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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,
#3751
Thomas Sterry Hunt
1826 - 1892 (66 years)
Thomas Sterry Hunt was an American geologist and chemist. Biography Hunt was born at Norwich, Connecticut. He lost his father when twelve years old, and had to earn his own livelihood. In the course of two years he found employment in a printing office, in an apothecary shop, in a book store and as a clerk. He became interested in natural science, and especially in chemical and medical studies, and in 1845 he was elected a member of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists at Yale—a body which four years later became the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#3752
Petrus Plancius
1552 - 1622 (70 years)
Petrus Plancius was a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church.
Go to Profile#3753
Arthur Philemon Coleman
1852 - 1939 (87 years)
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian geologist and academic. Biography Born in Lachute, Quebec, the son of Rev. Francis Coleman and Emmeline Maria Adams, he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1876 and Master of Arts in 1880 from Victoria College in Cobourg, Ontario. He received a Ph.D. at the University of Breslau in 1881.
Go to Profile#3754
John Farey Sr.
1766 - 1826 (60 years)
John Farey Sr. was an English geologist and writer best known for Farey sequence, a mathematical construct that is named after him. Biography Youth and early career Farey was born on 24 September 1766 at Woburn in Bedfordshire to John Farey and his second wife, Rachel , a Wesleyan Methodist. He was educated at Halifax in Yorkshire, and showed such aptitude in mathematics, drawing and surveying, that he was brought under the notice of John Smeaton .
Go to Profile#3755
Hjalmar Sjögren
1856 - 1922 (66 years)
Sten Anders Hjalmar Sjögren was a Swedish geologist and mineralogist. Biography Sten Anders Hjalmar Sjögren became associate professor of mineralogy and geology at Uppsala University from 1882-84. He studied in Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1883.
Go to Profile#3756
Newton Horace Winchell
1839 - 1914 (75 years)
Newton Horace Winchell was an American geologist chiefly notable for his six-volume work The Geology of Minnesota: Final Report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, which was prepared by Winchell and his assistants. A bibliography of his publications by Warren Upham in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America contains almost 300 titles.
Go to Profile#3757
August Emanuel von Reuss
1811 - 1873 (62 years)
August Emanuel Rudolph von Reuss was an Austrian geologist and palaeontologist. Biography Reuss was born on 8 July 1811 in Bílina, Bohemia. He was the son of Franz Ambrosius Reuss and the father of ophthalmologist August Leopold von Reuss . He was educated for the medical profession, graduating in 1834 at the University of Prague, and afterwards practising for fifteen years at the Bílinská Kyselka spa.
Go to Profile#3758
Élisée Reclus
1830 - 1905 (75 years)
Jacques Élisée Reclus was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes , over a period of nearly 20 years . In 1892 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite having been banished from France because of his political activism.
Go to Profile#3759
Ernst Dieffenbach
1811 - 1855 (44 years)
Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach , also known as Ernest Dieffenbach, was a German physician, geologist and naturalist, the first trained scientist to live and work in New Zealand, where he travelled widely under the auspices of the New Zealand Company, returning in 1841–42 and publishing in English his Travels in New Zealand in 1843.
Go to Profile#3760
William Whitehead Watts
1860 - 1947 (87 years)
Prof William Whitehead Watts FRS HFRSE FGS FMS LLD was a British geologist. Life He was born near Broseley in Shropshire, the eldest of two sons of Isaac Watts, but then a music master, and his wife, Maria Whitehead, daughter of a farmer.
Go to Profile#3761
William Hughes
1818 - 1876 (58 years)
William Hughes FRGS was an English geographer, cartographer, author and academic. Life In early life Hughes was in business as an engraver in Pentonville, London. In 1840 he became a lecturer at St John's College, Battersea.
Go to Profile#3762
Antonio D'Achiardi
1839 - 1902 (63 years)
Antonio D'Achiardi was an Italian geologist and mineralogist known for his mineralogical studies of Tuscany. He was the father of mineralogist , and the artist, Pietro D'Achiardi. In 1859 he received his doctorate in sciences from the University of Pisa, afterwards working as an assistant for chemistry . Three months after this appointment, he lost the use of his left eye due to a laboratory accident involving nitric acid. He subsequently abandoned his career in chemistry, and instead devoted his attention to geology and mineralogy, becoming a student of Giuseppe Meneghini. He later became a ...
Go to Profile#3763
Domenico Lovisato
1842 - 1916 (74 years)
Domenico Lovisato was an Italian geologist. He was a very early proponent of the theory of continental drift. Education Domenico Lovisato was born in Isola, in Istria on 12 August 1842, then under Austrian rule. He was the third of five children. His father died when he was very young, leaving the family extremely poor. However, with the help of relatives and family friends he was able to complete his primary and secondary education, enrolling in the University of Padua in 1862 to study mathematics. He was vocal in seeking independence, and was arrested eight times. In 1864 he was tried for high treason, but acquitted for lack of evidence.
Go to Profile#3764
Karl von Seebach
1839 - 1880 (41 years)
Karl Albert Ludwig von Seebach was a German geologist known for his studies in the field of volcanology. He studied geology and paleontology at Breslau as a pupil of Ferdinand von Roemer, with whom he took a scientific journey to Russia. He also studied at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, where he was a student of Heinrich Ernst Beyrich. In 1862 he obtained his doctorate at Göttingen with a thesis on conch-fauna of the Weimar Triassic. In 1870 he became a full professor at Göttingen and subsequently chosen as the first director of the geological-palaeontological institute.
Go to Profile#3765
Otto Mügge
1858 - 1932 (74 years)
Johannes Otto Conrad Mügge was a German mineralogist and crystallographer. From 1875 to 1879 he studied mathematics and sciences at the Technical University of Hannover and at the University of Göttingen. After graduation, he spent three years as an assistant to Harry Rosenbusch at the mineralogical-geological institute of the University of Heidelberg. From 1882 he worked as curator of the mineralogical and geological department at the Natural History Museum in Hamburg, and in 1886 became an associate professor at the academy in Münster. Later on, he served as a full professor at the University of Königsberg, where in 1903/04 he was named dean to the faculty of philosophy.
Go to Profile#3766
Gustav Hellmann
1854 - 1939 (85 years)
Gustav Johann Georg Hellmann or Georg Gustav Hellmann was a German meteorologist. Hellmann was born in Löwen , Prussian Silesia. Since 1907 to 1922, he was the principal of the Preußischen Meteorologischen Institut in Berlin. He died in Berlin.
Go to Profile#3767
Ernst Anton Wülfing
1860 - 1930 (70 years)
Ernst Anton Wülfing was a German mineralogist and petrographer, known for his research on the optical properties of minerals and meteorites. He studied chemistry at Geneva and at Heidelberg as a student of Robert Bunsen, then focused his attention to mineralogy and geology, of which, he studied at Greifswald and Vienna . Afterwards he served as an assistant to Harry Rosenbusch at the University of Heidelberg.
Go to Profile#3768
Hans Georg Wunderlich
1928 - 1974 (46 years)
Hans Georg Wunderlich was a German geologist. Life and work Wunderlich studied geology in Bonn and Göttingen. In 1952 he was awarded his doctorate in Göttingen and from 1957 he taught in Göttingen. In 1963 he became a professor in Göttingen, in 1970 professor of geology and palaeontology in Stuttgart.
Go to Profile#3769
Ljudmila Dolar Mantuani
1906 - 1988 (82 years)
Ljudmila Dolar Mantuani, a Slovenian petrologist , was born 5 July 1906, in Celje, Slovenia, and died 22 September 1988, in Toronto, Canada. She was the first female assistant professor of petrography in Yugoslavia.
Go to Profile#3770
Alexei Alexeivich Bogdanov
1907 - 1971 (64 years)
Alexei Alexeivich Bogdanov was a Soviet geologist and specialist on tectonics. After producing a tectonic map of the USSR, he began a collaboration to produce a tectonic map of Europe which was produced in sixteen sheets in 1964. A son, also named Alexei , became a noted molecular biologist. The mineral Bogdanovite is named in his honour.
Go to Profile#3771
Heinrich Ernst Beyrich
1815 - 1896 (81 years)
Heinrich Ernst Beyrich was a German palaeontologist. Life Born in Berlin, he was educated at the university in that city, and afterwards at Bonn, where he studied under Georg August Goldfuss and Johann Jakob Nöggerath. He obtained his degree of Ph.D. in 1837 at Berlin, and was subsequently employed in the mineralogical museum of the university, becoming director of the palaeontological collection in 1857, and director of the museum in 1875.
Go to Profile#3772
Johannes Gabriel Granö
1882 - 1956 (74 years)
Johannes Gabriel Granö was a Finnish geographer, chiefly remembered as a professor of three universities and an explorer of Siberia and Mongolia. He is also noted for his pioneering studies on landscape geography, and his book Pure Geography. Granö was a professor in universities of Tartu, Helsinki and Turku.
Go to Profile#3773
John Ogilby
1600 - 1676 (76 years)
John Ogilby was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer, and his version of the Fables of Aesop.
Go to Profile#3774
Janet Watson
1923 - 1985 (62 years)
Janet Vida Watson FRS FGS was a British geologist. She was a professor of Geology at Imperial College, a rapporteur for the International Geological Correlation Program and a vice president of the Royal Society . In 1982 she was elected president of the Geological Society of London, the first woman to occupy that position. She is well known for her contribution to the understanding of the Lewisian complex and as an author and co-author of several books including Beginning Geology and Introduction to Geology.
Go to Profile#3775
Ernst Weinschenk
1865 - 1921 (56 years)
Ernst Heinrich Oskar Kasimir Weinschenk was a German mineralogist and petrologist. He served as a professor at the "Technische Hochschule" in Munich and at the University of Munich . His scientific research included mineralogical analysis of meteorites, and studies of contact-metamorphic mineralization in the Alpine region of central Europe. He also conducted investigations on the origin of the sulfidic ore deposit at Silberberg in the Bavarian Forest, as well as the genesis of graphite deposits near Passau. Through the use of polarizing microscopy and thin sectioning, he determined numerous...
Go to Profile#3776
John Hailstone
1759 - 1847 (88 years)
John Hailstone was an English geologist. Biography Early life He was placed at an early age under the care of a maternal uncle at York, and was sent to Beverley school in the East Riding. Samuel Hailstone was a younger brother. John went to Cambridge, entering first at Catharine Hall, and afterwards at Trinity College, and was second wrangler and second in the Smith's Prize of his year . He was second in both competitions to James Wood who became master of Saint John's, and Dean of Ely.
Go to Profile#3777
Georgy Fedorovich Morozov
1867 - 1920 (53 years)
Georgy Fedorovich Morozov was a forester and biologist in the Russian Empire who introduced the first ecological ideas to classify forest types. He introduced ideas of "the forest as a plant society",which he developed into the definition of the forest as a complex biogeocenotic, geographic and historical phenomenon that was made up of non-living and living components.
Go to Profile#3778
Bernard Brunhes
1867 - 1910 (43 years)
Antoine Joseph Bernard Brunhes was a French geophysicist known for his pioneering work in paleomagnetism, in particular, his 1906 discovery of geomagnetic reversal. The current period of normal polarity, Brunhes Chron, and the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal are named for him.
Go to Profile#3779
Leonard Hawkes
1891 - 1981 (90 years)
Leonard Hawkes FRS was a British geologist. Awarded the Murchison Medal in 1946 and the Wollaston Medal in 1962. He was head of the geology department at Bedford College, London between 1921 and 1956.
Go to Profile#3780
Georg Adolf Suckow
1751 - 1813 (62 years)
Georg Adolf Suckow sometimes Adolph was a German physicist, chemist, mineralogist, mining engineer and naturalist. Suckow was a professor of physics, chemistry, and natural history at the University of Heidelberg. He wrote many books and articles on chemistry, botany, zoology and mineralogy. From 1808 he was a Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His son Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Suckow was also a naturalist.
Go to Profile#3781
Yang Zhongjian
1897 - 1979 (82 years)
Yang Zhongjian, also Yang Chung-chien , courtesy name Keqiang , also known as C.C. Young, was a Chinese paleontologist and zoologist. He was one of China's foremost vertebrate paleontologists. He has been called the "Father of Chinese Vertebrate Paleontology".
Go to Profile#3782
Franz Heritsch
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
Franz Heritsch was an Austrian geologist and paleontologist, known for his studies of the Paleozoic of the Eastern Alps. From 1902 to 1906 he studied at the University of Graz, and following graduation, worked as a middle school teacher in Graz. In 1909 he obtained his habilitation, and later on, served as an associate , and full professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Graz. He was a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#3783
Alexander Henry Green
1832 - 1896 (64 years)
Alexander Henry Green FRS was an English geologist. Life Green was born at Maidstone on 10 October 1832, was the eldest son of Thomas Sheldon Green, head-master of the Ashby Grammar School at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, who had married Miss Derington of Hinckley in Leicestershire. After passing through his father's school he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was admitted pensioner on 25 June 1851, and graduated as sixth wrangler in 1855. Elected a fellow of his college in the same year, he proceeded M.A. in 1858, and resided until 1861.
Go to Profile#3784
Arthur Louis Day
1869 - 1960 (91 years)
Arthur Louis Day was an American geophysicist and volcanologist. He studied high temperature thermometry, seismology and geothermal energy. Early life Day was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts and received his A.B. from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in 1892. He earn his Ph.D from Sheffield in 1894, and taught at Yale until 1897. Day received an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen on July 1, 1914.
Go to Profile#3785
Herbert Hall Turner
1861 - 1930 (69 years)
Herbert Hall Turner was a British astronomer and seismologist. Biography Herbert Hall Turner was educated at the Leeds Modern School, Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1884 he accepted the post of Chief Assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and stayed there for nine years. In 1893 he became Savilian Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford University, a post he held for 37 years until his sudden death in 1930.
Go to Profile#3786
Heinrich Döring
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Heinrich Doring, born Michael Johann Heinrich Döring was a German writer, theologian and mineralogist. He became known mainly as a biographer of the German classical writers, and especially the first biographer of Goethe.
Go to Profile#3787
Wilhelm Dames
1843 - 1898 (55 years)
Wilhelm Barnim Dames was a German paleontologist of the Berlin University, who described the first complete specimen of the early bird Archaeopteryx in 1894. This specimen is currently in the Museum für Naturkunde.
Go to Profile#3788
Charles Cotton
1885 - 1970 (85 years)
Sir Charles Andrew Cotton was a New Zealand geologist and geomorphologist, described as one of the leading scientists that New Zealand has produced. Early life and family Born in Dunedin, Cotton was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School, where he lost the sight in his left eye because of a schoolmate's prank. In 1908 Cotton graduated from the University of Otago with an MSc, with first-class honours in geology.
Go to Profile#3789
Wilhelm Josef Grailich
1829 - 1859 (30 years)
Wilhelm Joseph Grailich was an Austrian physicist, mineralogist and crystallographer. Education From 1847, Grailich studied sciences at the polytechnic institute in Vienna. Career Grailich served as an assistant to Andreas von Ettingshausen in the institute of physics at the University of Vienna. In 1856 he became an assistant at the Hofmineraliencabinett, where soon afterwards, he succeeded Gustav Adolf Kenngott as "kustos-adjunkt". In 1857 he became an associate professor of higher physics at the university, and in 1859, was chosen as a member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. In 1910, a ...
Go to Profile#3790
Henry Stephens Washington
1867 - 1934 (67 years)
Henry Stephens Washington was an American geologist. Biography Washington was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 15, 1867. He attended Yale University, graduating in 1886, and took his masters there two years later. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1893. He also studied at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. His research included trips to Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, Spain, Brazil and the Hawaiian islands. By 1920 he was a consulting mining geologist of high reputation.
Go to Profile#3791
Nikolay Koksharov
1818 - 1892 (74 years)
Nikolai Ivanovich Koksharov was a Russian mineralogist, crystallographer, and major general in the Russian army. He was noted for his measurements of crystals using a goniometer. Life Nikolai Koksharov was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk . He was educated at the military school of mines in St. Petersburg. At the age of twenty-two he was selected to accompany Roderick Murchison and Édouard de Verneuil, and afterwards Dr. Keyserling, in their geological survey of the Russian Empire. Subsequently, he devoted his attention mainly to the study of mineralogy and mining, and was appointed director of the Institute of Mines.
Go to Profile#3792
Charles Tilstone Beke
1800 - 1874 (74 years)
Charles Tilstone Beke was an English traveller, geographer and Biblical critic. Biography Born in Stepney, London, the son of a merchant in the City of London, for a few years Beke engaged in mercantile pursuits. He later studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and for a time practised at the Bar, but finally devoted himself to the study of historical, geographical and ethnographical subjects.
Go to Profile#3793
Hans Henrik Reusch
1852 - 1922 (70 years)
Hans Henrik Reusch was a Norwegian geologist, geomorphologist and educator. He served as director of the Geological Survey of Norway. Biography Born in Bergen, he was educated at the University of Leipzig and Heidelberg University. He graduated Ph.D. at the University of Christiania in 1883. He was married to the painter Helga Marie Ring Reusch He joined the Geological Survey of Norway in 1875, and was its Director from 1888 to 1921. He was a Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard University .
Go to Profile#3794
George Perkins Merrill
1854 - 1929 (75 years)
George Perkins Merrill was an American geologist, notable as the head curator from 1917 to 1929 of the Department of Geology, United States National Museum . Biography George Perkins Merrill was born in Auburn, Maine on May 31, 1854. He was educated at the University of Maine , took a post-graduate courses of study and was assistant in chemistry at Wesleyan University, Connecticut , and subsequently studied at Johns Hopkins .
Go to Profile#3795
Nikolai A. Golovkinsky
1834 - 1897 (63 years)
Nikolai A. Golovkinsky was a Russian geologist who studied among other things the Paleozoic sediments of Tatarstan. He was professor at the Kazan School of Geology.
Go to Profile#3796
Dimitrij Andrusov
1897 - 1976 (79 years)
Dimitrij Andrusov was a Slovak geologist of Russian origin, member of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He was first professor of geology on Slovak colleges. He is considered the founder of modern Slovak geology.
Go to Profile#3797
Victor Bursian
1886 - 1945 (59 years)
Victor Robertovich Bursian was a Soviet scientist who worked on theoretical physics, geophysics, electricity and thermodynamics, crystal physics, and the theory of electrical resistivity tomography.
Go to Profile#3798
Dmitry Mushketov
1882 - 1938 (56 years)
Dmitry Ivanovich Mushketov was a Russian Empire and Soviet geologist and paleontologist, one of the victims of the Great Terror. Biography Dmitry Mushketov was born in Saint Petersburg to the family of Ivan Vasilyevich Mushketov, a famous explorer and professor at the Mining Institute, and Ekaterina Pavlovna Mushketova.
Go to Profile#3799
Gottlob Linck
1858 - 1947 (89 years)
Gottlob Eduard Linck was a German mineralogist. From 1879, he studied at the polytechnic college in Stuttgart, followed by classes at the Universities of Strasbourg and Tübingen. In 1888 he was habilitated for mineralogy and petrography at Strasbourg, where in 1894, he became an associate professor. Later the same year, he was named professor of mineralogy and geology at the University of Jena, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1930. On five occasions, he served as university rector at Jena.
Go to Profile#3800
George Ferdinand Becker
1847 - 1919 (72 years)
George Ferdinand Becker was an American geologist. His most important work was in connection with the origin and mode of occurrence of ore deposits, especially those of the western United States. Biography Becker was born in New York City, 5 January 1847. He was the son of Alexander Christian Becker and Sarah Carey Tuckerman Becker of Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1868, studied at Heidelberg, receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1869, and, two years later, passed the final examination of the Royal School of Mines in Berlin. From 1875 until 1879 he was instructor ...
Go to Profile