher focused on the natural and social transformations in Latin America caused by globalization processes. Background Bury grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and received a BA in Political Science from the University of Utah in 1993, and an MA in International Affairs from The American University in 1995 . He received his PhD in Geography at University of Colorado at Boulder in 2002 with a dissertation on The Political Ecology of Transnational Mining Corporations and Livelihood Transformation in Cajamarca Peru, supervised by Anthony Bebbington.
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#2357

Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh

#133066
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Ernest Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh, is an English geologist, geophysicist and politician. Lord Oxburgh is well known for his work as a public advocate in both academia and the business world in addressing the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop alternative energy sources as well as his negative views on the consequences of current oil consumption.
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#2358

Paul H. Brunner

#128869
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Paul H. Brunner is a material flow analysis methodology and urban metabolism specialist. He is a professor emeritus of the Institute for Water Quality, Resource and Waste Management, Vienna University of Technology in Austria.
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#2359

Felix Driver

#170459
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Felix Driver FBA FAcSS is a distinguished British historical geographer and Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. Driver is a historical geographer with a particular interest in the history of cultural collections. He has also examined the culture of exploring, empire and imperial cities. He has overseen collaborative research projects, in partnership with leading cultural institutions such as the British Museum and the V&A.
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#2360

Sally Eden

#152958
Overall Influence
1967 - 2016 (49 years)
Sally Eden was a British geographer and Professor of Human geography at the University of Hull. Scholarly contributions Eden’s research and writing focused on how society understands and manages the environment. It included issues of sustainable consumption, green lifestyles, environmental action and forms of public engagement with the environment.
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#2361

Zeng Rongsheng

#155994
Overall Influence
1924 - 2019 (95 years)
Zeng Rongsheng was a Chinese geophysicist and earthquake researcher who helped establish the geophysics programs at the China University of Geosciences , Peking University, and the University of Science and Technology of China. He investigated the crustal structures of many locations in China and their relations to earthquakes. Considered a founder of solid earth geophysics in the country, he was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.
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#2362

Steven Handel

#73967
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Steven Neil Handel is an American educator and restoration ecologist. Handel is currently Distinguished Professor of Ecology at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
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#2363

George Switzer

#88115
Overall Influence
1915 - 2008 (93 years)
George Shirley Switzer was an American mineralogist who is credited with starting the Smithsonian Institution's famed National Gem and Mineral Collection by acquiring the Hope Diamond for the museum in 1958. Switzer made the arrangements when renowned New York City jeweler Harry Winston decided to donate the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian.
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#2364

Richard J. Butler

#117363
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Richard James Butler is a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Birmingham, where he holds the title of professor of palaeobiology. His research focuses on ornithischian dinosaur evolution, dinosaur origins, and fossil tetrapod macroevolution.
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#2365

Richard W. Murray

#171172
Overall Influence
Richard W. Murray , a geologist and oceanographer, is the Deputy Director and Vice President for Research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Murray was previously a professor of earth and environment at Boston University , where he served as Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences , and Director of Boston University's Marine Program .
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#2366

Mario Pino Quivira

#67953
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Mario Pino Quivira is a Chilean geologist specialized in geoarchaeology and sedimentology that has been involved in several studies of early human settlements in Southern Chile. After Tom Dillehay's excavation of Monte Verde near Puerto Montt, where human remains estimated to be about 15,000 years old have been found, challenging the Clovis theory of the first human arrival in the Americas, Pino controversially claimed the site was 33,000 years old. Other studied sites includes the Chan-Chan settlement near Mehuín and the Gomphotherium of Osorno.
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#2367

Sara Irina Fabrikant

#173309
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Sara Irina Fabrikant , is a Swiss geographer and geographical information scientist. She is member of the Swiss Science Council since 2016. Private life Fabrikant was born in Zürich, Switzerland on September 27, 1967, where she lives with her partner.
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#2368

Margaret Bradshaw

Margaret Bradshaw
#95234
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Margaret Ann Bradshaw is a New Zealand geologist and a retired staff member at the University of Canterbury. She is considered a trailblazer and influential female role model in Antarctic research. Early life and education Born Margaret Ann Cresswell in Nottingham, England, on 31 December 1941, she married John Dudley Bradshaw in Nottingham in 1963, and they moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1966. Bradshaw began her work there on Devonian invertebrate palaeontology, gradually incorporating Antarctica into her research. She became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1980.
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#2369

Laura Pyrak-Nolte

#74661
Overall Influence
Laura J. Pyrak-Nolte is an American geophysicist who is Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. She is the former President of the International Society of Porous Media and former President of the American Rock Mechanics Association. In 2020 Pyrak-Nolte was awarded the Society of Exploration Geophysicists Reginald Fessenden Award. She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
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#2370

Lynda Johnston

#170416
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Lynda T. Johnston FNZGS is a New Zealand human geography academic. She is a full professor and Assistant Vice Chancellor Sustainability at the University of Waikato. Academic career After a 1998 PhD titled 'Body tourism in queered streets : geographies of gay pride parades' at the University of Waikato, supervised by Richard Bedford, Robin Peace and Robyn Longhurst, she taught at the University of Edinburgh from 1999 to 2001. Since returning to the University of Waikato, she has been appointed as full professor, while serving as Chair of the Department of Geography and as Deputy Dean and As...
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#2371

Philippa Black

#172612
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Philippa Margaret Black is a New Zealand academic specialising in geology, specifically mineralogy and metamorphic petrology. Black was born on 26 November 1941 in Hamilton. She is the daughter of Dorothy May and James Corbett Black. She received her education at Taupiri Primary School, St Paul's Catholic School , and New Plymouth Girls' High School. She studied at the University of Auckland and earned a MSc and PhD in geology. The title of her 1964 master's thesis was Igneous and metamorphic rocks from Tokatoka, Northland. Her PhD focused on the Tokatea Reef in the hills behind Coromandel ...
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#2372

Piotr Migoń

#174281
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Piotr Migoń is a Polish geomorphologist active at the university of Wrocław where he hold a chair as Professor of Geography. Migoń has specialized in the study of weathering, mass movementss in mountains, long-term landscape evolution and the geomorphology of granite and sandstone areas. Most of his research has been carried out in the Sudetes and other parts of Central Europe. He is currently an International Association of Geomorphologists board member.
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#2373

María Páramo

#133007
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
María Euridice Páramo Fonseca is a Colombian paleontologist and geologist. She has contributed to paleontology in Colombia in the fields of describing various Cretaceous reptiles, most notably the mosasaurs Eonatator and Yaguarasaurus, the ichthyosaur Kyhytysuka, and the plesiosaurs Leivanectes and Stenorhynchosaurus.
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#2374

William R. Muehlberger

William R. Muehlberger
#74910
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
William Rudolf "Bill" Muehlberger , Professor of Geology at University of Texas at Austin, was the geology principal investigator of both the Apollo 16 and 17 missions to the Moon, for National Aeronautics and Space Administration . He died of natural causes on September 14, 2011.
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#2375

Elsie Sunderland

Elsie Sunderland
#40153
Overall Influence
Elsie M. Sunderland is a Canadian toxicologist and environmental scientist and the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry at Harvard University. She studies processes through which human activities increase and modify pollutants in natural ecosystems and living systems.
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#2376

Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt

Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt
#115160
Overall Influence
1920 - 1998 (78 years)
Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt was a Belgian geologist who worked mainly in Africa. He worked at the universities of Ghent and Brussels. He gained international fame in 1950 when he discovered the Ishango Bone
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#2377

Prabhat C. Chandra

Prabhat C. Chandra
#166378
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Prabhat C Chandra is an Indian geophysicist. Since 1973, he has done extensive work in the field of hydrogeophysics, encompassing groundwater exploration, development and management with a specialization in groundwater geophysics using various geophysical methods.
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#2378

Reginald Cline-Cole

#40757
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Reginald Akindele Cline-Cole , is a retired University Senior Lecturer and scholar of Developmental Geography. Upon his formal retirement in May 2021, he is now seconded as a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham. This is an attestation of his wealth of experience and specialism in the area of African development.
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#2379

Jonathan Koomey

#13768
Overall Influence
Jonathan Koomey is a researcher who identified a long-term trend in energy-efficiency of computing that has come to be known as Koomey's law. From 1984 to 2003, Dr. Koomey was at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he founded and led the End-Use Forecasting group, and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Yale University, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been a lecturer and a consulting professor at Stanford and a lecturer at UC Berkeley. He is a graduate of Harvard University and University of California at Berkeley . His research focuses on...
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#2380

Robert Potter

#144573
Overall Influence
1950 - 2014 (64 years)
Robert B. Potter was a British academic geographer, focussing on urbanisation and development issues in the Caribbean. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Reading, UK. Background Potter was trained in geography at the University of London in the 1970s . From 1974 he rose through the ranks at Royal Holloway, University of London , becoming Professor of Geography and then Head of Department . He joined the Department of Geography at the University of Reading in 2003, and later became Head of its School of Human and Environmental Sciences . He battled cancer from 2009, and retired in...
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#2381

Dorceta Taylor

Dorceta Taylor
#54502
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Dorceta E. Taylor is an American environmental sociologist known for her work on both environmental justice and racism in the environmental movement. She is the senior associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Yale School of the Environment, as well as a professor of environmental justice. Prior to this, she was the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Michigan's School of Environment and Sustainability , where she also served as the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice. Taylor's research has ranged over environmental history...
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#2382

David McCurdy Baird

#105877
Overall Influence
1920 - 2019 (99 years)
David McCurdy Baird was a Canadian geologist, photographer, and academic. He was the older brother of Dr. Kenneth Baird. Early life and education Baird was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick in July 1920. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1941 from the University of New Brunswick, a Master of Science degree in 1943 from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in 1947 from McGill University.
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#2383

Alexander James Kent

#84612
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Alexander James Kent is a British cartographer, geographer and academic, currently serving as Vice President of the International Cartographic Association. He leads the Coastal Connections Project for World Monuments Fund and English Heritage and is honorary Reader in Cartography and Geographical Information Science at Canterbury Christ Church University and also a senior research associate of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford.
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#2384

Tore O. Vorren

#175892
Overall Influence
1944 - 2013 (69 years)
Tore Ola Vorren was a Norwegian geologist. He took the cand.real. degree in 1970 at the University of Bergen. He was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Tromsø in 1973, took the dr.philos. degree here in 1978 and was promoted to a professor in 1979. He served as both dean and prorector there, and chairman of the University Centre in Svalbard. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1993.
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#2385

Peter B. de Menocal

Peter B. de Menocal
#38314
Overall Influence
Peter B. de Menocal is an oceanographer and paleoclimatologist. He is the president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a research facility in Massachusetts. Education De Menocal earned a B.S. in geology from St. Lawrence University in 1982, an M.S. in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island in 1986, and his Ph.D. in geology from Columbia University in 1991.
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#2386

Martin Doyle

#165681
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Martin W. Doyle is a Professor of Water Science at the Nicholas School of Environment of Duke University. Education Martin Doyle received a Bachelor's degree in Physics and Applied Mathematics from Harding University in 1995, followed by a master's in environmental engineering from the University of Mississippi in 1997, and a Ph.D. in geomorphology from Purdue University in 2002.
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#2387

Pascale Braconnot

Pascale Braconnot
#152425
Overall Influence
Pascale Braconnot is a Climate Scientist in the Climate and Environmental Sciences at the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace. She was involved in writing the IPCC Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports. Early life and education During her doctoral studies Braconnot worked on tropic ocean models using statistical methods. She is interested in the amplification of Asian and African monsoons during the holocene. Braconnot was one of the first to use a three-dimensional coupled ocean model to show the importance of ocean feedback in glacial inception. She has worked on El Niño and the Holocene insolation.
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#2388

Clifford Embleton

#169001
Overall Influence
1931 - 1994 (63 years)
Clifford Embleton was a British geomorphologist. He was born in Bromborough at that time in Cheshire. He was the son of Arthur Thomas Embleton , a shipping clerk, and Constance Fitzgerald . He was educated at Birkenhead School and won an open exhibition at St John's College, Cambridge to read geography. He graduated in 1953 having won the Philip Lake Prize. His doctoral thesis in 1956 was on the glacial landforms of north Wales.
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#2389

Peter Bullock

#68277
Overall Influence
1937 - 2008 (71 years)
Peter Bullock was a soil scientist whose initial work in the field of soil micromorphology preceded an interest in land degradation. His advocacy of the need to treat soil as a sustainable resource led to his appointment to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Bullock contributed to the reports of the IPCC, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
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#2390

Mahar Lagmay

Mahar Lagmay
#93676
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Alfredo Mahar Francisco Amante Lagmay is a Filipino geologist. He is executive director of Project NOAH and a professor at the National Institute of Geological Sciences of the University of the Philippines Diliman.
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#2391

David J. Batten

David J. Batten
#173240
Overall Influence
1943 - 2019 (76 years)
David J. Batten was a British palynologist. He is best known for his work in Mesozoic terrestrial palynology and palynofacies analysis. His specific contributions include work on the Normapolles group of pollen in the Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary, Mesozoic and Tertiary megaspores from around the world, palynofacies analysis to interpret past environments, and the palynology of the Wealden Group of southern England.
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#2392

Richard H. Jackson

#159932
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Richard H. Jackson is a geography professor at Brigham Young University who specializes in historical geography. He is also a charter member of the American Planning Association. Jackson holds bachelor's and master's degrees from BYU and a Ph.D. from Clark University. He has been a faculty member at BYU since 1969 and has also worked as a consultant to the Utah Historical Society as well as businesses and municipalities.
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#2393

William Graham Henderson Maxwell

#153851
Overall Influence
1929 - 1999 (70 years)
William Graham Henderson Maxwell was an Australian geologist and academic who did extensive research on the Great Barrier Reef. Early life Maxwell was born in Atherton, Queensland in 1928. He was the grandson of the Scottish born newspaper pioneer - he founded the Cairns Argus, the Atherton News and the Barron Valley Advocate - William Graham Henderson . He attended Gordonvale State School and Thornburgh College in Charters Towers.
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#2394

Suzanne Anderson

#172856
Overall Influence
Suzanne Prestrud Anderson is an American geophysicist who is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research considers chemical weathering and erosion, and how it shapes the architecture of critical zones. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.
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#2395

Rajendra K. Pachauri

Rajendra K. Pachauri
#42712
Overall Influence
1940 - 2020 (80 years)
Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2002 to 2015, during the fourth and fifth assessment cycles. Under his leadership the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and delivered the Fifth Assessment Report, the scientific foundation of the Paris Agreement. He held the post from 2002 until his resignation in February 2015 after facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment. In March 2022, he was exonerated of the sexual harassment allegations . He was succeeded by Hoesung Lee. Pachauri assumed his responsibilities as the Chi...
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#2396

Anne Davaille

#169686
Overall Influence
Anne Davaille is a French geophysicist and director of research at the CNRS, France in the field of Earth Sciences. Davaille is known for her innovative experiments using thermochemical convection in fluids to simulate the mantles of planets. She uses these experiments to analyze fluid mechanics that create a new understanding of convective regimes in Earth and other planets.
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#2397

Tor A. Benjaminsen

#155821
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Tor A. Benjaminsen is a Norwegian human geographer. He is a professor of international environmental and development studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Career He earned his cand.scient. degree in resource geography and landscape ecology at the University of Oslo in 1988 and his Ph.D. in geography and development studies at Roskilde University in 1998.
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#2398

Maria Arménia Carrondo

#105258
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Maria Arménia Carrondo is a Portuguese scientist specialized in protein crystallography. She was a full professor at the Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology of the NOVA University Lisbon and former president of the Foundation for Science and Technology , the main funding institution for science in Portugal.
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#2399

Linda Newson

#63978
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Linda Ann Newson, FBA, OBE, is director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
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#2400

Dani Rabaiotti

#48619
Overall Influence
Dani Rabaiotti is an English environmental scientist and popular science writer based at the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Does It Fart, as well as two other books. Her fields of research include global change biology, science policy and science communication.
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