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,
#7401
Alexandre Revcolevschi
#161157
Overall Influence
#7402
Wulff-Dieter Heintz
#92700
Overall Influence
1930 - 2006 (76 years)
Wulff-Dieter Heintz was a German astronomer who worked the latter part of his career in the United States. He was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Swarthmore College. He specialised in the characterisation of binary stars using astrometry.
Go to Profile#7403
Diego Tonelli
#161165
Overall Influence
#7404
Alejandro Strachan
#104178
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Alejandro Strachan is a scientist in the field of computational materials and the Reilly Professor of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Before joining Purdue University, he was a staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Go to Profile#7405
Mauro Fabrizio
#161224
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
#7406
Jack Hollander
#147771
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Jack Marvin Hollander was an American nuclear physicist. He held various positions in nuclear physics, energy, environmental research, and academic administration throughout his career. He was also the founding editor of the academic journal the Annual Review of Energy .
Go to Profile#7407
Julien Bras
#161264
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
#7408
Marco Ranucci
#161279
Overall Influence
#7409
Leonid I. Gurvits
#161293
Overall Influence
#7410
David A. Redfield
#161309
Overall Influence
#7411
Maura Ann Mclaughlin
#161323
Overall Influence
#7412
Evgeny Epelbaum
#161332
Overall Influence
#7413
E. George Knox
#161363
Overall Influence
#7414
Ulrich Mescheder
#103511
Overall Influence
Ulrich Mescheder is a German professor and university administrator. He heads the Central Research Institute and the Technology Laboratory for Micro- and Nanosystems and is Vice President for Research at Furtwangen University of Applied Sciences. His research specializations are microsystems technology and nanotechnology.
Go to Profile#7415
Silvia Vignolini
#112959
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Silvia Vignolini is an Italian physicist who is Director of research at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and Professor of Chemistry and Bio-materials in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her research investigates natural photonics structures, the self-assembly of cellulose and light propagation through complex structures. She was awarded the KINGFA young investigator award by the American Chemical Society and the Gibson-Fawcett Award in 2018.
Go to Profile#7416
Chang-qing Chen
#161368
Overall Influence
#7417
Karl-heinz Schmidt
#161379
Overall Influence
#7418
Priscilla Laws
#118497
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Priscilla Watson Laws is an American physics educator, known for her work in activity-based physics education. She is a research professor of physics at Dickinson College. Education and career Laws majored in physics, with a minor in mathematics, at Reed College, graduating in 1961. She did her graduate studies at Bryn Mawr College, earning a master's degree in experimental nuclear physics in 1963 and completing her Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics in 1966.
Go to Profile#7419
Ibrahim Cissé
#45658
Overall Influence
Ibrahim I. Cissé is an Nigerien-American biophysicist. He is currently director of the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics. Previously, Cissé was at the California Institute of Technology as Professor of Physics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Professor of Physics and Biology. He has won several awards for his work, including in 2021 the MacArthur Fellowship.
Go to Profile#7420
Dorte Juul Jensen
#95333
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Dorte Juul Jensen is a senior scientist and head of the Center for Fundamental Research: Metal Structures in Four Dimensions and Materials Research Division, Risø DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Roskilde, Denmark. Risø operates under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, researching a wide range of technologies and training Ph.D candidates in the sciences.
Go to Profile#7421
Julian Chela-Flores
#51593
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Julian Chela-Flores is a Venezuelan astrobiologist and physicist. He is known for his contributions to the field of planetary habitability. Biography His father, Raimundo Chela a mathematician of Lebanese family, encouraged his studies in science, while his mother raised his interest in the humanities. He lived in England where he studied in the University of London, obtaining a PhD in Quantum Mechanics in 1969. His field of research is astrobiology, in other words the science of the origin, evolution, distribution and destiny of life in the universe, especially life on Europa, the Jovian sat...
Go to Profile#7422
Chuangtian Chen
#161442
Overall Influence
#7423
Helmuth R. Brand
#161450
Overall Influence
#7424
Trevor John Mcdougall
#161458
Overall Influence
#7425
Akio Amy Kitoh
#161480
Overall Influence
#7426
Bert Hecht
#161491
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#7427
Andrea Young
#129355
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Andrea F. Young is an American experimental physicist and assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2018, he was awarded the New Horizons in Physics Prize for his work on van der Waals heterostructures and quantum Hall phases.
Go to Profile#7428
Petrus Antonius Cornelius Raats
#161501
Overall Influence
#7429
Carson D. Jeffries
#91207
Overall Influence
1922 - 1995 (73 years)
Carson Dunning Jeffries was an Americann physicist. The National Academies Press said that Jeffries "made major fundamental contributions to knowledge of nuclear magnetism, electronic spin relaxation, dynamic nuclear polarization, electron-hole droplets, nonlinear dynamics and chaos, and high-temperature superconductors." He was noted for being the first to observe the isotropic spin-spin exchange interaction in metals . He also discovered methods for the dynamic nuclear polarization by saturation of forbidden microwave resonance transitions in solids. He also discovered the existence of giant electron-hole droplets in semiconductors.
Go to Profile#7430
Andrew M. Steane
#161547
Overall Influence
#7431
Berndt Klecker
#161554
Overall Influence
#7432
Egill Hauksson
#161579
Overall Influence
#7433
Barnett
#161584
Overall Influence
#7434
Chr Istian Mätzler
#161585
Overall Influence
#7435
Bo Lawergren
#30366
Overall Influence
Bo Lawergren is a Professor Emeritus of physics at Hunter College, The City University of New York. He is also a music archaeologist. He received his PhD in nuclear physics from the Australian National University of Canberra, Australia.
Go to Profile#7436
Bradford A. Smith
#92661
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Bradford A. Smith was an American astronomer and an associate of the International Astronomical Union. He was employed by the Voyager program, and discovered the moon Bianca on January 23, 1986. Biography He was an Associate Professor of Astronomy at New Mexico State University, a Professor at the University of Arizona, and a Research Astronomer at the University of Hawaii.
Go to Profile#7437
Costas Kounnas
#161642
Overall Influence
#7438
Andrey A. Sukhorukov
#161645
Overall Influence
#7439
Ulrich Hopfer
#161656
Overall Influence
#7440
Darcy Michael Bullock
#161664
Overall Influence
#7441
Mathias Schubert
#158783
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Mathias Michael Schubert is a German physicist, J. A. Woollam Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and member of the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience. He is a specialist in spectroscopic ellipsometry and has contributed to the development of blue and white LED, fast processors and efficient biological and chemical sensors. He is also visiting professor at Linkoping University and Associate Editor of the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Go to Profile#7442
Katherine Joy
#71730
Overall Influence
Katherine Helen Joy is a Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester. Joy has studied lunar samples from the Apollo program as part of her research on meteorites and lunar science. Early life and education Joy was educated at Sackville School, East Grinstead and studied geology at Royal Holloway, University of London where she graduated with first class honours in 2003. Joy was a doctoral student at University College London working on the evolution of the Moon supervised by Ian Crawford. Her work considered sample analysis and remote sensing. She held a joint position at the Natural History Museum, London.
Go to Profile#7443
Holk Cruse
#161705
Overall Influence
#7444
David R. Nelson
#161738
Overall Influence
#7445
Muthusamy Lakshmanan
#62330
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Muthusamy Lakshmanan is an Indian theoretical physicist currently working as Professor of Eminence at the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics of Bharathidasan University. Presently he is the DST-SERB National Science Chair awarded by the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology. He has held several research fellowships which included Raja Ramanna fellowship of the Department of Atomic Energy, Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science fellowship, Royal Society Nuffield Foundation fellowship, and NASI-Senior Scientist Platinum Jubilee Fellowship.
Go to Profile#7446
Qiang Yao
#161753
Overall Influence
#7447
Dieter Jaksch
#161755
Overall Influence
#7448
Stephan Madersbacher
#161780
Overall Influence
#7449
Jean‐marie Dubois
#161781
Overall Influence
#7450
David G. Hinks
#161791
Overall Influence
