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,
#6751
Gottfried Schmalz
#151884
Overall Influence
#6752
Alexander D. Mirlin
#151902
Overall Influence
#6753
Benjamin D. Santer
#28284
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Benjamin David Santer is a climate researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and former researcher at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. He also worked at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology from 1987 to 1992. He specializes mainly in statistical analysis of climate data sets, and detection/attribution of climate change forcings.
Go to Profile#6754
Nguyen TK Thanh
#45712
Overall Influence
Nguyễn Thị Kim Thanh is a professor of Nanomaterials at University College London. She was awarded the 2019 Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her research and efforts toward gender equality.
Go to Profile#6755
Martha Locke Hazen
#109440
Overall Influence
1931 - 2006 (75 years)
Martha Locke Hazen was an American astronomer, best known for her contributions as curator of the Harvard astronomical photographs collection and her work on variable stars. Early life and education Martha Locke Hazen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in Belmont. In 1953, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in astronomy. She went on to complete her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1958. Her thesis foscused on how the intensities of elliptical galaxies within the Virgo cluster were distributed.
Go to Profile#6756
Massimo Boninsegni
#126723
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Massimo Boninsegni is an Italian-Canadian theoretical condensed matter physicist. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in physics at the Universita' degli Studi di Genova in 1986. He moved to the United States in 1987, where he received a doctoral degree in physics from Florida State University in 1992. His Ph.D. thesis was on numerical studies of a strongly correlated electronic model of high-temperature superconductivity. He took on postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Delaware, before becoming in 1997 an assistant professor of physics at San Diego State University.
Go to Profile#6757
Matteo Fassan
#152031
Overall Influence
#6758
Richard Seely Crandall
#152035
Overall Influence
#6759
Seiji Miyashita
#152043
Overall Influence
#6760
Jeffrey H. Duyn
#152051
Overall Influence
#6761
Eoin P. O’reilly
#152062
Overall Influence
#6762
Archie M. Campbell
#152071
Overall Influence
#6763
Sàndor Suhai
#152097
Overall Influence
#6764
Amy Berrington de González
#38959
Overall Influence
Amy Berrington de González is a scientist. She is a senior investigator and radiation epidemiology branch chief at the National Cancer Institute. Education Berrington de González received a D.Phil. in Cancer Epidemiology from the University of Oxford. Her 2001 dissertation was titled Epidemiological evidence for the risk of cancer from diagnostic X-rays. Her university supervisors were Sarah Darby and David Cox.
Go to Profile#6765
Jerry R. Ehman
#102094
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6766
Robert C. Hilborn
#152108
Overall Influence
#6767
Kazushige Machida
#152147
Overall Influence
#6768
Juan Carlos Parajó
#152164
Overall Influence
#6769
H. John Caulfield
#99500
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
H. John Caulfield was an American physicist who specialized in holography and optical computing. He was the author of numerous refereed publications, a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the SPIE. He was also awarded the SPIE Gold Medal in 2005.
Go to Profile#6770
Patrick T. Newell
#152189
Overall Influence
#6771
Şemsetti̇n Altindal
#152224
Overall Influence
#6772
Bo Reipurth
#152227
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
#6773
Alexander Langsdorf Jr.
#110987
Overall Influence
1912 - 1996 (84 years)
Alexander Suss Langsdorf Jr. was an American physicist on the team that developed the atomic bomb and several devices related to nuclear physics. He was a vocal opponent of the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Go to Profile#6774
Orit Peleg
#62970
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Orit Peleg is an Israeli computer scientist, biophysicist and Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department and the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, CO. She is also an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute. She is known for her work on collective behavior of insects and the biophysics of soft living systems, including honeybees and fireflies. Applications of her work range from human communication, smart-material design, and swarm robotics. She has won national and international awards and prizes, including a Sloan Research Fellowship in...
Go to Profile#6775
Rudi A. J. O. Dierckx
#152254
Overall Influence
#6776
Tatsuo Ido
#152288
Overall Influence
#6777
Yuji Tachikawa
#152295
Overall Influence
#6778
Monica Oliphant
#114058
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Monica Viviene Oliphant is a British–Australian research scientist, specialising in solar energy. Career Oliphant began her scientific career with a master's degree in physics from the University of London and worked for almost 20 years as an energy research scientist for the Electricity Trust of South Australia, but since 2000 has been an independent consultant specialising in residential energy efficiency and renewable energy. Oliphant attributes her interest in solar energy from hearing Sir Macfarlane Burnet in the 1970s claiming that "if we used solar energy we would not need to fight over oil" – this sparked a career of over 40 years in the renewable energy industry.
Go to Profile#6779
Robert T. Siegel
#126601
Overall Influence
1928 - 2000 (72 years)
Robert T. Siegel graduated from Carnegie Tech in 1948, and attained a D.Sc in 1952. He was professor of physics at the College of William and Mary from 1963 to 1998, and director of the Space Radiation Effects Laboratory, located on the site where the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility would later be built, from its construction in 1964–65 to its decommissioning in 1980.
Go to Profile#6780
Richard Wakeford
#152319
Overall Influence
#6781
Mary Beth Stearns
#152331
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Mary Beth Stearns was an American solid-state physicist known for her work on magnetism. Early life and career Mary Beth Gorman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 5, 1925. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1946. She completed a Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1952 at Cornell University.
Go to Profile#6782
Turab Lookman
#152354
Overall Influence
#6783
Thomas R. Mcguire
#152358
Overall Influence
#6784
Jeremy J. Drake
#152367
Overall Influence
#6785
Massimo Inguscio
#152407
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#6786
Stefano Pirandola
#152408
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
#6787
Philippe Busson
#152432
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#6788
Jene Golovchenko
#135348
Overall Influence
1946 - 2018 (72 years)
Jene A. Golovchenko was an American physicist. He was born in 1946, and received his PhD in physics in 1972, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He completed three sets of postdoctoral studies at Aarhus University and spent several years in industry as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. His initial interests were in condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and materials science.
Go to Profile#6789
Erwin Frey
#152475
Overall Influence
#6790
Nobuhito Imanaka
#152479
Overall Influence
#6791
Frank Farmer
#69984
Overall Influence
1912 - 2004 (92 years)
Frank Farmer OBE was an English physicist, and a pioneer in the application of physics to medicine, particularly in relation to the practical aspects of cancer treatment by radiation. Early life and education Frank Taylor Farmer was born in Bexleyheath, Kent and studied at Eltham College before graduating with a first-class honours degree in electrical engineering from King's College London in 1933. He then continued to the University of Cambridge, where he completed a four-year PhD on radio-wave propagation in the ionosphere, working as part of J. A. Ratcliffe's research group. He continued ...
Go to Profile#6792
Raimondo Schettini
#152562
Overall Influence
#6793
Wolfgang Kummer
#152569
Overall Influence
#6794
Jitsuo Higaki
#152571
Overall Influence
#6795
Carsten Dominik
#152573
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#6796
D. L. Smith
#152580
Overall Influence
#6797
Hartmut Zabel
#152581
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#6798
Gérard Bricogne
#152595
Overall Influence
#6799
Alexandra Gade
#149292
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Alexandra Gade is a nuclear physicist who studies the nuclear structure of heavy elements, exotic nuclei, and rare isotopes, using techniques including nuclear spectroscopy, nucleon knockoutss, and Coulomb excitation. Educated in Germany, she works at Michigan State University in the US as a professor of physics in the department of physics and astronomy and as deputy scientific director of the facility for rare isotope beams.
Go to Profile#6800
Richard D. Zallen
#152602
Overall Influence
