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,
#7101
Burkhard Bechinger
#156937
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#7102
Iacopo Carusotto
#156939
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
#7103
Norman M. White
#156940
Overall Influence
#7104
Richard Blaikie
#122919
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Richard John Blaikie is a physicist who works in the field of nano-scale optics. He is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Otago. Early life Blaikie was born in 1965 and attended Kaikorai Valley College in Dunedin. He studied at the University of Otago and graduated with a BSc in physics. He won a Rutherford Memorial Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge , where he received a PhD in physics in 1992.
Go to Profile#7105
Cameron Neylon
#78229
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
David Cameron Neylon is an advocate for open access and Professor of Research Communications at the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University. From 2012 - 2015 they were the Advocacy Director at the Public Library of Science.
Go to Profile#7106
Hans Jürgen Kreuzer
#156968
Overall Influence
#7107
R. A. Garcia. P.g. Beck
#156971
Overall Influence
#7108
Roberto. Neri
#156989
Overall Influence
#7109
Christofer Leygraf
#157000
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#7110
George Randolph Kalbfleisch
#143428
Overall Influence
1931 - 2006 (75 years)
George Randolph Kalbfleisch was an American particle physicist. George Kalbfleisch was born March 14, 1931, in Long Beach, California, to Friedrich Carl and Hildegard Kalbfleisch. He graduated from Phineas Banning High School, Wilmington, California, in 1948. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Loyola University, Los Angeles, California, in 1952. On October 23, 1954, he married Ruth Ann Adams in San Pedro, California. He received his Ph.D. in experimental High Energy Physics in 1961 from the University of California at Berkeley. He worked as a post-doctoral associate at the University of California at Berkeley with Dr.
Go to Profile#7111
Lenur Arifov
#116517
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
Lenur Yagya Arifov was a physicist who conducted research on general relativity, gravity, cosmology, relativistic astrophysics and nuclear physics. Exiled from Crimea in 1944 as a young child because of his Crimean Tatar ethnicity, he grew up in the Uzbek SSR, and eventually made it to Samarkand State University, where he became friends and colleagues with fellow Crimean Tatar physicist and civil rights activist Rollan Qadiyev, who he went on to co-author several scientific works with. Eventually he became a professor and received his doctorate. After returning to Crimea in 1992 he worked at ...
Go to Profile#7112
Cormac Ó Ceallaigh
#127482
Overall Influence
1912 - 1996 (84 years)
Cormac Ó Ceallaigh was an Irish physicist who worked in the fields of cosmic ray research and elementary particle physics. Education and career Ó Ceallaigh entered University College, Dublin to study physics in 1930 and graduated with First Class Honours in Experimental Physics and Chemistry in 1933. He got his MSc and an NUI Travelling Studentship in Experimental Physics in 1934 and worked for one year in Paris with the eminent cosmic ray physicist Pierre Auger. From 1935 to 1938 he did postgraduate research at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, where he was mentored by Lord Rutherford and concentrated on nuclear physics.
Go to Profile#7113
Antje Winkel
#157084
Overall Influence
#7114
Fuminobu Takahashi
#157108
Overall Influence
#7115
Robert Kohl
#157132
Overall Influence
#7116
Arne Brataas
#157134
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
#7117
J. W. Coburn
#157155
Overall Influence
#7118
Manuel Bibes
#157181
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
#7119
Damien Léger
#157195
Overall Influence
#7120
Florian Banhart
#157197
Overall Influence
#7121
Wolfgang Hillebrandt
#157234
Overall Influence
#7122
J.p. Woerdman
#157243
Overall Influence
#7123
Richard Alan Perley
#157261
Overall Influence
#7124
Ritva Serimaa
#157267
Overall Influence
1957 - 2016 (59 years)
Ritva Serimaa was a Finnish physicist and professor, the first female professor of physics at the University of Helsinki. She gained her master's degree in 1982 and defended her doctoral thesis in 1990, becoming a docent of the University of Helsinki in 1992. Her doctoral thesis work and later research concerned X-ray physics and scattering. From 1991 to 1993 she worked at Stanford University making use of their synchrotron light source SSRL. One research focus was the structure of the preserved Swedish warship Vasa, whose structure was at risk due to damage from sulfur-containing compounds....
Go to Profile#7125
Marjorie Shapiro
#150503
Overall Influence
Marjorie Dale Shapiro is an American experimental particle physicist, a collaborator on the ATLAS experiment, a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#7126
Hugo Zbinden
#157351
Overall Influence
#7127
Ralph Engel
#157361
Overall Influence
#7128
E. O. R. Reynolds
#157367
Overall Influence
#7129
Carlo Sirtori
#157387
Overall Influence
#7130
John Adair Barker
#157398
Overall Influence
#7131
Paolo Gresele
#157431
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#7132
Raffaele Resta
#157439
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#7133
Sándor Czellár
#157493
Overall Influence
#7134
Liviu F. Chibotaru
#157511
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7135
William R. Shapiro
#157514
Overall Influence
#7136
Scott M. Hammer
#157522
Overall Influence
#7137
James B. Garvin
#48081
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
James B. Garvin served as NASA's Chief Scientist from October 2004 to September 2005 and is known for his foundational work in NASA's Mars explorational programs. Garvin arrived at the Goddard Space Flight Center since 1984 where he first served as a staff scientist developing remote sensing instrumentation and has been based there or at the nearby NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. since then. His career has spanned disciplines as Earth system science, Mars Exploration, lunar exploration, Venus, asteroids, and the outer planets. He has been a co-investigator on NASA's Mars Observer, Mars Gl...
Go to Profile#7138
Peter L. Biermann
#157590
Overall Influence
#7139
Nikolai N. Ledentsov
#157605
Overall Influence
#7140
Kenji Bekki
#157606
Overall Influence
#7141
Stephen Kukolich
#156177
Overall Influence
Stephen Kukolich, is an experimental physical chemist in the chemistry and biochemistry department at the University of Arizona. His primary research is high-resolution rotational spectroscopy to determine molecular structures and electronic properties of molecules and molecular complexes. The molecular spectroscopy research was published in 225 papers which were mentioned in 4300 citations and discussed in a few. Details of citations are given by Google Scholar and Academictree. The research was funded by the NSF 11 times beginning in 1970.
Go to Profile#7142
Francesca Gherardi
#157642
Overall Influence
#7143
Carleton Hoover Seager
#157648
Overall Influence
#7144
Rickard N. Lundin
#157657
Overall Influence
#7145
Christian Schönenberger
#150746
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Christian Schönenberger is a Swiss experimental physicist and professor at the University of Basel working on nanoscience and nanoelectronics. Biography and career Schönenberger studied electrical engineering and obtained his degree in 1979. While working as an engineer in a research lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, he became interested in natural science and studied physics, obtaining his diploma from the institute in 1986. As a graduate student, he worked under the supervision of Heinrich Rohrer and S. Alvarado at the IBM Research Laboratory at Rüschlikon and rec...
Go to Profile#7146
Alfred Xaver Trautwein
#157673
Overall Influence
#7147
Anna Köhler
#152496
Overall Influence
Anna Köhler is a German physicist who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Bayreuth. Her research considers electronic processes in organic and organometallic molecules. She makes use of optical and electrical spectroscopy to better understand photo-physical processes. In 2020 she became the first woman to win the Max Born Medal and Prize.
Go to Profile#7148
Martin Knupfer
#157717
Overall Influence
#7149
Rainer Pepperkok
#157718
Overall Influence
#7150
Stephen S. Holt
#157723
Overall Influence
