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,
#7501
Jean Laby
#95515
Overall Influence
1915 - 2008 (93 years)
Jean Elizabeth Laby was an early Australian atmospheric physicist. Biography Laby was born in Parkville, Victoria. She is the daughter of Beatrice Littlejohn and Thomas Howell Laby, a professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Laby was educated at the Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School and then at the University of Melbourne, during the same time as her father's professorship. She gained a BSc in 1939, MSc in 1951, and PhD in 1959. She was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in physics from the University of Melbourne, and the first to be appointed lecturer...
Go to Profile#7502
Robert Zeiser
#162282
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
#7503
John D. Lindl
#162319
Overall Influence
#7504
Luigi Messori
#162350
Overall Influence
#7505
Patrick M. Georges
#162352
Overall Influence
#7506
Silvia Fargion
#162370
Overall Influence
#7507
Louis Giglio
#162402
Overall Influence
#7508
David Wixon Pratt
#98010
Overall Influence
David Wixon Pratt is an American physicist, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. He was awarded an A.B. in Chemistry by Princeton University in 1959 and, after serving as a fleet officer in the U.S. Navy from 1959 to 1962, gained a Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of California at Berkeley on magnetic resonance. He then did postdoc research at the University of California at Santa Barbara on optical spectroscopy before moving in 1968 to become Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile#7509
Boris Georgievich Konopelchenko
#162422
Overall Influence
#7510
Antonis Papachristodoulou
#162449
Overall Influence
#7511
Nandakumar Kalarikkal
#162460
Overall Influence
#7512
Eric N. Eileen Hoffman And John Klinck Powell
#162472
Overall Influence
#7513
James B. Strait
#162475
Overall Influence
#7514
Patrick R. Briddon
#162481
Overall Influence
#7515
Genady P. Cherepanov
#162485
Overall Influence
#7516
Tim Bedding
#127065
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Timothy R. Bedding is an Australian astronomer known for his work on asteroseismology, the study of stellar oscillations. In particular, he contributed to the first detections of solar-like oscillations in stars such as eta Bootis, beta Hydri and alpha Centauri. He also led the discovery, using data from the Kepler space telescope, that red giants oscillate in mixed modes that are directly sensitive to the core properties of the star and can be used to distinguish red giants burning helium in their cores from those that are still only burning hydrogen in a shell.
Go to Profile#7517
Jonathan A. Bagger
#162496
Overall Influence
#7518
Frederick K. Lamb
#162500
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
#7519
Sergei I. Krasheninnikov
#162539
Overall Influence
#7520
Werner Alois Prof Dipl Kaiser
#162540
Overall Influence
#7521
Paul Moskowitz
#46974
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Paul A. Moskowitz works at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York. Moskowitz is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, received a Ph.D. in physics at New York University, and has held research and teaching positions at the Université Grenoble, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, and at the University of Colorado Boulder. His early work in the area of nuclear physics resulted in the publication of the Moskowitz-Lombardi rule.
Go to Profile#7522
Robert G. Jahn
#162561
Overall Influence
#7523
Theo. Odijk
#162582
Overall Influence
#7524
Gervais Chapuis
#162592
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
#7525
Marjorie Olmstead
#152982
Overall Influence
Marjorie Ann Olmstead is an American condensed matter physicist. Education Olmstead majored in physics at Swarthmore College for her B.A. and graduated with highest honours in 1979. After her junior year, she worked at Bell Labs for a summer through a research program to support women and minority groups, where she became interested in the interactions between semiconductors and insulators when creating stacks. She received her M.A. in 1982 and her PhD in 1985, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#7526
Paul-Henri Rebut
#138006
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Paul-Henri Rebut is a French physicist, working in nuclear fusion. Biography Paul-Henri Rebut started his research on nuclear fusion with the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique in 1958 after having studied physics at the École polytechnique, Paris and the Ecole des Poudres.
Go to Profile#7527
Daniel Joseph Bradley
#162691
Overall Influence
#7528
Makoto Oka
#162730
Overall Influence
#7529
Alan James Barr
#162737
Overall Influence
#7530
Don Frederick Smart
#162741
Overall Influence
#7531
Juli Feigon
#55827
Overall Influence
Juli Feigon is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has been a faculty member since 1985. She was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her research focuses on structural studies of nucleic acids by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy along with other biophysical techniques.
Go to Profile#7532
Claudine Rinner
#128913
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Claudine Rinner is a French amateur astronomer from Ottmarsheim in Alsace, France. She is an observer at Ottmarsheim Observatory and a discoverer of minor planets and comets, who received the Edgar Wilson Award for her discoveries.
Go to Profile#7533
Hermann Prof Dr Wollnik
#162801
Overall Influence
#7534
Vincent Lemaître
#162836
Overall Influence
#7535
Gerard of Silteo
#64248
Overall Influence
1200 - Present (826 years)
Gerard of Silteo also given as Gerardus Feltrensis, Gerardo of Feltre, Gerardus de Silteo, Gerardus de Silcro was a 13th century Dominican friar who is known only from a manuscript treatise, Summa de astris which is thought to have been prompted by the appearance of the Great Comet of 1264. The book examines stellar objects, astronomical knowledge of the time, and includes a criticism of astrology of the period.
Go to Profile#7536
Harald Ibach
#96793
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Harald P. W. Ibach is a German solid state physicist. Education and career Ibach received his doctorate in 1969 from RWTH Aachen University with his dissertation Thermische Ausdehnung von Silizium und Zinkoxid and habilitated there in 1972 with his habilitation thesis: Low energy electron spectroscopy — a tool for studies of surface vibrations. From 1975 he was a docent and then a professor ordinarius at RWTH Aachen University, as well as director of the Institut für Schichten und Grenzflächen , and chair for Experimental Physics IV A in Jülich. Since 2017 he is a visiting scientist at the P...
Go to Profile#7537
Bonny L. Schumaker
#155925
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Bonny Laura Schumaker is an American physicist and pilot who worked on the LISA Pathfinder. In 2010 she founded the nonprofit "On Wings of Care", a charity which protects animals and environments. Early life and education Schumaker was born and raised in Wisconsin, near Lake Michigan. She wanted to be a vet but was awarded a scholarship to study physics at the California Institite of Technology. She loved mathematics, and continued at the California Institute of Technology for her graduate studies, earning a PhD in 1985. She worked under the supervision of Kip Thorne. Over six papers, her PhD thesis considered theoretical investigations into nonlinear quantum optics.
Go to Profile#7538
Jerzy Kanicki
#162906
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#7539
Faramarz Ismail‐beigi
#162910
Overall Influence
#7540
Oriol Valls
#137510
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Oriol Tomas Valls is a physics professor at the University of Minnesota. After obtaining his BSc in Physics at the University of Barcelona he earned a PhD at Brown University, in 1976. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Chicago he held a Miller Fellowship at the University of California Berkeley before joining the University of Minnesota faculty. He specializes in Condensed Matter Theory. He is an American Physical Society fellow since 1998 and has won the APS Outstanding Referee Award. From 2016 he has also been the Editor of the Newsletter published by the Forum of Physi...
Go to Profile#7541
Laurence W. Bassett
#162957
Overall Influence
#7542
Sefaattin Tongay
#162979
Overall Influence
#7543
John A. Dillon
#98694
Overall Influence
1923 - 2005 (82 years)
John Andrew Dillon Jr. was an American physicist, administrator, professor at the University of Louisville, and founder and first director of the Systems Science Institute at the University of Louisville.
Go to Profile#7544
Li-li Hu
#163018
Overall Influence
#7545
Kazunori Kohri
#163044
Overall Influence
#7546
Stefan Andersson-Engels
#159261
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Stefan Andersson-Engels is a Swedish biophysicist specializing in the field of biophotonics. He is professor at University College Cork and the deputy director of the Irish Photonics Integration Center within the Science Foundation Ireland. Before joining University College Cork, he was Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Lund University. He has co-founded 3 biophotonics companies Spectracure, Lumito, BioPixS. He also co-founded biannual biophotonics summer school.
Go to Profile#7547
Jean Salençon
#44197
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Jean Salençon is a French physicist born on November 13, 1940. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Technologies. Biography An engineer with degrees from the École Polytechnique and the École nationale des ponts et chaussées , a doctor of science , Jean Salençon was a professor at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées from 1977 to 1998 and a professor at the École polytechnique from 1982 to 2005. He has also taught at several prestigious schools and universities in France and abroad. He was non-resident Rector of CISM from 2004 to 2012 and a member ...
Go to Profile#7548
Yohji Achiba
#163123
Overall Influence
#7549
James A. Klimchuk
#163128
Overall Influence
#7550
Andrey Rzhetsky
#152102
Overall Influence
Andrey Rzhetsky is the Edna K. Papazian Professor of Medicine and Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago, where he is also Co-Chief of the Section of Computational Biomedicine and Biomedical Data Science. Born in Kazakhstan, Rzhetsky was recruited to Pennsylvania State University by Masatoshi Nei in 1991 from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia. Rzhetsky did his postdoc at Penn State under Nei, who also helped him obtain his permanent residency in the United States. He joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1996. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 2007, and was named the Edna K.
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