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 people in Physics,
#6251
Jos A. M. Vermaseren
#144578
Overall Influence
#6252
Hagai Rottenberg
#144579
Overall Influence
#6253
Hiroshi Matsumoto
#144638
Overall Influence
#6254
Sulaiman Wadi Harun
#144648
Overall Influence
#6255
Soo Jin Prof. Chua
#144652
Overall Influence
#6256
Bernard Tribollet
#144653
Overall Influence
#6257
Ulisse Munari
#143395
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Ulisse Munari is an Italian astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. He is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Padua, and works at the Asiago Observatory. He is a member of the Radial Velocity Experiment team, an all-sky survey using the UK's 1.2m Schmidt telescope in Australia, as well as working with the planned GAIA mission.
Go to Profile#6258
Thomas Michael Smith
#144689
Overall Influence
#6259
Robert Douglas Pisarski
#144706
Overall Influence
#6260
Michio Homma
#144714
Overall Influence
#6261
Tetsuya K. Sato
#144732
Overall Influence
#6262
Matteo Cacciari
#144737
Overall Influence
#6263
Surajit Sen
#118009
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Surajit Sen is a physicist who works on theoretical and computational problems in non-equilibrium statistical physics and in nonlinear dynamics of many body systems. He holds a Ph.D in physics from The University of Georgia where he studied with M. Howard Lee. He is also interested in applying physics to study problems of relevance in a societal context. He is a professor of physics at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Much of Sen's recent work can be found in his RUSA lecture at Bharatidasan University.
Go to Profile#6264
G. Polyzoidis Anagnostou
#144749
Overall Influence
#6265
Yuji Sugita
#144786
Overall Influence
#6266
Enectalí Figueroa-Feliciano
#80224
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Enectalí "Tali" Figueroa-Feliciano is a Puerto Rican physicist and professor at Northwestern University who pioneers the development and application of transition edge sensor detectors to experiments for detecting dark matter, neutrino interactions, and for X-ray astronomy.
Go to Profile#6267
Ulrich Desselberger
#144804
Overall Influence
#6268
Malcolm Fridlund
#144810
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Malcolm Carl Wilhelm Fridlund , is a Swedish astronomer. He wrote his doctoral thesis 1987 in astronomy at Stockholm University and works since 1988 on ESA in Noordwijk in the Netherlands as scientific project manager. Since 1996 Malcolm Fridlund is the scientific manager of the Darwin project. From the spring of 2006 is he also ESA project manager for the international COROT-project.
Go to Profile#6269
Robert Ehrlich
#83401
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Robert Ehrlich is an American physicist. He has a Bachelor of Science from Brooklyn College , and a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University , where he participated in the Nobel prize-winning muon neutrino experiment. From 1963 to 1966 he held a postdoctoral position at the University of Pennsylvania and from 1966 to 1970 he was assistant professor at Rutgers University. In 1970 he accepted a position as associate professor at SUNY New Paltz, where he served as acting chair of the department of physics. From 1977 until his retirement in 2013, he was professor of physics at George Mason Un...
Go to Profile#6270
Claude C. A. Weisbuch
#144828
Overall Influence
#6271
Joachim Ullrich
#144847
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#6272
Klaus Reinhardt
#144852
Overall Influence
#6273
Susanne Aalto
#102678
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Susanne E. Aalto is a Swedish professor of radio astronomy geodesy at the Onsala Space Observatory in the department of Space, Earth and Environment at Chalmers University of Technology. She has been a professor of radio astronomy since 2013. Between 1994 and 1999, she completed her post doctoral studies at the Steward Observatory, University of Arizona and at Caltech in the United States.
Go to Profile#6274
Zhongqiang Fang
#144879
Overall Influence
#6275
Stefano Frixione
#144882
Overall Influence
#6276
Masaru Hori
#144900
Overall Influence
#6277
Jin-can Chen
#144930
Overall Influence
#6278
David Weiss
#75522
Overall Influence
David S. Weiss is an American physicist. Weiss graduated from Amherst College in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in physics. He earned a Ph.D. in the same subject in 1993, from Stanford University. Weiss began his teaching career at the University of California, Berkeley, and joined the Pennsylvania State University faculty in 2001, where he later became a distinguished professor. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2007, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences awarded him an equivalent honor in 2020. Weiss is the 2022 awardee of the Davisson-Germer Pr...
Go to Profile#6279
Evan D. Skillman
#84911
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Evan David Skillman is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. Education and career Evan Skillman graduated in 1977 with a B.A. in physics from Cornell University and in 1984 with a Ph.D. in astronomy from Seattle's University of Washington. His Ph.D. thesis Physical Conditions in Giant Extragalactic H II Regions was supervised by . Skillman was a postdoc at the ASTRON Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy, where his supervisor was , and then at the University of Texas, where his supervisor was Gregory A. Shields. In 1989 Skillman became a faculty member in the University of Minnesota...
Go to Profile#6280
Poul Olesen
#144955
Overall Influence
#6281
Alyson Brooks
#103868
Overall Influence
Alyson Brooks is an American theoretical astrophysicist and professor at Rutgers University. She uses large-scale simulations to determine how galaxies form. Early life and education Brooks grew up in Minnesota. She was interested in astronomy from a young age, and asked for a telescope as a Christmas gift when she was eight. However, she was discouraged from pursuing a career in science in her teens because of the perception that research would be isolating and unwelcoming to women. She started her undergraduate degree in English in 1996 at Macalester College. After doing well in an astronomy...
Go to Profile#6282
Shasanka Mohan Roy
#77913
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Shasanka Mohan Roy is an Indian quantum physicist and a Raja Ramanna fellow of the Department of Atomic Energy at the School of Physical Sciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is also a former chair of the Theoretical Physics Group Committee at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Known for developing Exact Integral Equation on pion-pion dynamics, also called Roy's equations, and his work on Bell inequalities, Roy is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies – Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, and National Academy of Sciences, India – as well as The World Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#6283
Gary W. Falk
#144996
Overall Influence
#6284
Sergej Flach
#131908
Overall Influence
Sergej Flach is a theoretical physicist whose research has spanned a number of scientific fields in his career. With about 240 publications to his name, his research has been cited over 16,000 times giving him an h-index of 58 and i10-index of 174. He is a member of the American Physical Society, German Physical Society, Korean Physical Society, and New Zealand Institute of Physics. He is an editorial board member of Chaos and was an editorial board member of Physical Review E .
Go to Profile#6285
Yifan Cheng
#145022
Overall Influence
#6286
Elizabeth Beise
#108552
Overall Influence
Elizabeth J. Beise is a Professor of Physics and Associate Provost at the University of Maryland, College Park. She works on quantum chromodynamics, nucleon structure and fundamental symmetries. Early life and education Beise studied physics at Carleton College, and graduated in 1981. She joined MIT for her graduate research, earning a PhD in 1988. She was awarded the Peter T. Demos Award for the best PhD thesis from the MIT-Bates Accelerator Center. She worked at the California Institute of Technology Kellogg Radiation laboratory as a senior research fellow from 1988 to 1993. Since this fell...
Go to Profile#6287
Kim Sneppen
#145036
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#6288
Marcus T. Grisaru
#145049
Overall Influence
#6289
S. B. Kishor Hod
#145099
Overall Influence
#6290
Deepto Chakrabarty
#145118
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#6291
Tomas Baer
#145169
Overall Influence
#6292
Sarah Stewart Johnson
#106184
Overall Influence
Sarah Stewart Johnson is an American biologist, geochemist, astronomer and planetary scientist. She joined Georgetown University in 2014 and is currently the Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Biology and the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program in the School of Foreign Service.
Go to Profile#6293
Henry Hurwitz Jr.
#97514
Overall Influence
1918 - 1992 (74 years)
Henry Hurwitz Jr. , was a physicist at General Electric Company who pioneered the theory and design of nuclear power plants and helped engineer the reactor for the Seawolf nuclear submarine. Biography He was born in Manhattan on December 25, 1918. He graduated from Cornell University in 1938, with an M.S. in physics. He then went to Harvard University in 1939 and received a Ph.D. in quantum mechanics in 1941. His first marriage ended in divorce.
Go to Profile#6294
Stéphan Fauve
#99101
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Stéphan Fauve is a French physicist. He is a professor at the École normale supérieure in Paris, a member of the ENS Physics Laboratory. Biography Stéphan Fauve, is a graduate of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud , agrégé de sciences physiques and docteur ès sciences .
Go to Profile#6295
Choi Yang-do
#30243
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Choi Yang-do is a South Korean agricultural biotechnologist. His research focuses on the development of crops with stress-tolerant and yield-enhancing traits. One of his academic achievements is the discovery of a new jasmonate which enhances resistance against external stress of the crop. Choi is currently professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.
Go to Profile#6296
Igor Aharonovich
#84236
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Igor Aharonovich is an Australian physicist and materials engineer. He is a professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney . Igor investigates optically active defects in solids, with an overarching goal to identify new generation of ultra-bright solid state quantum emitters. His main contributions include discovery of new color centers in diamond and hexagonal boron nitride as well as development of new methodologies to engineer nanophotonic devices from these materials.
Go to Profile#6297
Hiroshi. Kamimura
#145277
Overall Influence
#6298
Markus Schuelke
#145287
Overall Influence
#6299
Kirill Melnikov
#145312
Overall Influence
#6300
Hisamichi M. Kimura
#145317
Overall Influence
