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 …

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Physics,

#6701

Georges Charpak

#151288

Overall Influence

#6702

Fitzgerald Dunning

#151304

Overall Influence

#6703

Donald Figer

#132768

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Donald F. Figer is an American astronomer and a professor in the College of Science of the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is also the director of RIT's Future Photon Initiative, Center for Detectors, and Rochester Imaging Detector Laboratory. His research interests include massive stars, massive star clusters, red supergiants, the Galactic Center, and the development of advanced technologies for astrophysics and a broad range of applications.

#6704

Ploog

#151313

Overall Influence

#6705

Albert Ansmann

#151330

Overall Influence

#6706

Misty C. Bentz

#140612

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Misty C. Bentz is an American astrophysicist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University. She is best known for her work on supermassive black hole mass measurements and black hole scaling relationships.

#6707

Katharine Reeves

#112091

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Katharine Reeves is an astronomer and solar physicist who works at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian .. She is known for her work on high temperature plasmas in the solar corona, and measurement/analysis techniques to probe the physics of magnetic reconnection and thermal energy transport during solar flares; these are aspects of the coronal heating problem that organizes a large part of the field. She has a strong scientific role in multiple NASA and international space missions to observe the Sun: Hinode ; IRIS ; SDO; Parker Solar Probe; and suborbital sounding rockets inc...

#6708

Markus Zweckstetter

#151332

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#6709

Ofer Aharony

#151340

Overall Influence

#6710

Stefan Thurner

#151365

Overall Influence

#6711

Štefan Luby

#95008

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Štefan Luby is a Slovak physicist and senior research fellow at the Slovak Academy of Sciences . He is doctor honoris causa of University of Salento, Italy, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra, Slovakia, and Alexander Dubček University in Trenčín, Slovakia. He occupied positions of the director of the Institute of Physics of SAS for nine years and was the president of the SAS for fourteen years . He was the acting president of the All European Academies and the acting president of the Central European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

#6712

Philippe L. Lamy

#151402

Overall Influence

#6713

Silvana Cardoso

#59279

Overall Influence

Silvana Cardoso is a Portuguese fluid dynamicist working in Britain. She is professor of Fluid Mechanics and the Environment at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. She leads the Fluids and the Environment research group at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.

#6714

Jang-joo Kim

#151451

Overall Influence

#6715

Jörg Behler

#151454

Overall Influence

#6716

Giuseppe Vitiello

#151469

Overall Influence

#6717

Virpi Niemelä

#123143

Overall Influence

1936 - 2006 (70 years)

Virpi Sinikka Niemelä was a leading Finnish Argentine astronomer. She was the second Argentine to be elected for Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society. Born in Finland, she emigrated with her family to Argentina in 1954 where she lived for the majority of her life. She became a citizen, married and had two sons.

#6718

Maria Antonietta Loi

#119669

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Maria Antonietta Loi is an Italian physicist who is a Professor of Optoelectronics at the University of Groningen and member of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials. Her research considers the development of functional materials for low-cost, high efficiency optoelectronic device. She was awarded the 2018 Netherlands Physical Society Physics prize . In 2020, she was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2022 she became a fellow of the Dutch academy of science and of the European academy of Science . Loi is Deputy Editor-in-chief of Applied Physics Letters.

#6719

Hans-Jürgen Stöckmann

#116393

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Hans-Jürgen Stöckmann is a German physicist who works in the area of quantum chaos. He is a professor at the University of Marburg, Germany. He is the son of the physicist Fritz Stöckmann. Stöckmann had studied physics at Heidelberg University and received his doctorate there in 1972. Since 1979 he is a Professor of experimental Physics at the University of Marburg.

#6720

Herta Regina Leng

Herta Regina Leng

#64361

Overall Influence

1903 - 1997 (94 years)

Herta Regina Leng was an Austrian-American physicist and educator. Leng was born on 24 February 1903 in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Arthur Leng and Paula Leng, and sister of Leopold Ignaz Leng. Leng fled Austria in 1939 and eventually emigrated to the United States in 1940. She died on 17 July 1997 in Troy, New York.

#6721

Claude Itzykson

#151513

Overall Influence

#6722

Masanori Ozaki

#151514

Overall Influence

#6723

Masahiro Yamaguchi

#151516

Overall Influence

#6724

Maria V. Chekhova

#112320

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Maria V. Chekhova is a Russian-German physicist known for her research on quantum optics and in particular on the quantum entanglement of pairs of photons. She is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, where she heads an independent research group on quantum radiation, and a professor at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, in the chair of experimental physics .

#6725

Yukio Sugiura

#151547

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

#6726

Mark Southwick Robinson

#151552

Overall Influence

#6727

Paulo Freire

#116889

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Paulo Freire is a Portuguese astronomer. He obtained his PhD in 2001 at the University of Manchester in Manchester, England; his supervisor was Andrew Lyne. From 2001 to 2009, Freire worked at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Since 2009, he has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in Bonn, Germany.

#6728

Wise Young

#151584

Overall Influence

#6729

Simon Johnston

#151591

Overall Influence

#6730

Cindy Regal

#109294

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Cindy A. Regal is an American experimental physicist most noted for her work in quantum optics; atomic, molecular, and optical physics ; and cavity optomechanics. Regal is an associate professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado and JILA Fellow; and a Fellow of the American Physical Society .

#6731

Luca Chiovato

#151632

Overall Influence

#6732

Aaron Lemonick

#108722

Overall Influence

1923 - 2003 (80 years)

Aaron Lemonick was a Princeton University physics professor and administrator who served as dean of the graduate school from 1969 to 1973, and as dean of the faculty from 1973 to 1989. Joseph Taylor, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics, attributes his decision to study physics instead of mathematics to Lemonick's freshman physics course at Haverford. Princeton awarded him the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching when he retired in 1994, and he received an honorary degree in 2001.

#6733

Charles Jean Joachain

#151666

Overall Influence

#6734

Jay Gregory Dash

#151667

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

J. Gregory Dash was a physics professor, known for his research on superfluidity, adsorption of gases on smooth surfaces, surface melting, and films on solid surfaces. Biography Dash graduated with B.S. from City College of New York in 1944. During WW II he trained as a radar technician in the Pacific Fleet. He graduated from Columbia University with A.M in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1951. From 1951 to 1960 he was a staff member of Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1957–1958, which he spent at the University of Cambridge. In the physics department of Uni...

#6735

Jagannatha Gopalakrishnan

#151672

Overall Influence

#6736

Stefano Curtarolo

#151678

Overall Influence

#6737

Michael Feig

#151684

Overall Influence

#6738

Lisa Dyson

#91690

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Lisa Dyson is an American scientist, physicist, and entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Kiverdi, a biotechnology company that uses carbon transformation technologies to develop sustainable products for commercial applications, including agriculture, plastics, and biodegradable materials. She is also the founder and CEO of Air Protein, a spin-off company from Kiverdi, which seeks to produce sustainable meat alternatives from elements found in air.

#6739

Wolfgang Sand

#151703

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#6740

Vasily Astratov

#55985

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Vasily Astratov is a full professor of Physics and Optical Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He became known for launching synthetic opals as new self-assembled photonic crystals for visible light in 1995 in his former group at Ioffe Institute in Russia . This work has resulted in a quest for inverse opals with a complete three-dimensional photonic band gap

#6741

William Mitchell

#86187

Overall Influence

1925 - 2002 (77 years)

Sir Edgar William John Mitchell, was a British physicist, professor of physics at Reading and Oxford, and he helped pioneer the field of neutron scattering. Born in Kingsbridge, Devon, England, he studied physics at Sheffield University, which had become an important centre for research in radar and defence communications. In 1946 he took up a research position with Metropolitan-Vickers, leading to a secondment to Bristol University, where Nobel laureate Nevill Mott was head of the department. After gaining his PhD, he took a position at Reading University in 1951, becoming professor of physics in 1961, and later dean of science and deputy vice chancellor.

#6742

Colin J. Thompson

#151758

Overall Influence

#6743

Jan Beenakker

#130964

Overall Influence

1926 - 1998 (72 years)

Joannes Joseph Maria Beenakker , more often known as Jan J. M. Beenakker or Jan Beenakker, was a Dutch physicist and the rector of the Leiden University. Education and career Beenakker was the son of a railway employee and grew up in Zeeland and Rotterdam. In 1942 he obtained his Abitur, but because of the Second World War he was only able to start studying physics at Leiden University in 1945. In 1951, after intermittent military service, he received his diploma in meteorology and in 1954 he received his doctorate in low temperature physics from Cornelis Jacobus Gorter and Krijn Wybren Taconis from the Kamerlingh-Onnes Laboratory at Leiden University.

#6744

Raymond Dale Mountain

#151772

Overall Influence

#6745

Tomasz Skwarnicki

#151824

Overall Influence

#6746

Bruce Douglas Ravel

#151828

Overall Influence

#6747

Andrea Palenzona

#151839

Overall Influence

#6748

Tilman Plehn

#151850

Overall Influence

#6749

Peter Kušnirák

#96239

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Peter Kušnirák is a Slovak astronomer, discoverer of minor planets, and a prolific photometrist of light-curves at Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic. He was married to Slovak astronomer Ulrika Babiaková with whom he discovered 123647 Tomáško, named after their son Tomáško.

#6750

Vladimir A. Krasnopolsky

#151859

Overall Influence

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