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).

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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,

#2701

Krishna R. Reddy

#185560

Overall Influence

#2702

Isaac J. Winograd

#185567

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Isaac J. Winograd is an American geologist and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#2703

Karen McNally

#177329

Overall Influence

1940 - 2014 (74 years)

Karen Cook McNally was an American seismologist. She was born in Clovis, California and received bachelor's and master's degrees and a PhD in geophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. McNally worked at the California Institute of Technology with Charles Francis Richter, creator of the Richter magnitude scale, and became part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1981. She was director of the Richter Seismological Laboratory there and their instruments were able to capture high-quality recordings of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. She founded the Insti...

#2704

Darin Toohey

#157346

Overall Influence

Darin W. Toohey is an American atmospheric scientist. He is a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder since 1999. Toohey's research addresses the role of trace gases and aerosols on Earth's climate, atmospheric oxidation, and air quality. He was a Jefferson Science Fellow at the United States Department of State, 2011-2012.

#2705

Robert Allison

#173078

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Robert John Allison DL is a British academic. Professor Allison has held senior leadership roles in a number of top UK universities. Currently a Non-Executive Director and Trustee of several organisations, Bob was previously the Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University.

#2706

Martina Angela Caretta

#182944

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

Martina Angela Caretta is a geographer who studies water usage and management, including its human and social impacts. Her research has an extra focus on how changes to environmental conditions and water policy disproportionately impact women. She is the Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report chapter on water.

#2707

W. Bradford Wilcox

W. Bradford Wilcox

#30597

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

William Bradford Wilcox is an American sociologist. He serves as director of the National Marriage Project and professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

#2708

Linda Ivany

#184078

Overall Influence

Linda Ivany is a professor in the Earth Sciences department at Syracuse University. Her research focuses primarily on paleoecology and paleoclimatology. Education Ivany completed a BS degree in Geology at Syracuse University, and then went on to earn an M.S. at the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University under the guidance of Stephen J. Gould.

#2709

Rebecca Hornbrook

#133544

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Rebecca Suzanne Hornbrook is an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research . She currently holds the position of Project Scientist II while also belonging to a variety of groups based out of NCAR, UCAR, and NASA. She is notable for her work as one of the leading experts in Volatile organic compounds while possessing an interest in air quality, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, chemical kinetics, and photochemistry.

#2710

Terry Wilson

#108812

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Terry Jean Wilson is an international leader in the study of present-day tectonics in Antarctica. She has led large, international efforts, such as Polar Earth Observing Network , to investigate the interactions between the Earth's crust and the cryosphere in Antarctica.

#2711

Sharon A. Hill

#13491

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Sharon A. Hill is an American science writer and speaker known for her research into the interaction between science and the public, focusing on education and media topics. Hill's research has dealt mainly with paranormal, pseudoscience, and strange natural phenomena and began at the University at Buffalo, where she performed her graduate work in this area. Hill attended Pennsylvania State University, earning her Bachelor of Science degree in geosciences and working as a Pennsylvania geologist.

#2712

Ruth Doggett Terzaghi

#180110

Overall Influence

1903 - 1992 (89 years)

Ruth Doggett Terzaghi was an American geologist and civil engineer . She held several teaching positions relating to geology and engineering geology . In addition to pursuing her own research, she assisted her husband Karl Von Terzaghi in many of his geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics projects.

#2713

Joseph Cotten

#185932

Overall Influence

#2714

Nicholas Pyenson

#146832

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Nicholas Pyenson is a paleontologist and the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous popular science works including the book Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures.

#2715

Laura Vaughan

#176138

Overall Influence

Laura Vaughan is professor of urban form and society at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 2018 she appeared on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Aloud to discuss her book Mapping Society: The Spatial Dimensions of Social Cartography.

#2716

Hugh Bibby

#168399

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Hugh Mannering Bibby is a New Zealand geophysicist. He holds the position of emeritus geophysicist at the New Zealand research institute GNS Science. Life and career Bibby was born in Wellington on 14 November 1943, the son of Ina Mary Bibby and James Bruce Bibby, later appointed director of dental hygiene in the Department of Health. He studied at Victoria University of Wellington before doing postgraduate study at Manchester University, where he graduated with a PhD in applied mathematics in 1970.

#2717

Russell Pysklywec

#186023

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Russell Pysklywec is a professor and former department chair of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto. His research focus is on the evolution of the earth shell, the crust, and lithospheric mantle.

#2718

Hallie Buckley

#126151

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Hallie Ruth Buckley is a New Zealand bioarchaeologist and professor at the University of Otago. Career Buckley completed her PhD at the University of Otago in 2001, with a thesis titled Health and disease in the prehistoric Pacific Islands. She then joined the faculty at Otago, and was appointed a full professor in 2017.

#2719

Robert N. Saveland

#178766

Overall Influence

Robert N. Saveland is an American professor emeritus of education and geography at University of Georgia. In 2012 National Council for Geographic Education have awarded him with George J. Miller Award. From 1968 to 1985 Saveland served as social science education professor at College of Education. Died Nov. 23, 2017 in Athens, GA.

#2720

Michael J. Walter

#90004

Overall Influence

Michael J. Walter is an American experimental petrologist at Earth and Planetary Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He is also the director of EPL. He was on Editorial Board of JGR: Solid Earth from 2012 to 2018. Michael studies how rocks behave when transported to deep Earth interiors and associated elemental behaviors. He also uses super-deep diamonds to study the how Earth's mantle works.

#2721

Shen-su Sun

#88963

Overall Influence

1943 - 2005 (62 years)

Shen-su Sun was a Chinese-born Australian geochemist. Sun was born in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He earned his bachelor's degree in geology from National Taiwan University, and obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1973. During 1981 to 1999, he was a research professor in Bureau of Mineral Resources of Australia. He did significant work in lead, oxygen and sulfur isotope geochemistry. He died in Canberra, Australia.

#2722

Henry Emeleus

#175354

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Charles Henry Emeleus was a British igneous petrologist. He specialized in the Paleogene volcanic rocks of Britain and Greenland. Personal life Henry Emeleus was born in Belfast in 1930. He was the son of physicist Karl George Emeléus, a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, and nephew of chemist Harry Julius Emeléus.

#2723

Elisabeth Sikes

#98255

Overall Influence

Elisabeth Lynn Sikes is an American geoscientist who is a professor at Rutgers University. Her research considers carbon cycling. She was awarded the 2022 Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Medal for Excellence in Research.

#2724

Atle Rotevatn

#186140

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Atle Rotevatn is a professor of geology at the University of Bergen in Norway. In 2011, he received the Reusch Medal from the Norwegian Geological Society. And in 2018, he received the Olav Thon national award for excellence in teaching.

#2725

Heather Castleden

#182108

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Heather Evelyn Castleden is a Canadian geographer. Since 2021, she has been an Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria. She was previously the Canada Research Chair in Reconciling Relations for Health, Environments, and Communities at Queen's University at Kingston.

#2726

Jean Morrison

#47793

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Jean Morrison is an American university academic. She is a professor of earth and environment at Boston University, where, from 2011-2023, she was the university’s provost and chief academic officer - the first woman to be appointed to that role. Prior to joining Boston University, she was executive vice provost for academic affairs and graduate programs at the University of Southern California.

#2727

Adam Clark

#65032

Overall Influence

For the American film director see Adam Christian Clark. For the British theologian, see Adam Clarke. Adam James Clark is an American meteorologist at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and the National Severe Storms Laboratory recognized for contributions to numerical modeling of convection.

#2728

Jean-Christophe Gay

#177152

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Jean-Christophe Gay, born in 1962, is a French geographer and full professor at the Côte d'Azur University. Initially a specialist in spatial discontinuities, he has oriented his research towards the practices and places of tourism as well as towards territoriesnow IRD1993

#2729

Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi

Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi

#142298

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi is an Iranian demographer and the president of Asian Population Association. He is a professor of the Department of Demography and Chair of the Division of Population Research at the University of Tehran.

#2730

Oli Mould

#177247

Overall Influence

Oli Mould is a British professor in human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. His academic research, and his writing, focuses on the role of urban creativity, activism and politics. Work In his book Urban Subversion and the Creative City , Mould demonstrates a very different way of thinking about creativity than that offered by the neoliberal city, "through a variety of subversive practices, from skateboarding and parkour, to urban explorations." The book is "filled with images and global examples".

#2731

Fabio Terribile

#184836

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Fabio Terribile is an Italian agricultural scientist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II. He is a pedologist and coordinator of the EU project Landsupport. Life and work After completing his degree in agricultural sciences at the University of Naples Federico II , he earned a doctorate in philosophy in soil science at the University of Aberdeen with a research thesis in pedology with his dissertation on the characterization of two Italian vertisoles with a focus on light and Electron Microscopy, Clay Mineralogy, and Image Analysis . This was followed by activities as a res...

#2732

Terence Edward Armstrong

#148027

Overall Influence

1920 - 1996 (76 years)

Terence Edward Armstrong was a British polar geographer, sea ice specialist, writer, and expert on the Russian Arctic. Career Terence Edward Armstrong was educated at Twyford School, Winchester College, and from 1938 took a first class honours in French and Russian languages at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating in 1940. During the Second World War he served in the Army Intelligence Corps and the First Airborne Division in North Africa, Italy and Holland, being wounded as a parachutist at Arnhem, and Oslo where he led a contingent of soldiers. Following the War he returned to Cambridge...

#2733

Mary Albert

#132585

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Mary Remley Albert is an American earth scientist who is a Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College. She studies snow physics and transport phenomena. She is executive director of the US Ice Drilling Program.

#2734

Stephen V. Stehman

#186532

Overall Influence

#2735

Miray Bekbölet

#169418

Overall Influence

Miray Bekbölet is a Turkish environmental chemist researching oxidation techniques, photocatalytic and photolytic reactions, adsorption/bio-oxidation processes in aquatic systems, and drinking water quality. She is a professor of environmental chemistry at the Boğaziçi University Institute of Environmental Sciences.

#2736

Gregor W. Yeates

Gregor W. Yeates

#117718

Overall Influence

1944 - 2012 (68 years)

Gregor William Yeates, publishing as GW Yeates , was a New Zealand soil zoologist and ecologist. He was "considered the world's leading authority in soil nematode ecology, a subject of economic and ecological importance."

#2737

Patricia Noxolo

#81403

Overall Influence

Patricia Noxolo is a British geographer who is a professor at the University of Birmingham. She is the Chair of the Society for Caribbean Studies. Early life and education Noxolo was born in Birmingham. She was an undergraduate student at the University of Manchester, where she studied French studies. She earned her doctorate at Nottingham Trent University, where she studied insecurity in Jamaican dancehall. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham and the University of Leicester.

#2738

Yacob Mulugetta

#186638

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Yacob Mulugetta is a British-African professor of Energy and Development Policy and the Director of MPA programme at the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy, University College London. He is a member of African Academy of Sciences He was the Lead Coordinating Author of the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by Energy Systems chapter and he is one of the founding members of the African Climate Policy Centre

#2739

Ann Dale

#141356

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Ann Dale is a researcher, public advocate and environmental policy analyst. She is known for her research on community sustainability. Life and work Originally from Ottawa, Dale is a professor of Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied at Carleton University, earning a degree in psychology in 1975 and a degree in public administration in 1994. She previously worked in the Canadian federal government where in 1988 she founded the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. In 1999, she completed her doctorate in National Resources Sciences from McGill University.

#2740

Hein de Haas

#122643

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Hein de Haas is a Dutch sociologist and geographer who has lived and worked in the Netherlands, Morocco and the United Kingdom. He is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam . His research concentrates on the relationship between migration and social transformation and development in origin and destination countries. He is a founding member and director of the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. He is also Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Maastricht and directs IMI from its current home at UvA. In his work, De Haas has adv...

#2741

Josef Strobl

#186699

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Josef Strobl is an Austrian geographer. He is a professor at the University of Salzburg and leads its Centre for Geoinformatics and the GIScience Institute. Strobl was key to the implementation of the worldwide UNIGIS postgraduate distance learning programme. He leads the annual AGIT and GI_Forum symposia in Salzburg.

#2742

Amita Baviskar

#40715

Overall Influence

Amita Baviskar is a sociologist and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology at Ashoka University, India. Previously, she was Professor at the Sociology Unit, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India. She received the 2005 Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies, the 2008 VKRV Rao Prize for Social Science Research and, in 2010, was awarded the Infosys Prize for Social Sciences – Sociology in recognition of her analysis of social and environmental movements in modern India. Baviskar studies the cultural politics of environment and...

#2743

James T. Moore

#148339

Overall Influence

1952 - 2006 (54 years)

James Thomas Moore was an American meteorologist who advanced isentropic analysis, jet stream dynamics, cyclogenesis, and heavy precipitation forecasting. He was a past president of the National Weather Association. "Doc Moore" was also the co-author, with fellow meteorologist Peter R. Chaston, of Jokes and Puns for Groan-Ups.

#2744

Jan Lindsay

#186580

Overall Influence

Jan Marie Lindsay is a New Zealand geologist and Professor of Volcanology at Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand. Early life and education Jan Lindsay was born in 1970 in Rotorua, Aotearoa New Zealand. She attended Westbrook Primary School and Sunset Intermediate. She moved to Apia in Western Samoa when she was 11 and lived there for 2 years, attending Leififi Intermediate School and then Samoa College. After returning to Aotearoa New Zealand she lived with her family in Glenfield, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and attended Glenfield College. She developed a lov...

#2745

Robert R. Gaines

Robert R. Gaines

#169513

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Robert Riepma Gaines is an American geologist who teaches at Pomona College in Claremont, California. From July 2019 to June 2022, he served as the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the college. He is known for his research on fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits, having been a member of two teams that made two of the most important fossil discoveries in recent decades, one in Kootenay National Park in British Columbia, Canada and the other in the Yangtze Gorges area in South China.

#2746

Rob McKay

#134294

Overall Influence

Robert Murray McKay is a paleoceanographer who specialises in sedimentology, stratigraphy and palaeoclimatology, specifically gathering geological evidence to study how marine-based portions of the Antarctic ice sheet behave in response to abrupt climate and oceanic change. He has been involved in examination of marine sedimentary records and glacial deposits to show melting and cooling in Antarctica over the past 65 million years and how this has influenced global sea levels and climate. This has helped climate change scientists overcome uncertainty about how the ice sheets will respond to global warming and how this can be managed effectively in the 21st century.

#2747

Michael Walker

#186921

Overall Influence

#2748

Lori Glaze

#94165

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Lori Glaze is an American scientist and the director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Planetary Science Division. She was a member of the Inner Planets Panel during the most recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey, and has had a role on the Executive Committee of NASA's Venus Exploration Analysis Group for several years, serving as the group's Chair since 2013.

#2749

Joseph T. Gregory

#79923

Overall Influence

1914 - 2007 (93 years)

Dr. Joseph Tracy Gregory was an American paleontologist and professor. Joseph Tracy Gregory was born in Eureka, California, the only child of Frank Gregory, a civil engineer, and Edith Tracy, a high school teacher. He grew up in Berkeley, California and continued with his college education there, graduating from the University of California with an A.B. in 1935, and receiving his doctorate in 1938. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant in the Army Air Forces in the weather service.

#2750

Veronica della Dora

#186999

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Veronica della Dora is an Italian cultural geographer. She is Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is Director of the Social, Cultural & Historical Geography Group and Co-Director of the Centre for GeoHumanities .

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