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 female people in Physics,
#951
Jessica Werk
#101265
Overall Influence
Jessica K. Werk is an American astronomer and an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. Her work includes the study of intergalactic and interstellar media. Werk was a Hubble fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 2013 to 2016, and won the $65,000 Sloan Fellowship in 2018. Her research focuses on the role of gas in the formation and evolution of galaxies and the intergalactic medium, primarily through spectroscopic observations in the optical and ultraviolet.
Go to Profile#952
Sarah E. Gibson
#151414
Overall Influence
Sarah E. Gibson is an American solar physicist. She is a Senior Scientist and past Interim Director of the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado. As of 2019, Dr. Gibson is the Project Scientist for the PUNCH Small Explorer mission being built for NASA.
Go to Profile#953
Susan Avery
#57306
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Susan K. Avery is an American atmospheric physicist and President Emerita of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, where she led the marine science and engineering research organization from 2008–2015. She was the ninth president and director and the first woman to hold the leadership role at WHOI. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado, Boulder , where she served on the faculty from 1982–2008. While at UCB she also served in various administrative positions, including director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences , a 550-...
Go to Profile#954
Jennie Traschen
#164661
Overall Influence
Jennie Harriet Traschen is an American physicist and cosmologist whose research concerns the structure of the early universe, inflation, black holes and black hole thermodynamics, and quantum gravity. She is a professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Go to Profile#955
Erna Frins
#140276
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Erna Martha Frins Pereira is a Uruguayan physicist. She works as a professor and researcher at the University of the Republic. She was president of the Uruguayan Physics Society from 2007 to 2011. In 2012 she won the National L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science for her research in environmental physics.
Go to Profile#956
Lulu Qian
#47499
Overall Influence
Lulu Qian is a Chinese-American biochemist who is a professor at the California Institute of Technology. Her research uses DNA-like molecules to build artificial machines. Early life and education Qian is from China. She completed her bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering at Southeast University in Nanjing. Qian moved to Shanghai for her doctoral research, where she worked at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on biochemistry. She then moved to the California Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow. At Caltech, she worked alongside Erik Winfree on biochemical circuits. She used a rev...
Go to Profile#957
Kwang Hwa Chung
#92281
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Kwang Hwa Chung is a South Korean physicist who has served as president of the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, the Korea Basic Science Institute, and the Korean Vacuum Society. She has received the Moran Medal of the Order of Civil Merit, as well as other honors and awards for her scientific research and work to promote professionalism for women in STEM fields.
Go to Profile#958
Valeria Simoncini
#82873
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Valeria Simoncini is an Italian researcher in numerical analysis who works as a professor in the mathematics department at the University of Bologna. Her research involves the computational solution of equations involving large matrices, and their applications in scientific computing. She is the chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra.
Go to Profile#959
Lucia Reining
#150203
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Lucia Reining is a German theoretical spectroscopist who works in France as a director of research with the French National Centre for Scientific Research , in the Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés at the École Polytechnique.
Go to Profile#960
Jenni Adams
#163992
Overall Influence
Jennifer Anne Adams is a New Zealand physicist who works on astroparticle physics and cosmology at the University of Canterbury. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and was the winner of the 2021 Dan Walls Medal. She is a full professor, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2023. Adams is the lead New Zealand scientist in the international neutrino observatory at the South Pole, the IceCube collaboration.
Go to Profile#961
Jie Li
#108355
Overall Influence
Dr. Jie Li is a scientist and Professor at the University of Michigan. Career Jie Li received her MA in Geophysics from Harvard University in 1997. She continued her education at Harvard, completing her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences in 1998. She is currently a Professor in Geochemistry and Mineral Physics at the University of Michigan. Li is engaged in wide-ranging research that includes carbon at high pressures and the origin and evolution of terrestrial plants, terrestrial-like moons and asteroids in the solar system. Recent research topics that she is engaged in are:Light element ...
Go to Profile#962
Heike Rauer
#171292
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Heike Rauer is a German astronomer specializing in exoplanets and their detection methods. Rauer has been the Head of the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center since November 2017. She is also the head of the instrument consortium for the European Space Agency's PLATO space telescope, which set to launch in 2026. Previously, she is a member of CoRoT, Rosetta's MIRO spectrometer and the Next Generation Transit Survey collaborations.
Go to Profile#963
Antígona Segura
#128051
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Antígona Segura Peralta is a Mexican physicist and astrobiologist. Since 2006, she has been a researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and collaborator at the NASA Astrobiology Institute. As a feminist she actively advocates for the inclusion of women in the exact sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Segura has participated in several activities in and outside UNAM defending women's rights; she was awarded with the 2021 Hermila Galindo medal by the Congress of Mexico City.
Go to Profile#964
Beverley McKeon
#107021
Overall Influence
Beverley J. McKeon is a physicist and aerospace engineer specializing in fluid dynamics, and in particular in turbulent flows near walls. She was Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. Currently she is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#965
Nanda Rea
#146343
Overall Influence
Nanda Rea is a scientist in the field of astrophysics, currently based in Barcelona, Spain working as a research professor for the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya.
Go to Profile#966
Lenka Kotková
#104513
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Lenka Kotková is a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets. She works at Observatoř Ondřejov , located near Prague. Besides numerous main-belt asteroids she also discovered Mars-crosser asteroid 9671 Hemera and Hilda family asteroid 21804 Václavneumann.
Go to Profile#967
Rommie Amaro
#96992
Overall Influence
Rommie E. Amaro is a professor and endowed chair of chemistry and biochemistry and the director of the National Biomedical Computation Resource at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on development of computational methods in biophysics for applications to drug discovery.
Go to Profile#968
Amita Das
#171817
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Amita Das is an Indian plasma physicist. She is currently a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Her research interests are in laser-plasma interactions, nonlinear plasmas, plasma turbulence and the properties of strongly coupled and dusty plasma systems.
Go to Profile#969
Meera Chandrasekhar
#129590
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Meera Chandrasekhar , is a Curators’ Teaching of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri, United States. She is the recipient of the 2014 Baylor University's Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. Her research focuses on optical spectroscopy of semiconductors and superconductors under pressure. Meera has also developed several hands-on physics programs for students in grades 5–12, and summer institutes for K-12 teachers.
Go to Profile#970
Manuela Temmer
#171749
Overall Influence
Manuela Temmer is Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Graz, Austria and Head of the Heliospheric Physics Research Group. She is an expert in the science underpinning space weather forecasting.
Go to Profile#971
Ana Claudia Arias
#114576
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Ana Claudia Arias is a Brazilian American physicist who is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research considers printed electronic materials and their application in flexible electronics and wearable medical devices.
Go to Profile#972
Jana Tichá
#79497
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Jana Tichá is a Czech astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. She studied at the University of Economics in Prague and graduated in 1987. In 1992 she was selected for the position of a director of the Kleť Observatory.
Go to Profile#973
Helen Freedhoff
#96652
Overall Influence
1940 - 2017 (77 years)
Helen Sarah Freedhoff was a Canadian theoretical physicist who studied the interaction of light with atoms. She gained her doctorate at the University of Toronto in 1965 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College in London. Freedhoff was the first woman appointed as a physics professor at York University in Toronto, and is believed to have been the only woman professor of theoretical physics in Canada at the time.
Go to Profile#974
Lorella Jones
#161577
Overall Influence
1943 - 1995 (52 years)
Lorella Margaret Jones , was a professor of physics and director of the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Jones was interested in the application of computers to physics education and championed the cause of women in physics. She wrote an essay entitled "Intellectual Contributions of Women in Physics" in Women of Science: Righting the Record.
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Gillian Wilson
#172364
Overall Influence
Gillian Wilson is a British-American astronomer and cosmologist. Wilson joined University of California, Merced in October 2022 as Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development and is also a Professor in the UC Merced Physics Department. She was formerly Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, where she was also Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development.
Go to Profile#976
Elizabeth H. Field
#61548
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Hirak Field is an academic scholar and professor in the University of Iowa’s Department of Internal Medicine. Education Field received her BS degree in physics from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She received her MD degree from Penn State's Hershey Medical Center, where she also performed her residency in internal medicine. She conducted a five-year postdoctoral fellowship in both immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.
Go to Profile#977
Ann Heinson
#129040
Overall Influence
Ann Heinson is an American high-energy particle physicist known for her work on single top quark physics. She established and led the DØ Single Top Group which first published experimental observations of the top quark, and in 1997 she co-authored a paper which laid the foundations for further investigation into the top quark.
Go to Profile#978
Michelle Povinelli
#124056
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Michelle Povinelli is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California and Fellow of the OSA and SPIE. Povinelli's research in nanophotonics focuses on the behavior of light inside complex materials.
Go to Profile#979
Lucy-Ann McFadden
#120623
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Lucy-Ann Adams McFadden is an American astronomer and planetary scientist. An employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, she also founded the Science, Discovery & the Universe Program within the University of Maryland, and the Explore-It-All Science Center, a children's science program.
Go to Profile#980
Maria Dworzecka
#129749
Overall Influence
1941 - 2023 (82 years)
Maria Dworzecka, originally Marysia Rozenszajn was a Polish-American computational nuclear physicist and physics educator, and a survivor of the Białystok Ghetto. Topics in her research have included the Hartree–Fock method, heavy-ion collisionss, and the dissipation of nuclear energy; she has also been recognized for her involvement in the development of educational software for physics simulations. She was a professor emerita in the Physics & Astronomy Department at George Mason University. Maria died on January 16, 2023 in Fairfax, Virginia. She was 81 years old.
Go to Profile#981
Adriana Pesci
#65780
Overall Influence
Adriana Irma Pesci is an Argentine applied mathematician and mathematical physicist at the University of Cambridge, specialising in fluid dynamics. Her research topics have included lattice models of polymer solutions, Hele-Shaw flow, flagellar motion of organisms in fluids, soap films on Möbius strips, and the Leidenfrost effect.
Go to Profile#982
Njema Frazier
#169301
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Njema Frazier is a nuclear physicist at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington, D.C. Frazier has a bachelor's degree in physics from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in nuclear physics from Michigan State University.
Go to Profile#983
Dominique Bockelée-Morvan
#172308
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Dominique Bockelée-Morvan is a French astrophysicist and planetary scientist specializing in the molecular composition of comets. She is a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research , affiliated with the Paris Observatory, and a former president of Commission 15 on the Physical Study of Comets & Minor Planets of the International Astronomical Union.
Go to Profile#984
Gladys Vergara
#96425
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Gladys Elena Vergara Gavagnin was a Uruguayan astronomer and professor, known for her calculations on eclipses, made during a time when computers were not capable of them. The asteroid 5659 Vergara is named in her honor.
Go to Profile#985
Louise Gray Young
#132911
Overall Influence
1935 - 2018 (83 years)
Louise Gray Young was an American astronomer and researcher who specialised in molecular spectroscopy. She is best known for her spectroscopic analysis of the planetary atmospheres of Earth, Venus and Mars.
Go to Profile#986
Wiebke Drenckhan
#126469
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Wiebke Drenckhan, born 6 April 1977 in Bad Belzig, is a German physicist. She is a CNRS research director at the Institut Charles Sadron, where she investigates the physics and physical chemistry of liquid and solid foams and emulsions. She also works as illustrator for scientific journals and popular science books and she collaborates regularly with artists and designers.
Go to Profile#987
Amy Barr
#156119
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Amy Barr Mlinar is an American planetary geophysicist known for her studies of icy body formation. She is a member of the National Academies Standing Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science and a co-investigator on NASA's Europa Imaging System and REASON instruments.
Go to Profile#988
Carolyn Larabell
#149382
Overall Influence
Carolyn Larabell is an American scientist that led the first construction and commissioning of a soft x-ray microscope to be used for biological imaging Her research primarily focuses on X-ray microtomography, a technology that allows for a 3D visualization of different cells. Larabell is a joint anatomy professor at the University of California, San Francisco and both the founder and director of the National Center for X-ray Tomography.
Go to Profile#989
Mei-Ching Fok
#87059
Overall Influence
Mei-Ching Hannah Fok is a planetary scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 2011 and elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2019. She has worked on the IMAGE, Van Allen Probes and TWINS missions.
Go to Profile#990
Anne Tropper
#169321
Overall Influence
Anne C. Tropper is a Professor of Physics at the University of Southampton. Her work considers solid-state and semiconductor lasers; specifically the development of ytterbium-doped silica fibre lasers and Vertical External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers. She was elected a Fellow of The Optical Society in 2006, and awarded the 2021 SPIE Maiman Laser Award for her contributions to laser source science and technology.
Go to Profile#991
Stephanie Wilson
#8206
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Stephanie Diana Wilson is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions, and is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison. her 42 days in space are the second most of any female African American astronaut, having been surpassed by Jessica Watkins in 2022.
Go to Profile#992
Anna Consortini
#135726
Overall Influence
Anna Consortini is an Italian physicist in and a retired Professor of Physics at the University of Florence. She was a founder of the Italian Society for Optics and Photonics, and President of the International Commission for Optics from 1993 to 1996.
Go to Profile#993
Kristen Sellgren
#172747
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Kristen Sellgren is an American retired astronomer and Professor Emerita at the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Ohio State University. She won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy in 1990. She is the founder of American Astronomical Society's Committee for Sexual-Orientation & Gender Minorities in Astronomy .
Go to Profile#994
Monika Schleier-Smith
#71668
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Monika Schleier-Smith is an American experimental physicist studying many-body quantum physics by precisely assembling systems of ultracold atoms. These atomic, molecular, and optical physics engineered systems have applications in quantum sensing, coherent control, and quantum computing. Schleier-Smith is an associate professor of physics at Stanford University, a Sloan Research Fellow, and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. Schleier-Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Hertz Foundation.
Go to Profile#995
Idit Zehavi
#157120
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Idit Zehavi is an Israeli astrophysicist and researcher who discovered an anomaly in the mapping of the cosmos, which offered insight into how the universe is expanding. She is part of the team completing the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and is one of the world's most highly cited scientists according to the list published annually by Thomson Reuters.
Go to Profile#996
Sinéad Griffin
#95860
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (38 years)
Sinéad Majella Griffin is an Irish physicist working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on high energy physics and condensed matter. She won the 2017 Swiss Physical Society Award in General Physics.
Go to Profile#997
Lena Kourkoutis
#150461
Overall Influence
1979 - 2023 (44 years)
Lena Fitting Kourkoutis was an American physicist working in the field of electron microscopy, and a professor of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the use of aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope, providing atomic resolution, at cryogenic temperatures to study physical processes such as superconductivity and biological structures such as proteins.
Go to Profile#998
Reina Maruyama
#135406
Overall Influence
Reina H. Maruyama is a Japanese–American experimental particle/atomic/nuclear physicist. As a professor at Yale University, Maruyama was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for her "innovative and wide-ranging contributions to the experimental study of rare events and fundamental symmetries, especially the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, and for leadership in understanding the signature and nature of dark matter."
Go to Profile#999
Elizabeth Buckley-Geer
#172952
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Jane Buckley-Geer is a particle physicist and astrophysicist at Fermilab, where she studies gravitational lensing as a collaborator on the Dark Energy Survey and Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. She is also an associate of the University of Chicago Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering.
Go to Profile#1000
Catalina Curceanu
#139174
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Cătălina Oana Curceanu is a Romanian physicist and lead researcher at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. She researches low energy quantum chromodynamics. Early life and education Curceanu was born in Transylvania. She became interested in science as a child, and applied to the Mathematics and Physics Lyceum at Magurele in Bucharest. She attributes her passion for physics to her very skilled teachers. She studied physics at the University of Bucharest and graduated as a Valedictorian. She carried out her doctoral research using the Low Energy Antiproton Ring at CERN on the OBELIX experiment.
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