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.

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List of the most influential female people in Physics,

#151

Persis Drell

#24801

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Persis S. Drell is an American physicist best known for her expertise in the field of particle physics. She was the director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2007 to 2012. She was dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering from 2014 until 2017. Drell has been the Provost of Stanford University since February 1, 2017. She plans to step down as Provost at the end of September 2023, and will be replaced by Jenny S. Martinez, dean of Stanford Law School.

#152

Claudia Felser

#42102

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Claudia Felser is a German solid state chemist and materials scientist. She is currently a director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids. Felser was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 for the prediction and discovery of engineered quantum materials ranging from Heusler compounds to topological insulators.

#153

Eleonore Trefftz

Eleonore Trefftz

#42679

Overall Influence

1920 - 2017 (97 years)

Eleonore Trefftz was a German physicist known for her work on molecular and nuclear physics. She was appointed as a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in 1971.

#154

Tasneem Zehra Husain

#20049

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Tasneem Zehra Husain is a Pakistani theoretical physicist. She is one of few Pakistani women to obtain a doctorate in physics, and the first Pakistani woman string theorist. An eminent scientist, she has been a guest speaker at a various schools and colleges in an effort to promote science and technology in Pakistan.

#155

Maria Zuber

#31388

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Maria T. Zuber is an American geophysicist who is the vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also holds the position of the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Zuber has been involved in more than half a dozen NASA planetary missions aimed at mapping the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and several asteroids. She was the principal investigator for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory Mission, which was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

#156

Marielle Chartier

#36556

Overall Influence

Marielle Chartier is a Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Liverpool in England. Her research investigates the phase diagram of nuclear matter using the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN Her past work includes nuclear structure at the frontiers of the valley of stability.

#157

Cathie Clarke

#66731

Overall Influence

Catherine Jane Clarke is a Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. In 2017 she became the first woman to be awarded the Eddington Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society. In 2022 she became the first female director of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

#158

Christine Jones Forman

Christine Jones Forman

#37740

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Christine Jones Forman is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. She is a past president of the American Astronomical Society, and was the director of the Smithsonian Institution's Consortium for Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe.

#159

Agnès Barthélémy

#26811

Overall Influence

Agnès Barthélémy is a French physicist. She is an expert on nanostructures. She is a professor at Université Paris-Sud and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Education and career Agnès Barthélémy received her PhD in 1991 from Université Paris-Sud, where she worked under the supervision of Albert Fert.

#160

Jane S. Richardson

Jane S. Richardson

#15912

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Jane Shelby Richardson is an American biophysicist best known for developing the Richardson diagram, or ribbon diagram, a method of representing the 3D structure of proteins. Ribbon diagrams have become a standard representation of protein structures that has facilitated further investigation of protein structure and function globally. With interests in astronomy, math, physics, botany, and philosophy, Richardson took an unconventional route to establishing a science career. Today Richardson is a professor in biochemistry at Duke University.

#161

Monique Combescure

#32089

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Monique Combescure , is a French physicist specializing in mathematical physics. In 2001, she became director of research at the Lyon Institute of Nuclear Physics. From 2000 to 2008, she was director of the European Mathematics and Quantum Physics Research Group which aims to promote synergy between theoretical physicists and mathematicians in the field of quantum physics. She received the Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize in 2007 and the rank of Officer of the National Order of Merit in 2011.

#162

Natalie Batalha

Natalie Batalha

#56077

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Natalie M. Batalha is professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. Previously she was a research astronomer in the Space Sciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center and held the position of Co-Investigator and Kepler Mission Scientist on the Kepler Mission, the first mission capable of finding Earth-size planets around other stars.

#163

Beverly Berger

#17197

Overall Influence

Beverly K. Berger is an American physicist known for her work on gravitational physics, especially gravitational waves, gravitons, and gravitational singularities. Alongside Berger's more serious physics research, she is also known for noticing that vibrational patterns caused by local ravens were interfering with observations at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.

#164

Frances Spence

#5009

Overall Influence

1922 - 2012 (90 years)

Frances V. Spence was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC . She is considered one of the first computer programmers in history. The other five ENIAC programmers were Betty Holberton, Ruth Teitelbaum, Kathleen Antonelli, Marlyn Meltzer, and Jean Bartik.

#165

Danielle Bassett

#19014

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Dani Smith Bassett is an American physicist and systems neuroscientist who was the youngest individual to be awarded a 2014 MacArthur fellowship. Bassett, whose pronouns are they/them, was also awarded a 2014 Sloan fellowship. They are currently the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, Neurology, and Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and an external professor of the Santa Fe Institute. Their work focuses on applying network science to the study of learning in the human brain in addition to the stu...

#166

Eva Grebel

#66843

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Eva K. Grebel is a German astronomer. Since 2007 she has been co-director of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Eva Grebel is an expert in the study of stellar populations and galaxy formation.

#167

Chiara Marletto

#42100

Overall Influence

Chiara Marletto is a theoretical physicist at Wolfson College, Oxford. She is a pioneer in the field of constructor theory, couterfactuals and a generalization of the quantum theory of information. Life Marletto grew up in Turin. She graduated from the Polytechnic University of Torino, and the University of Oxford, where she studied with Artur Ekert.

#168

Wendy Taylor

#47273

Overall Influence

Wendy Taylor is an Experimental Particle Physicist at York University and a former Canada Research Chair. She is the lead for York University's ATLAS experiment group at CERN. Education Taylor graduated from the University of British Columbia with Bachelors of Science in Physics in 1991. As an undergraduate, she worked at TRIUMF, working on rare kaon decay. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Toronto, where she earned a PhD under the supervision of Pekka Sinervo in 1999. She worked on fragmentation properties of the bottom quark. She worked at Stony Brook University as a postdoctoral fellow.

#169

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla

#43387

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Emily Stewart Lakdawalla is an American planetary geologist and former Senior Editor of The Planetary Society, contributing as both a science writer and a blogger. She has also worked as a teacher and as an environmental consultant. She has performed research work in geology, Mars topography, and science communication and education. Lakdawalla is a science advocate on various social media platforms, interacting with space professionals and enthusiasts on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. She has appeared on such media outlets as NPR, BBC and BBC America.

#170

Eleanor F. Helin

Eleanor F. Helin

#17976

Overall Influence

1932 - 2009 (77 years)

Eleanor Francis "Glo" Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Helin was a prolific discoverer of minor planets and several comets, including periodic comets 111P/Helin–Roman–Crockett, 117P/Helin–Roman–Alu and 132P/Helin–Roman–Alu. She is credited as the discoverer of the object now known as both asteroid 4015 Wilson–Harrington and comet 107P/Wilson–Harrington. Although Wilson and Harrington preceded her by some decades, their observations did not establish an orbit for the object, while her rediscovery did.

#171

Myriam Sarachik

Myriam Sarachik

#20117

Overall Influence

1933 - 2021 (88 years)

Myriam Paula Sarachik was a Belgian-born American experimental physicist who specialized in low-temperature solid state physics. From 1996, she was a distinguished professor of physics at the City College of New York. She is known for the first experimental confirmation of the Kondo effect in the 1960s.

#172

Isabella Karle

#10834

Overall Influence

1921 - 2017 (96 years)

Isabella Karle was an American chemist who was instrumental in developing techniques to extract plutonium chloride from a mixture containing plutonium oxide. For her scientific work, Karle received the Garvan–Olin Medal, Gregori Aminoff Prize, Bower Award, National Medal of Science, and the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award .

#173

Francesca Vidotto

#34089

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Francesca Vidotto is an Italian theoretical physicist. Biography She earned her UG/MA in theoretical physics at the University of Padova and the PhD as double-degree at the University of Pavia and the Aix-Marseille Université. Afterwards she was a postdoc researcher at the universities of Grenoble, Nijmegen and Bilbao. She was awarded a Rubicon and a Veni fellowship by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

#174

Jani Radebaugh

#27834

Overall Influence

Jani Radebaugh is an American planetary scientist and professor of geology at Brigham Young University who specializes in field studies of planets. Radebaugh's research focuses on Saturn's moon Titan, Jupiter's moon Io, the Earth's Moon, Mars and Pluto. Radebaugh is a Science Team member of the Dragonfly mission to Titan, the IVO Io mission proposal, and the Mars Median project. She was an Associate Team Member of the Cassini-Huygens RADAR instrument from 2008 to 2017, and was a graduate student scientist for Io for the Galileo mission. She does science outreach through her work as an expert ...

#175

Claudia Maraston

#37708

Overall Influence

Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She designs models for the calculation of spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations. She is the winner of the 2018 Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal.

#176

Penny Sackett

#26567

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Penny Diane Sackett is an American-born Australian astronomer and former director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University . Professor Sackett was the Chief Scientist of Australia from November 2008 until March 2011.

#177

Rachel Webster

#59207

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Rachel Lindsey Webster , is an Australian astrophysicist who became the second female professor of physics in Australia. Her main focus areas are extragalactic astronomy and cosmology; she researches black holes and the first stars of the universe. Webster has a doctoral degree from Cambridge University and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Toronto and University of Melbourne.

#178

Alice E. Shapley

#56567

Overall Influence

Alice Eve Shapley is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She was one of the discoverers of the spiral galaxy BX442. Through her time at University of California, Los Angeles she has taught Nature of the Universe, Black Holes and Cosmic Catastrophes, Cosmology: Our Changing Concepts of the Universe, Galaxies, Scientific Writing, AGNs, Galaxies, *and* Writing, and The Formation and Evolution of Galaxies and the IGM. Shapley has committed herself to over a two decades of research and publication in the interest of physics and ast...

#179

Ana María Cetto

Ana María Cetto

#25094

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Ana María Cetto Kramis is a Mexican physicist and professor. She is known for her contributions to quantum mechanics, stochastic, electrodynamics, and biophysics of light, and for her work as a pacifist. From 2003 to 2010 she was Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency . She is also professor at the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico , of which she was also director. Cetto is responsible for several scientific literature programs in Latin America and for several international programs on the promotion and participation of women in sci...

#180

Liisi Oterma

#43907

Overall Influence

1915 - 2001 (86 years)

Liisi Oterma was a Finnish astronomer, the first woman to get a Ph.D. degree in astronomy in Finland. She studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Turku, and soon became Yrjö Väisälä's assistant and worked on the search for minor planets. She obtained her master's degree in 1938. From 1941 to 1965, Oterma worked as an observer at the university's observatory. She obtained her PhD in 1955 with a dissertation on telescope optics. She was the first Finnish woman to obtain a PhD in astronomy.

#181

Jean Swank

#64271

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Jean Hebb Swank is an astrophysicist who is best known for her studies of black holes and neutron stars. Early life and education Swank graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Bryn Mawr College in 1961. Two of her physics professors at Bryn Mawr were alumni of Caltech. They influenced her decision to attend graduate school at the California Institute of Technology. Under the supervision of Steve Frautschi, she was awarded her PhD in physics in 1967. Her thesis was "Radiative Corrections to Neutrino-Electron Interactions".

#182

Andrea Dupree

#61054

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Andrea Dupree is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. She is a Past-President of the American Astronomical Society, and served as the associate director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. Dupree also served as Head of the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division.

#183

Lyudmila Karachkina

#33324

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina is an astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. In 1978 she began as a staff astronomer of the Institute for Theoretical Astronomy at Leningrad. Her research at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory then focused on astrometry and photometry of minor planets. The Minor Planet Center credits her with the discovery of 130 minor planets, including the Amor asteroid 5324 Lyapunov and the Trojan asteroid 3063 Makhaon. In 2004, she received a Ph.D. in astronomy from Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University.

#184

Carole Jordan

#47119

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Dame Carole Jordan, , is a British physicist, astrophysicist, astronomer and academic. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. From 1994 to 1996, she was President of the Royal Astronomical Society; she was the first woman to hold this appointment. She won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005; she was only the third female recipient following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996. She was head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxfor...

#185

Katrin Suder

#12287

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Katrin Suder is a German physicist and management consultant who served as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2014 to 2018. Early life and education Suder was born in Mainz on 29 September 1971. She studied physics at RWTH Aachen. In 2000, she received her doctorate in neuroinformatics at the Ruhr University Bochum. Suder also received a bachelor's degree in theater and linguistics there. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation.

#186

Heidi Hammel

#42190

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Heidi B. Hammel is a planetary astronomer who has extensively studied Neptune and Uranus. She was part of the team imaging Neptune from Voyager 2 in 1989. She led the team using the Hubble Space Telescope to view Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact with Jupiter in 1994. She has used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope to study Uranus and Neptune, discovering new information about dark spots, planetary storms and Uranus' rings. In 2002, she was selected as an interdisciplinary scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.

#187

Emiko Hiyama

#68958

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Emiko Hiyama is a Japanese computational nuclear physicist whose research concerns computational methods for few-body systems of nucleons. She is the director of the Strangeness Nuclear Physics Laboratory at the Riken Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, and a professor of physics at Tohoku University.

#188

Jane Greaves

#28390

Overall Influence

Jane Greaves is a Professor of Astronomy based at Cardiff University. While at the University of St Andrews she led the team which discovered a protoplanet within the protoplanetary disk around the young star HL Tauri.

#189

Yvette Cauchois

#21759

Overall Influence

1908 - 1999 (91 years)

Yvette Cauchois was a French physicist known for her contributions to x-ray spectroscopy and x-ray optics, and for pioneering European synchrotron research. Education Cauchois attended school in Paris, and pursued undergraduate studies at the Sorbonne who awarded her a degree in the physical sciences in July 1928. Cauchois undertook graduate studies at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry with the support of a National Fund for Science studentship, and was awarded her doctorate in 1933 for her work on the use of curved crystals for high-resolution x-ray analysis.

#190

Daniela Calzetti

#72021

Overall Influence

Daniela Calzetti is an Italian-American astronomer known for her research on cosmic dust, star formation, and galaxy formation and evolution, and in particular for the Calzetti dust extinction law, an estimate for how much information about distant galaxies has been obscured by cosmic dust. She is a professor of astronomy and head of the astronomy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and principal investigator of the Legacy ExtraGalactic Ultraviolet Survey project of the Hubble Space Telescope.

#191

Jeyhan Kartaltepe

#52669

Overall Influence

Jeyhan Sevim Kartaltepe is an American astronomer, Associate Professor and Director of the Rochester Institute of Technology Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics. Her research considers observational astronomy and galaxy evolution. She is a lead investigator on the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey and the COSMOS-Webb Survey conducted on the James Webb Space Telescope.

#192

Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli

#33526

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli is a Moroccan Professor of nuclear physics, at the faculty of science within the Mohammad V University of Rabat. She won the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science for her work on the Higgs Boson.

#193

Manijeh Razeghi

#20246

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Manijeh Razeghi is an Iranian-American scientist in the fields of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices. She is a pioneer in modern epitaxial techniques for semiconductors such as low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition , vapor phase epitaxy , molecular beam epitaxy , GasMBE, and MOMBE. These techniques have enabled the development of semiconductor devices and quantum structures with higher composition consistency and reliability, leading to major advancement in InP and GaAs based quantum photonics and electronic devices, which were at the core of the late 20th century optical ...

#194

Anita Goel

#19748

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Anita Goel is an American physicist, physician, and scientist in the emerging field of Nanobiophysics. At the Nanobiosym Research Institute , Goel examines the physics of life and the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA.

#195

Tracy Slatyer

#55514

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Tracy Robyn Slatyer is a professor of particle physics with a concentration in theoretical astrophysics with tenure at MIT. She was a 2014 recipient of the Rossi Prize for gamma ray detection of Fermi bubbles, which are unexpected large structure in our galaxy. Her research also involves seeking explanations for dark matter and the gamma ray haze at the center of the Milky Way. In 2021, she was awarded a New Horizons in Physics Prize for "major contributions to particle astrophysics, from models of dark matter to the discovery of the "Fermi Bubbles."

#196

Josefa Masegosa Gallego

#72891

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Josefa Masegosa Gallego is a Spanish astronomer and scientific researcher. She is a winner of both the Granada, City of Science and Innovation award and the Mariana Pineda Award of Equality. Life Gallego was born in 1957 in Oria, Spain. She has a PhD from the University of Granada.

#197

Jo Dunkley

#58136

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Joanna Dunkley is a British astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at Princeton University. She works on the origin of the Universe and the Cosmic microwave background using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope .

#198

C. Marcella Carollo

C. Marcella Carollo

#60202

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

C. Marcella Carollo worked as a professional astronomer for 25 years between 1994 and 2019. Her scientific career was ended by the ETH Zürich who, following accusations that she had bullied students, made her the first Professor to be dismissed at ETH Zurich in the 165 years of its history. Carollo has maintained her innocence against these accusations, publicly commenting on her case in terms that indicate "academic mobbing". The dismissal was appealed unsuccessfully to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court.

#199

Jane C. Charlton

#54323

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Jane C. Charlton is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University where she is a specialist in galaxy formation and evolution. She also has a daughter named Thomasin. Early life and education Charlton was born in New Eagle, Pennsylvania. She was a child prodigy who obtained her Bachelor of Science in chemistry and physics from Carnegie Mellon University at the age of 18, in 1983. Charlton received both her PhD, in 1987, and her Master of Science, 1984, from the University of Chicago.

#200

Beth Willman

#65357

Overall Influence

Beth Willman is an American astronomer who is the Chief Executive Officer of the LSST Discovery Alliance, an astronomical organization notable for its support of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. She was previously the deputy director of the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory and an associate professor of astronomy at Haverford College.

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