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,
#7451
Richard Joseph Szabo
#161805
Overall Influence
#7452
Roberto Emparan
#161810
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#7453
Ryan Chornock
#161824
Overall Influence
#7454
Jürgen Röttger
#161835
Overall Influence
#7455
Susan M. Scott
#119467
Overall Influence
Susan Marjorie Scott is an Australian mathematical physicist whose work concerns general relativity, gravitational singularities, and black holes. She is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Australian National University .
Go to Profile#7456
Philip A. Charles
#161847
Overall Influence
#7457
Alain Goossens
#161862
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#7458
Igor A. Batalin
#161879
Overall Influence
#7459
James Anthony Greenwood
#161881
Overall Influence
#7460
Edward M. Eyring
#161892
Overall Influence
#7461
Edl Schamiloglu
#111662
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Edl Schamiloglu is an American physicist, electrical engineer, pulsed power expert, inventor, and distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of New Mexico. He has been known in public media for his expertise in the design and operation of directed-energy weapons. He is also known for his assessment on the possible origins of alleged health damages presumably caused on U.S. embassy personnel in Cuba in 2016 as part of the Havana syndrome incident. He is the associate dean for research and innovation at the UNM School of Engineering, where...
Go to Profile#7462
Gottfried Landwehr
#161925
Overall Influence
#7463
Eun-Suk Seo
#134342
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Eun-Suk Seo is a Korean-American astrophysicist known for her observational research on cosmic rays. She is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is also affiliated with the Institute for Physical Science and Technology and heads the Cosmic Ray Physics Group.
Go to Profile#7464
Henk Hoekstra
#161938
Overall Influence
#7465
Y. C. Lee
#161954
Overall Influence
#7466
Dionigi Galletto
#109373
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Dionigi Galletto was an Italian mathematician and academician. He is known for his work on rigid body mechanics, on the mathematical theory of elasticity , on the history of mathematics and on cosmology and extragalactic celestial mechanics: in particular he is considered one of the founders of the latter branch of cosmology.
Go to Profile#7467
Fernando Calamante
#161958
Overall Influence
#7468
Robert W. Carlson
#161982
Overall Influence
#7469
Norman W. Murray
#161987
Overall Influence
#7470
Jason X.-J. Yuan
#123155
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Jason X.-J. Yuan is an American physician scientist whose research interests center on pulmonary vascular pathobiology and pulmonary hypertension. His current research is primarily focused on the pathogenic mechanisms of pulmonary vascular diseases and right heart failure.
Go to Profile#7471
Rachel Bean
#63687
Overall Influence
Rachel Bean is a cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist. She is a professor of astronomy and the interim dean of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences. Education Bean received her bachelor's degree from Cambridge University . After graduation, she worked in the strategy division at Accenture before returning to academia. She received her master's and doctorate in theoretical physics from Imperial College London. She did postdoctoral research at Princeton University, before becoming a faculty member at Cornell University in 2005.
Go to Profile#7472
Andrew Zangwill
#161997
Overall Influence
#7473
Giorgio Sesti
#162020
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#7474
Wolfgang Fink
#69379
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Wolfgang Fink is a German-American theoretical physicist. He is currently an associate professor and the inaugural Maria & Edward Keonjian Endowed Chair of Microelectronics at the University of Arizona. Fink has joint appointments in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Systems & Industrial Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, and Ophthalmology & Vision Science at the University of Arizona. He is the current Vice President of the Prognostics and Health Management Society.
Go to Profile#7475
Nikolay Prokof'ev
#82937
Overall Influence
Nikolay Victorovich Prokof'ev is a Russian-American physicist known for his works on supersolidity and strongly correlated systems and pioneering numerical approaches. Biography He received his MSc in physics in 1982 from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow, Russia. In 1987, he received his PhD in theoretical physics from Kurchatov Institute , under the supervision of Yuri Kagan, where he worked from 1984 to 1999. In 1999, he became a professor at the physics department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Go to Profile#7476
Margarita Rosado
#152474
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Margarita Eugenia del Socorro Rosado Solís is a Mexican astronomer who studies the motion of nebulae, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, including the use of interferometry and the construction of scanning interferometers, kinematic calculations, and computer simulation. She is a professor and researcher in the National Autonomous University of Mexico Institute of Astronomy.
Go to Profile#7477
Ahmed M. Hassanein
#162065
Overall Influence
#7478
Róisín Owens
#69774
Overall Influence
2000 - 2017 (17 years)
Róisín Owens is a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her research investigates new engineering technology for biological applications with a focus on organic bioelectronics, developing electroactive materials that can be used between physical transducers and soft biological tissues.
Go to Profile#7479
Peter Schurtenberger
#162076
Overall Influence
#7480
George Comşa
#162082
Overall Influence
#7481
Ansgar Reiners
#162084
Overall Influence
#7482
Andreas Wallraff
#110067
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Andreas Wallraff is a German physicist who conducts research in quantum information processing and quantum optics. He has taught as a professor at ETH Zürich in Zürich, Switzerland since 2006. He worked as a research scientist with Robert J. Schoelkopf at Yale University from 2002 to 2005, during which time he performed experiments in which the coherent interaction of a single photon with a single quantum electronic circuit was observed for the first time. His current work at ETH Zürich focuses on hybrid quantum systems combining superconducting electronic circuits with semiconductor quantum d...
Go to Profile#7483
Humio Inaba
#162118
Overall Influence
#7484
Chalicheemalapalli Kulala Jayasankar
#162154
Overall Influence
#7485
Catherine Meusburger
#88838
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Catherine Meusburger is an Austrian mathematician and physicist. She works at the interface between mathematical physics, algebra and geometry. Since 2011 she has served as professor of mathematics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Go to Profile#7486
Rembert Duine
#160509
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Rembert A. Duine is a professor of theoretical physics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and a part-time professor at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. He wrote his PhD thesis under the supervision of Henk Stoof, working on ultracold atoms. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 papers on spintronics, ultracold atoms, and condensation in dissipative systems like photons, magnons, and excitons. In 2019, Duine received a prestigious NWO Vici grant of 1.5 Million Euros.
Go to Profile#7487
Keith Attenborough
#162191
Overall Influence
#7488
John F. Asmus
#60872
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
John Fredrich Asmus is a research physicist who has focused his work on the use of scientific techniques in art conservation. , he taught at the Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Science at the University of California, San Diego, where he began working in 1974.
Go to Profile#7489
Alwyn J. Seeds
#162196
Overall Influence
#7490
Nobuchika Okada
#162199
Overall Influence
#7491
J. R. Tucker
#111576
Overall Influence
1946 - 2014 (68 years)
John R. Tucker was an American physicist who made several contributions to the fields of electronics, physics and microwave theory, known for generalizing the microwave mixer theory and presenting the body of work, known as the "Tucker theory", and for his fundamental theoretical contributions which resulted into various advancements in experimental Submillimeter astronomy. He is also credited with laying down some of the technological foundations for making practical Quantum computing possible.
Go to Profile#7492
Donald Wayne Kurtz
#162218
Overall Influence
#7493
Maxi San Miguel
#162220
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#7494
Dirk Ernest Maria Van Dyck
#162242
Overall Influence
#7495
Hans‐jörg Fahr
#162243
Overall Influence
#7496
Martin Kunz
#162246
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#7497
Derek McNally
#149637
Overall Influence
1934 - 2020 (86 years)
Derek McNally was a British astronomer and former General Secretary of the IAU. Personal life Derek McNally was born on 28 October 1934 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Education He studied for a Bachelor of Science at Queen's University Belfast, graduating in 1956. This was followed by a Master of Science in 1957. Although initially interested in nuclear physics, during his Masters he read a book by Fred Hoyle that changed his interest to astronomy. He subsequently studied for a PhD at the Royal Holloway College, from which he graduated in 1961.
Go to Profile#7498
Edward M. Wojtys
#162249
Overall Influence
#7499
Alain Omont
#162258
Overall Influence
#7500
Yoshiaki Setagaya-ku Nakano
#162280
Overall Influence
