Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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List of the most influential people in Physics,

#5501

Alexandre Obertelli

#66955

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Alexandre Obertelli is a French experimental nuclear physicist and Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Experimental Nuclear Structure Physics at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

#5502

Geoffrey C. Bower

#133766

Overall Influence

#5503

Milla Baldo-Ceolin

#106062

Overall Influence

1924 - 2011 (87 years)

Massimilla "Milla" Baldo-Ceolin was an Italian particle physicist. She was the daughter to the owner of a small mechanical workshop. Biography Baldo-Ceolin graduated from the University of Padua in 1952 and six years later became a professor in physics in the same university. In 1963, she was the first female to have a professorship in the university.

#5504

Joseph H. Hamilton

#122693

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Joseph H. Hamilton is an American nuclear physicist and professor at Vanderbilt University. His research has established that the nuclei of atoms may have multiple possible co-existing states. He was one of the discoverers of element 117, tennessine, which was named after the state of Tennessee because of his contribution.

#5505

Klaus Wandelt

#133781

Overall Influence

#5506

Massimiliano Di Ventra

Massimiliano Di Ventra

#81311

Overall Influence

Massimiliano Di Ventra is an American-Italian theoretical physicist who has made several contributions to Condensed-Matter Physics, especially quantum transport in atomic and nanoscale systems, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of many-body systems, DNA sequencing by tunneling, and memelements. He suggested the MemComputing paradigm of computation, and with his group derived various analytical properties of memristive networks, including the Caravelli-Traversa-Di Ventra equation, an exact equation for the evolution of the internal memory in a network of memristive devices.

#5507

Ping Koy Lam

#112003

Overall Influence

Ping Koy Lam is an Australian scientist and Professor of Physics at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is currently an Australian Research Council Australian Laureate Fellow and a work package director and program manager in the ARC Centre for Quantum Computer and Communication Technology. For his PhD thesis in 1999 he was awarded the Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Medal. He was awarded the 2003 British Council Eureka Prize for inspiring science and the 2006 UNSW Eureka Prize for innovative research .

#5508

Claes Fahlander

#120197

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Claes Fahlander is a Swedish physicist. After having graduated from Gävle in 1967, he joined Uppsala University, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1972. He became a Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1977, and a teacher in 1982. Between 1979 and 1982 he worked at Australian National University in Canberra, and in the next decade he was active at Uppsala University. From 1995 to 1997 he did a sabbatical as a researcher at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro in Italy, and on 1 July 1996 he succeeded Hans Ryde as professor of Cosmic and Subatomic Physics at Departme...

#5509

Georges Zissis

#114753

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Georges Zissis is a Greek physicist. Biography Zissis was born in Athens in 1964 and by 1986 had graduated from the University of Crete in general Physics. He obtained master's and Ph.D. degrees on Plasma Physics from the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier in 1987 and 1990 respectively and then became a full professor there; in 2011 he awarded the "Professor Honoris Causa" honorary degree from Physics Department of Saint Petersburg State University. In December 2006 he won the 1st Award of the Centenary Challenge of the International Electrotechnical Commission and in 2009 became a re...

#5510

Thomas Thiemann

#133822

Overall Influence

#5511

Zoltan Fodor

#132737

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Zoltan Fodor is a Hungarian theoretical particle physicist, best known for his works in lattice QCD by numerically solving the theory of the strong interactions. Life In high school and at university he won several national competitions in mathematics, physics and chemistry. He did his undergraduate studies at the Eotvos Lorand University, where he received his PhD in 1990. He was postdoctoral fellow at DESY, Hamburg , CERN, Geneva and KEK, Tsukuba .

#5512

Philip James Morrison

#133835

Overall Influence

#5513

Graeme Ackland

#133845

Overall Influence

Graeme John Ackland FRSE is professor of computer simulation at the University of Edinburgh. His research concerns metallic hydrogen and other materials under high pressure. He has also applied simulations to non-physical problems including Neolithic migration and the spread of COVID-19.

#5514

Sangeeta Malhotra

#49961

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Sangeeta Malhotra is an astrophysicist who studies galaxies, their contents, and their effects on the universe around them. The objects she studies range from our own Milky Way galaxy to some of the earliest and most distant known galaxies in the epoch of cosmic dawn.

#5515

Thomas B. Day

#56229

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Thomas Brennock Day was an American scientist and university administrator. He served as the president of San Diego State University from 1978 to 1996. Early life Day was born in New York City on March 7, 1932. He was the youngest of six children of an insurance salesman and department store clerk. His father died when Day was three years old. His interest in mathematics and science was piqued after reading science fiction and listening to stories from his older brother, an engineer who was employed on railroad bridges and tunnels. Day later attended Catholic boarding schools and was awarded a scholarship to attend college.

#5516

David T. Attwood

#133889

Overall Influence

#5517

Marc Baldus

#53268

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Marc Baldus is a physicist and professor of NMR spectroscopy at Utrecht University. He is especially known for his work in the field of structural biology using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He applies ssNMR methods to establish structure-function relationships in complex biomolecular systems including membrane and Amyloid proteins. In addition, he develops cellular NMR methods to study large molecular transport and insertion systems in bacteria as well as signal transduction mechanisms in eukaryotic cells.

#5518

Takeshi Urata

#93929

Overall Influence

1947 - 2012 (65 years)

Takeshi Urata was a Japanese astronomer. He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, observing at Nihondaira Observatory. In 1978 he became the first amateur to discover a minor planet in over fifty years, which he named after his daughter, Mizuho. His pioneering feat led to an upsurge in such discoveries. In the ten years that followed, amateurs from Japan discovered 160 minor planets. Urata shared his observation data with peer astronomers in Japan on a periodical called "Tenkai" , as well as contributed to academic journals such as Advances in Space Research and participated in poster prese...

#5519

Prabhakar Misra

Prabhakar Misra

#98734

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Prabhakar Misra is an American physicist, who researches and teaches at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and is currently a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Biography Born and raised in India, he came to the United States to pursue graduate studies in physics. He earned an M.S. in physics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1981 , followed by a Ph D. in Physics in 1986 from The Ohio State University . After a post-doctoral fellowship at the Laser Spectroscopy Facility of the Ohio State University, he joined Howard University in 1988. He was a visiting scholar in 1990 ...

#5520

André Maréchal

#56503

Overall Influence

1916 - 2007 (91 years)

Robert Gaston André Maréchal was a French researcher and administrator in optics. André Maréchal was director general of the French Institut d'Optique. In 1986 Maréchal was elected to Honorary Membership of the Optical Society its highest honor, for his work in the areas of coherence, diffraction, geometric optics, image formation and image processing, and for his contributions to the international optics community. His pioneering work influenced the development of computer programs that optimized lens designs and advanced the automatic optimization of optical systems. He strongly contribute...

#5521

Fran Bagenal

#103440

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Frances "Fran" Bagenal is a Professor Emerita of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and a Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in the fields of space plasmas and planetary magnetospheres.

#5522

Harold L. Kundel

#133954

Overall Influence

#5523

Richard G. Palmer

#103672

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Richard G. Palmer is a British theoretical physicist. Palmer received from the University of Cambridge in 1970 his B.A. in theoretical physics and in 1973 his PhD in condensed matter theory with thesis advisor P. W. Anderson and thesis Theory of nuclear matter in neutron stars. In 1971–1973 he was supported by a Lord Kelvin Research Fellowship. He was in 1973–1975 an instructor and in 1975–1977 a lecturer at Princeton University. He was in 1977–1983 an assistant professor, in 1983–1991 an associate professor, and from 1991 to the present a full professor of physics at Duke University. At Du...

#5524

Peter Braun-munzinger

#133999

Overall Influence

#5525

Valeria Pettorino

#104919

Overall Influence

Valeria Pettorino is an Italian physicist working in cosmology, astrophysics and data analysis. She is a CDI Researcher at CosmoStat, CEA Saclay, and she is part of Planck and Euclid ESA/NASA international space missions.

#5526

Daniel Bonn

#134017

Overall Influence

#5527

Karen Kavanagh

#57404

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Karen L. Kavanagh is a professor of physics at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, where she heads the Kavanagh Lab, a research lab working on semiconductor nanoscience. Education Kavanagh obtained a BSc in Chemical-Physics from Queen's University in 1978, followed by 3 years at Bell Northern Research in Ottawa in their Advanced Technology Laboratory. She received her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering in 1987 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

#5528

Eugene Milone

#122016

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Eugene Frank Milone is an American astronomer. He received a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1961, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale University. After teaching for several years at Gettysburg College where he was assistant professor of Physics, he re-located in 1971 to the University of Calgary, where he served as Director of the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory.

#5529

Harris Mayer

#78239

Overall Influence

1921 - Present (105 years)

Harris Louis Mayer was an American physicist known for his collaboration with Edward Teller and John von Neumann. He worked on the Manhattan Project. Mayer also worked on Project Orion. His work had to do with opacity, mostly in the context of atmospheric opacity to nuclear radiation.

#5530

Che-Ming Ko

#23356

Overall Influence

Che-Ming Ko is a Taiwanese physicist, focusing in nuclear theory, currently University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1994.

#5531

St'ephane Goriely

#134122

Overall Influence

#5532

Boyd Ray Strain

#134123

Overall Influence

#5533

Renyue Cen

#134124

Overall Influence

#5534

Andreas Schadschneider

#134131

Overall Influence

#5535

Céline Bœhm

#128663

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Céline Bœhm is a Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Sydney. She works on astroparticle physics and dark matter. Early life and education Bœhm studied fundamental physics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, graduating in 1997. She joined École Polytechnique, where she obtained a Master in Engineering in 1998. She earned the highest distinction for a postgraduate diploma in theoretical physics. She completed her PhD at the École normale supérieure in Paris in 2001, working with Pierre Fayet. She worked on supersymmetry, in the 4-body decay of the stop particle. She studied...

#5536

Shane Robert Cloude

#134163

Overall Influence

#5537

Leopoldo García-Colín

#56269

Overall Influence

1930 - 2012 (82 years)

Leopoldo García-Colín Scherer was a Mexican scientist specialized in Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics who received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences in 1988. He was a member of The National College, a former president of the Mexican Society of Physics and has received honorary degrees from several universities, including the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Metropolitan Autonomous University .

#5538

John C. H. Spence

John C. H. Spence

#96828

Overall Influence

1946 - 2021 (75 years)

John Charles Howorth Spence ForMemRS HonFRMS was Richard Snell Professor of Physics at Arizona State University and Director of Science at the National Science Foundation BioXFEL Science and Technology Center.

#5539

Jens Oddershede

#66067

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Jens Nørgaard Oddershede graduated in Chemistry and Physics from Aarhus University in 1970. In 1978 he was awarded a doctorate in quantum chemistry and in 1988 he became professor. In 2001, Jens Oddershede became the 6th Rector of University of Southern Denmark. Prior to that, he was dean of science and Engineering and professor of chemistry at the University of Southern Denmark for ten years. In the period 2002–2014, Oddershede was vice-chairman and, since 2005, chairman of Universities Denmark, which is the organisation of the Danish universities to enhance their cooperation, visibility and impact.

#5540

Pauline Barmby

#122784

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Pauline Barmby is a Canadian astronomer currently based at the University of Western Ontario. She studies galaxies, their formation and evolution from an observational standpoint. She studies both nearby galaxies and those at high redshift using telescopes like the Spitzer Space Telescope. She is the co-chair, with Bryan Gaensler, of the Canadian Astronomy 2020 Long Range Plan.

#5541

John Condon Bean

#134242

Overall Influence

#5542

Seigo Tarucha

#134246

Overall Influence

#5543

Edward J. Wollack

#134250

Overall Influence

#5544

David Blair

#115591

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

David G. Blair is an Australian physicist and professor at the University of Western Australia and Director of the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre. Blair works on methods for the detection of gravitational waves. He developed the niobium bar gravitational wave detector NIOBE, which achieved the lowest observed noise temperature, and participated in a worldwide collaboration that set the best limit on the burst events in 2001. He has been responsible for numerous innovations including the 1984 invention of the first sapphire clock, a super-precise timepiece designed for...

#5545

François Wesemael

#121900

Overall Influence

1954 - 2011 (57 years)

François Wesemael was a Canadian astrophysicist who specialised in modeling stellar atmospheres. He was widely recognized for his talents in communication and outreach, and a supervisor of student projects.

#5546

Svyatoslav Gabuda

Svyatoslav Gabuda

#50562

Overall Influence

1936 - 2015 (79 years)

Svyatoslav Petrovich Gabuda was a Soviet/Russian physicist, professor, and doctor of physical and mathematical sciences. Biography Gabuda was born in the village of Wołosate, currently Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland, in a clergyman's family. After graduating from the Odessa State University, Gabuda started scientific studies in 1958 when academician Leonid Kirensky invited him to work in the Institute of Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Krasnoyarsk. After reporting his work at the Pyotr Kapitsa’s seminar followed by constructive discussion and feedback, he considered Kapitsa his main authority in science.

#5547

Tatomir Anđelić

#91390

Overall Influence

1903 - 1993 (90 years)

Tatomir P. Anđelić was a Serbian mathematician, academic and an expert in mechanics. Biography Tatomir P. Anđelić was born on November 11, 1903, in a small village Bukovica, near Mrcajevci between towns of Čačak and Kraljevo in the family of six children. His mother Dmitra was illiterate, but his father Pavle, a landowner with rudimentary schooling, was a people's democratic delegate.

#5548

H. Manning Pickett

#134339

Overall Influence

#5549

William Raymond Salaneck

#134341

Overall Influence

#5550

Elena Long

#91605

Overall Influence

Elena Amanda Long is assistant professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire and is an activist for LGBT people in science. The journal Nature called her a "diversity trailblazer" in their Nature's 10: Ten people who mattered this year in 2016. Long's research on the internal structure of nucleons earned her a 2015 Jefferson Science Associates Promising Young Scientist award. Long has made significant contributions to improve the inclusion of under-represented researchers and students by founding the LGBT+ Physics organisation and serving as a member of the American Physical Societ...

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