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).

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.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Physics,

#5051

Tomoaki Ohtsuki

#126744

Overall Influence

#5052

Werner Vogel

#126745

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

#5053

Stefano Boccaletti

#112314

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Stefano Boccaletti is an Italian physicist. He is senior researcher at the CNR's Institute for Complex Systems in Florence, Italy. His research is mainly concerned with nonlinear and statistical physics, and complex systems sciences with applications to systems biology and systems medicine, data and networks sciences, social science and engineering, among others.

#5054

Tin-Lun Ho

#82816

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Tin-Lun "Jason" Ho is a Chinese-American theoretical physicist, specializing in condensed matter theory, quantum gases, and Bose-Einstein condensates. He is known for the Mermin-Ho relation. Education and career Ho graduated in 1972 with a B.Sc. from Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was a graduate student for the academic year 1972–1973 at the University of Minnesota and in 1973 transferred to Cornell University. There he graduated in 1977 with a Ph.D. under the supervision of N. David Mermin. Ho was a postdoc from 1977 to 1980 under the supervision of Christopher J. Pet...

#5055

Vyacheslav Rychkov

#101859

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Vyacheslav Rychkov is a Russian-Italian-French theoretical physicist and mathematician. Career In 1996, Rychkov obtained his diploma from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. From 1996 to 1998 he studied at the University of Jena. He received his doctorate in mathematics from Princeton University, under the supervision of Elias Stein, in 2002 with a thesis titled "Estimates for Oscillatory Integral Operators". Alexander Polyakov was his unofficial supervisor. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he became assistant professor in 2007.

#5056

Andrew Blakers

#71031

Overall Influence

Andrew Blakers is a Professor of renewable energy engineering at the Australian National University. He has contributed to several innovations in solar photovoltaic technology, including PERC solar cells. Blakers has secured many research grants and won several awards.

#5057

François Guillemot

#125351

Overall Influence

François Guillemot, , is a French neurobiologist, currently working at the Francis Crick Institute in London. His research focuses on the behaviour of neural stem cells in embryos and adult brains.

#5058

Kenneth B. Eisenthal

#117870

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Kenneth B. Eisenthal is an American physical chemist. Education and career Eisenthal received a B.S. in chemistry from Brooklyn College. He graduated from Harvard University with an M.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in chemical physics. His doctoral thesis supervisor was Marshall Fixman. As a postdoc, Eisenthal worked at UCLA , where he gained experience in molecular spectroscopy in the research group of Mostafa El-Sayed. After his stay at UCLA, Eisenthal briefly worked at The Aerospace Corporation and then at the IBM Almaden Research Center, where he did research in the Chemical Physics Group. The application of lasers in chemistry became his main field of work.

#5059

Alexandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov

#126831

Overall Influence

#5060

Mauro Francaviglia

#69601

Overall Influence

1953 - 2013 (60 years)

Mauro Francaviglia was an Italian mathematician. He was a professor at University of Torino and he worked mainly on geometric methods applied to mechanics, mathematical physics and general relativity.

#5061

Lou Bloomfield

#83086

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Louis Aub Bloomfield is a physics professor at the University of Virginia. Bloomfield became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1994 for his work on cluster magnetism and has received several other significant honors. Bloomfield is often referenced as a physics authority in major news publications.

#5062

Beatriz Roldán Cuenya

#92516

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Beatriz Roldán Cuenya is a Spanish physicist working in surface science and catalysis. Since 2017 she has been director of the Department of Interface Science at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany.

#5063

Louis Miles Muggleton

Louis Miles Muggleton

#69037

Overall Influence

1922 - 2015 (93 years)

Louis Miles Muggleton, FIET was a South African-born British Ionospheric Physicist and Electrical Engineer. Building on the work of Sir Edward Appleton in 1975 Muggleton's seminal work provided the international standard ITU model of radio wave absorption and reflection of the Heaviside layer of the Ionosphere. This model was based on jointly published work with Stamatis Kouris from the early 1970s.

#5064

Michelle Wang

#105239

Overall Influence

Michelle Dong Wang is a Chinese-American physicist who is the James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor of the Physical Sciences at Cornell University. She is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research considers biomolecular motors and single molecule optical trapping techniques. She was appointed Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2009.

#5065

Johannes Heydenreich

#106717

Overall Influence

1930 - 2015 (85 years)

Johannes Heydenreich was a German physicist who researched on the applications of electron microscopy in solid state physics and materials science. Education and career Heydenreich was born in Plauen near Dresden. Heydenreich studied physics at the Pädagogische Hochschule "Karl Liebknecht" Potsdam from 1953 to 1958. In 1961, he was awarded a doctorate for his work on the visualization of surface defects of geometrical and electrical origin using a "straight-viewing" electron mirror under Johannes Picht. It was during this time that he met the physicist Heinz Bethge, with whom he had a lifelo...

#5066

Louis Gooren

#60825

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Louis J. G. Gooren was a Dutch endocrinologist known for his work with transsexual and transgender people. He treated over 2,200 transsexual people and was one of the first physicians to treat transgender youth.

#5067

Julie Lutz

#70329

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Julie Haynes Lutz was an astronomer and mathematician who studies planetary nebulae and symbiotic binary stars. Lutz was the Boeing Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Science Education and director of the astronomy program at Washington State University. She moved to the University of Washington in 2000, where she held an position as professor emeritus. Lutz died on May 3, 2022.

#5068

Charles A. Beichman

#126981

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Charles Beichman is the current executive director of NASA Exoplanet Science Institute , senior faculty associate at California Institute of Technology and an astronomer. In 1975 Beichman received an Master of Science in astronomy from University of Hawaiʻi, In 1976 he received an M.S. in physics from University of Hawaiʻi, and in 1979 he received a PhD in astronomy. He has published numerous papers within his field, including research on exoplanets and Debris disks and is most notably credited with the discovery of a planetary system using IRAS.

#5069

Motohiko Ezawa

#126982

Overall Influence

#5070

Charles Oatley

#31028

Overall Influence

1904 - 1996 (92 years)

Sir Charles William Oatley OBE, FRS FREng was Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Cambridge, 1960–1971, and developer of one of the first commercial scanning electron microscopes. He was also a founder member of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

#5071

Colin Riordan

#30293

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Colin Bryan Riordan FLSW is a British academic who has been President and Vice-Chancellor at Cardiff University since 1 September 2012. Education Riordan obtained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1986.

#5072

Victor Galitski

Victor Galitski

#93914

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Victor Galitski is an American physicist, a theorist in the areas of condensed matter physics and quantum physics. Education and career Galitski earned his PhD in applied math and a PhD in condensed matter physics under Prof. Anatoly Larkin. Galitski was later a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He has been on the faculty at the University of Maryland since 2005, where he is now a Chesapeake Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics. He is also a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute there, an honorary professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, a...

#5073

Claudio Doglioni

#127053

Overall Influence

#5074

Peter Thejll

#88993

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Peter Andreas Thejll is a Danish astrophysicist and climate researcher. His research in solar variation helped provide evidence of the greenhouse effect on the Earth's climate in the late 20th century. In particular, his study with Knud Lassen on Northern Hemisphere land air temperature showed that the rise of 0.4 degrees Celsius since 1980 could not be accounted for by the solar cycle, solely. Climatologists have pointed to this finding as a " piece of evidence for greenhouse warming".

#5075

Yaneer Bar‐yam

#127080

Overall Influence

#5076

Ian Philip Grant

#127100

Overall Influence

#5077

George Bekefi

#116607

Overall Influence

1925 - 1995 (70 years)

George Bekefi was a plasma physicist, a professor at MIT, and an inventor. In 1939 Bekefi emigrated from Czechoslovakia to England by means of a British government program to help Jewish children. He received in 1948 a B.S. in science and mathematics from University College London. In 1948 he went to Montreal as an instructor in the physics department of McGill University, where he earned an M.S. in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1952. At McGill he became a research associate and then an assistant professor, leaving in 1957 to join MIT's Plasma Physics Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics. Bekefi remained at MIT for the remainder of his career.

#5078

Giorgio Bellettini

#127103

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

#5079

Gregor von Bochmann

#120417

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Gregor von Bochmann is a German-Canadian computer scientist and emeritus professor of the Université de Montréal and the University of Ottawa. He is known for his work in the area of protocol engineering and distributed applications.

#5080

Edward H. Egelman

#98796

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Edward "Ed" H. Egelman is a Harrison Distinguished Chair of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the application of cryo-EM in the study of protein-DNA complexes. He is a former president of the Biophysical Society, and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

#5081

Hiroshi Toki

#127191

Overall Influence

#5082

Wolfgang Wagner

#127223

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

#5083

John Corner

#84126

Overall Influence

1916 - 1996 (80 years)

John Corner, was a British mathematician and physicist. He is best known for his work on interior ballistics and the British hydrogen bomb programme. Biography John Corner was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 4 January 1916. He was educated at Newcastle Royal Grammar School, and then entered Peterhouse, Cambridge. He obtained firsts in Parts I and II of the Mathematical Tripos in 1937. He was subsequently awarded his PhD in 1946. After graduation from the University of Cambridge in 1937, he became a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Liverpool.

#5084

Roberta Sinatra

#16730

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Roberta Sinatra is an Italian scientist and associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. She is known for her work in network science and conducts research on quantifying success in science.

#5085

William L. Kruer

#127240

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

William L. Kruer is an American physicist, specializing in plasma physics. Kruer studied at the University of Louisville and received his Ph.D. in 1969 from Princeton University. Afterwards, he was a research associate scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and from 1970 a full member of the research staff. Starting in 1972, he was a group leader for theoretical plasma physics and simulation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and from 1993 a chief scientist in plasma physics there. He wrote an important book on laser plasma interactions.

#5086

Raoul Franklin

#34063

Overall Influence

1935 - 2021 (86 years)

Raoul Norman Franklin CBE FREng , was a physicist, working in the field of plasma physics, who was Vice-Chancellor of the City University in London for 20 years. Life Franklin was educated at Howick District High School and Auckland Grammar School . He then studied at the University of New Zealand , then at the University of Auckland . He then moved to the University of Oxford, obtaining his doctorate as a member of Christ Church, Oxford. After working as a senior research fellow at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, from 1961 to 1963, he was a Fellow of Keble C...

#5087

Félix Malu wa Kalenga

#84656

Overall Influence

1936 - 2011 (75 years)

Félix Malu wa Kalenga was a Congolese emeritus professor of Nuclear Physics and a scientist. He was a founding member of the Third World Academy of Science . He was a professor at Lovanium University and a Dean of the Polytechnic Faculty of the University of Kinshasa. He was also a commissioner of the general commission for atomic energy in the DRC and a director general of the regional center for nuclear studies in Kinshasa.

#5088

Charles Fadley

#118484

Overall Influence

1941 - 2019 (78 years)

Charles Sherwood Fadley was an American physicist who was a professor at University of California, Davis and an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Vacuum Society and the Institute of Physics.

#5089

Ian Colin Percival

#127336

Overall Influence

#5090

Andrea Ferrara

#127353

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

#5091

Lawrence Biedenharn

#81718

Overall Influence

1922 - 1996 (74 years)

Lawrence Christian Biedenharn, Jr. was an American theoretical nuclear physicist and mathematical physicist, a leading expert on applications of Lie group theory to physics. Biedenharn studied at MIT with an interruption in World War II from 1942 to 1946 as a lieutenant in the Signal Corps in the Pacific theater, where in 1946 he was stationed in Tokyo for a year as a radio officer. He received his bachelor's degree in absentia from MIT. After World War II, he returned to MIT where he received his PhD in physics under Victor Weisskopf in 1950. As an MIT graduate student he shared an office with J.

#5092

United Kingdom

#127427

Overall Influence

#5093

John Hugh Seiradakis

#69134

Overall Influence

1948 - 2020 (72 years)

John Seiradakis was a Greek astronomer and professor emeritus at the Department of Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is best known for his contributions in the understanding of radio pulsars, the Galactic Center and archaeoastronomy. Since the early 2000s he was heavily involved in the decoding of the Antikythera mechanism. He was a founding member of the Hellenic Astronomical Society, the European Astronomical Society and the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics .

#5094

Stephen E. Schwartz

#127428

Overall Influence

#5095

Prineha Narang

#63033

Overall Influence

1989 - Present (37 years)

Prineha Narang is an American physicist and computational material scientist. She is a Professor of Physical Sciences and Howard Reiss Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles . Narang currently serves as a U.S. Science Envoy approved by the Secretary of State to identify opportunities for science and technology cooperation. Before moving to UCLA, she was first an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University Center for the Environment and then an Assistant Professor in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. Narang’s work has been recog...

#5096

Yamir Moreno

#127432

Overall Influence

#5097

Sandra Savaglio

Sandra Savaglio

#84835

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Sandra Savaglio is an Italian astrophysicist whose research focuses on the "young universe: cosmic chemical evolution, distant galaxies, intergalactic and interstellar medium, and galaxies hosting the most energetic events in the universe: the gamma-ray bursts and the super luminous supernovae.

#5098

Martin Zwierlein

#126932

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Martin Zwierlein is a professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Zwierlein was educated at the University of Bonn and the École Normale Supérieure. He obtained his Ph.D. at MIT under Wolfgang Ketterle. Afterwards, he was briefly a postdoctoral research associate in the group of Immanuel Bloch at Mainz University.

#5099

Banibrata Mukhopadhyay

#122323

Overall Influence

Banibrata Mukhopadhyay is an Indian Scientist/Astrophysicist and a professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, born at Kolkatta, India to Pulak Mukhopadhyay, a biologist, and Tapati Mukhopadhyay, an academician. Mukhopadhyay's mother tongue is Bengali.

#5100

Marcus Birkenkrahe

#49268

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Marcus Birkenkrahe is a physicist and information architect who also works as an executive coach. After obtaining his Abitur in 1983, Birkenkrahe studied physics, mathematics and chemistry at the University of Hamburg. In 1994, he worked as a research assistant at DESY in Zeuthen near Berlin and earned his doctorate with a dissertation on multigrid computations for lattice gauge theories using object-oriented, literate programming. As co-founder and chairman of the Globewide Network Academy , he received the awards for "Best Campus-Wide Information System" and "Best Educational Site" at the First World-Wide Web conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1994.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions