Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

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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).

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List of the most influential people in Physics,

#8551

Alexis Brandeker

#144058

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Alexis Brandeker is a Swedish astronomer at the Stockholm Observatory and discoverer of minor planets. Education In 2003 he acquired his Ph.D. from the Stockholm Observatory. He went on to become a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto for 2.5 years before returning to Stockholm in 2007, where he now works as a research associate at the Stockholm Observatory. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 4 minor planets in 2000.

#8552

Walter R. Cooney Jr.

#166850

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Walter R. Cooney Jr. is an American chemical engineer, amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets and variable stars. Cooney, who is affiliated with the Highland Road Park Observatory, is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovered of 47 numbered minor planets during 1998–2005, such as his lowest numbered identification 11739 Baton Rouge, a Hildian asteroid named after the city of Baton Rouge where the discovering observatory is located.

#8553

Helene Langevin

Helene Langevin

#29629

Overall Influence

Helene Langevin is Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health . She was a professor in the University of Vermont College of Medicine's Department of Neurological Sciences. She is best known for characterizing certain cellular and mechanical effects of acupuncture. She was also a Professor in Residence of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Prior to working at NIH, Langevin was the Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly owned by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medic...

#8554

Dalsukh Dahyabhai Malvania

#63262

Overall Influence

1910 - 2000 (90 years)

Dalsukh Dahyabhai Malvania was an Indian scholar, writer and philosopher, known for his writings on Jain, Buddhist and Hindu philosophies. He contributed to Jain literature with his writings on the scriptures of the Śvētāmbara sect of Jainism. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1992, for his contributions to literature and education.

#8555

R. C. Sharma

#177362

Overall Influence

#8556

Wolfgang Krätschmer

#177389

Overall Influence

#8557

Yanne Chembo

#159767

Overall Influence

Yanne Kouomou Chembo is an electrical engineer and associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research considers ultra-pure microwaves and Kerr frequency combs. He is a Fellow of The Optical Society and SPIE.

#8558

William Joseph Whelan

#27462

Overall Influence

1924 - 2021 (97 years)

William Joseph Whelan FRS was a British-born American biochemist. He was professor and chair of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami. He founded the annual Miami Winter Symposium in 1967 and was chief editor of the journal IUBMB Life.

#8559

Takao Kondo

#177418

Overall Influence

#8560

Anthony Llewellyn

Anthony Llewellyn

#20200

Overall Influence

1933 - 2013 (80 years)

John Anthony Llewellyn was a Welsh-born American chemist, a former NASA astronaut candidate, and a NOAA aquanaut. Biography Llewellyn was born in Cardiff, Wales, and graduated from Cardiff High School in 1949. He received his BSc degree from University College, Cardiff in 1955 and went on to achieve his PhD degree in chemistry in 1958. He married Valerie Mya Davies-Jones, and they had three children.

#8561

Tom Foxon

#175609

Overall Influence

Tom Charles Bayley Foxon FRS is a British physicist, and emeritus professor at the University of Nottingham.

#8562

Kenneth Nordtvedt

#177480

Overall Influence

#8563

Ned Goldwasser

#139852

Overall Influence

1919 - 2016 (97 years)

Edwin L. Goldwasser was an American physicist and Co-Founder of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the field of particle physics. He was a Professor of Physics Emeritus and former Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois, as well as the first Deputy Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. His interests were photons, cosmic rays, charged particles and elementary particles. He was Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Physical Society . He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1957–1958.

#8564

A. Alan Middleton

#155725

Overall Influence

Arthur Alan Middleton is a professor of physics and the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. He is known for his work in the fields of disordered materials such as random magnets, spin glasses, and interfaces in a random environment, transport in disordered materials, interface motion, and colloidal assemblies, condensed matter physics, statistical physics, and computational physics, connections between algorithm dynamics, computer science analyses, algorithms for efficient simulation of complex dynamics, including heuristic coarse graining for glassy mate...

#8565

Raymond Andrew

#109738

Overall Influence

1921 - 2001 (80 years)

Edward Raymond Andrew FRS FRSE was a 20th-century British scientist who was a pioneer of nuclear magnetic resonance. He was a primary figure in the development and creation of the world's first MRI scanner.

#8566

Inger-Lena Hultberg

#136905

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Inger-Lena Lamm, née Hultberg is considered to be the first woman in Sweden who volunteered for an education designed for those entering military service. Biography Born and raised in Lund, Hultberg's father was a teacher and her mother, literary historian. She showed an interest in technology from an early age, specializing in maths at high school and working on a special project in aerodynamics. She was always interested in the family's car and motorcycles. While studying English in England, she spent her free time observing the planes at Croydon Airport and Biggin Hill, famous for its wartime activities.

#8567

Kelly Korreck

#175983

Overall Influence

Kelly Korreck is an American space scientist. She is currently an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and Program Scientist at NASA as head of operations for the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons instrument aboard the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft.

#8568

Hans van Leeuwen

#172788

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Johannes Maria Jozef "Hans" van Leeuwen is a Dutch physicist. Van Leeuwen was born in Heerhugowaard. In 1962 he obtained his doctorate at the University of Amsterdam under professor J. de Boer with a thesis titled: "Diagram techniques in statistical mechanics". In 1969 he became professor of physics at Delft University of Technology. He was appointed professor of theoretical physics at Leiden University in 1986.

#8569

Joseph Johnson III

#141497

Overall Influence

1940 - 2017 (77 years)

Joseph Andrew Johnson III was an American physicist and professor at the Florida A&M University. He was a founding member of the National Society of Black Physicists. He was awarded the 1995 American Physical Society Edward Bouchet award and the 2016 Yale University Bouchet Leadership Award Medal.

#8570

Bernice Durand

#105572

Overall Influence

1942 - 2022 (80 years)

Bernice Black Durand was an American particle physicist and emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was also the emeritus Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate. Early life and education Durand was born in Clarion, Iowa. Her father studied mechanical engineering at Iowa State University and Harvard University, and joined the United States Army Corps of Engineers. She grew up in Ames and attended Radcliffe College, but never finished her course. She eventually completed her bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in 1965. She earned her PhD with a dissertation titled A point and local position operator, in 1971.

#8571

Oded Regev

#130850

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Oded Regev is a physicist and astrophysicist, professor emeritus of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. He is best known for his theoretical application of fluid dynamics and dynamical systems theory to astrophysics.

#8572

Oleg A. Mukhanov

#9815

Overall Influence

Oleg A. Mukhanov is a Russian electrical engineer. He is an IEEE fellow who has focused on superconductivity. He is the co-inventor of SFQ digital technology. He authored and co-authored over 200 scientific papers and holds 24 patents. He is American and resides in the United States.

#8573

Simon Ellingsen

#173872

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Simon Ellingsen is a professor in physics and Dean of the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania. Education Ellingsen attended University of Tasmania, located in Hobart, Tasmania, where he received a Bachelor's degree in 1991. He went on to obtain a PhD in 1996, with the thesis "Class II Methanol Masers in Star Formation Regions"

#8574

Antonina Roll-Mecak

#168316

Overall Influence

Antonina Roll-Mecak is a Romanian-born American molecular biophysicist. She is currently the Senior Investigator and Chief of the Unit of Cell Biology and Biophysics at the National Institutes of Health. She holds appointments at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; and at the Biochemistry and Biophysics Center of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Roll-Mecak is known for her work in understanding cytoskeletal regulation, mechanisms of microtubule dynamics and laying the groundwork for deciphering the complexities of the tubulin code. She is also known for he...

#8575

Elizabeth Villa

#155726

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Villa is an American biophysicist who is Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego. Her research considers the development of Cryo Electron Tomography and structural biology. She was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Investigator in 2021.

#8576

Qian Lingxi

#35038

Overall Influence

1916 - 2009 (93 years)

Qian Lingxi , also known as Tsien Ling-hi, was a Chinese civil engineer and physicist. An authority on engineering structural mechanics and computational mechanics, he served as president of the Dalian University of Technology and was a founding member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences . DUT's Lingxi Library, opened in 2009, is named after him.

#8577

Sharon Robinson

#176493

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Sharon Anita Robinson is an Antarctic researcher known for her work on climate change and bryophytes. She is Deputy-Director Science Implementation and UOW Node Lead of the Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future program, a Special Research Initiative on Excellence in Antarctic Science from the Australian Research Council, awarded $36 million over a seven year period . She is also the Dean of Researcher Development and Integrity at the University of Wollongong.

#8578

Rosine Lallement

#177149

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Rosine Lallement is a French researcher at the Paris Observatory and a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Lallement studies the heliosphere and interstellar medium. In her research, she has helped demonstrate that the motion of the interstellar cloud outside the heliosphere is identical to that of interstellar helium inside the heliosphere. She is a member of the IAU.

#8579

Olga Smirnova

#175521

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Olga Smirnova is a German physicist who is Head of the Strong Field Theory Group at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy and Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. Her research considers the interaction of strong fields with atoms and molecules.

#8580

Dharam Vir Ahluwalia

#170714

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Dharam Vir Ahluwalia is an Indian-born American theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to physics of neutrino oscillations, gravitationally induced phases, interface of the gravitational and quantum realms, and mass dimension one fermions. In 2019 he published Mass Dimension One Fermions .

#8581

Ed V. Hungerford III

#173016

Overall Influence

Ed Vernon Hungerford III is an American physicist and one of the prominent international particle physicists. He is one of the world leaders in the field of Hypernuclear Physics with significant original research carried out in the field. Since 2011, he is MD Anderson Professor of Physics at the Department of Physics, University of Houston, where he has been leading his research group . He is known for his significant contributions to the field of hypernuclear physics and hypernuclear spectroscopy, with more than hundred important research papers, multiple grants and more than twenty successf...

#8582

Lawrence Lidsky

#106781

Overall Influence

1936 - 2002 (66 years)

Lawrence Mark Lidsky was a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Lidsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 15, 1935. He did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, graduating in 1958, and earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1962 with a thesis entitled "Plasma Generation and Acceleration", after which he joined the MIT faculty.

#8583

Raymond McLenaghan

#119201

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Raymond George McLenaghan is a Canadian theoretical physicist and mathematician. With Carminati, he is known for Carminati–McLenaghan invariants. Notes External links

#8584

Kim Sun-kee

#176438

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Kim Sun-kee is a South Korean physicist. He is professor in Seoul National University and director of the Korea Invisible Mass Search. He was the first director of the Rare Isotope Science Project within the Institute for Basic Science and is a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.

#8585

Amy Rowat

#124538

Overall Influence

Amy Rowat is an Associate Professor of biophysics at the University of California in Los Angeles and the first Marcie H. Rothman Presidential Chair in Food Studies. Her scientific research focuses on understanding the physical and mechanical properties of cells in diseases such as cancer. She also organizes public events on the science of cooking.

#8586

Julia M. Riley

#177946

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Julia M. Riley is a British astrophysicist who developed the Fanaroff–Riley classification. Personal and professional background She is the daughter of Philippa and British marine geophysicist Maurice Hill and granddaughter of Nobel Prize–winning physiologist Archibald Vivian Hill. Riley is a Fellow of Girton College associated with the Cavendish Astrophysics Group at University of Cambridge. Her primary field of research is in the area of radio astronomy. Riley lectures and supervises physics within the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge.

#8587

Jeremy Burroughes

#77824

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Jeremy Henley Burroughes is a British physicist and engineer, known for his contributions to the development of organic electronics through his work on the science of semiconducting polymers and molecules and their application. He is the Chief Technology Officer of Cambridge Display Technology, a company specialising in the development of technologies based on polymer light-emitting diodes.

#8588

Zeblon Vilakazi

#166976

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Zeblon Zenzele Vilakazi has been Vice Chancellor of the Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa since 1 January 2021. Professor Vilakazi is a nuclear physicist. Prior to his promotion, he was Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Postgraduate Studies. He speaks French, German, Russian, Xhosa, Zulu, Siswati , Sesotho, Afrikaans and English.

#8589

Monika Aidelsburger

#173538

Overall Influence

1987 - Present (39 years)

Monika Aidelsburger is a German quantum physicist, Professor and Group Leader at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her research considers quantum simulation and ultra cold atomic gases trapped in optical lattices. In 2021, she was awarded both the Alfried-Krupp-Förderpreis and Klung Wilhelmy Science Award.

#8590

Emanuela Del Gado

#168140

Overall Influence

Emanuela Del Gado is an Italian theoretical physicist and the Provost's Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University. She combines statistical mechanics and computational modelling to understand complex materials.

#8591

David Pegg

#125367

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Professor David Pegg is an emeritus professor in theoretical physics at Griffith University, Australia. In his career, he has made numerous contributions to NMR, quantum optics and conceptual physics including the nature of time. He has published approximately 200 papers and his h-index is at least 42. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is a recipient of the Harrie Massey Medal for Australian physics and of the Centenary Medal for his contribution to quantum theory. He is best known for the Pegg-Barnett phase...

#8592

Donna Sheng

#114431

Overall Influence

Don-Ning "Donna" Sheng is a condensed matter physicist whose research involves two-dimensional systems including the fractional quantum Hall effect and quantum spin Hall effect, as well as the natural emergence of supersymmetry in topological superconductors. She is a professor of physics at California State University, Northridge, and is also affiliated with the Princeton Center for Complex Materials at Princeton University.

#8593

Bobomurat Ahmedov

#178085

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Bobomurat Ahmedov is an Uzbek physicist and academic. In November 2018, Ahmedov was elected as Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in Trieste. In December 2020, Ahmedov was elected as Fellow of Islamic World Academy of Sciences . He was honored as one of the "best scientists of the year" in the 2018 Scopus Awards.

#8594

Patrick Huber

#177113

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Patrick Huber is a German theoretical particle physicist known for his calculation of the reactor neutrino flux, and for his work in computing sensitivity of neutrino oscillation experiments and applications of reactor neutrino detection. He is a Professor of Physics Virginia Tech and Director of Virginia Tech's Center for Neutrino Physics. In 2016 he was honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work on the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment.

#8595

William Ditto

#35335

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

William L. Ditto is an American biomedical engineer. Ditto was raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He studied physics at the University of California, Los Angeles and completed a doctorate in the subject at Clemson University. Ditto then worked for the United States Department of the Navy before teaching at the College of Wooster for two years. During his subsequent six-year tenure at Georgia Tech, Ditto was a founding member of the department of biomedical engineering, jointly established in 1999 by Georgia Tech and Emory University. Between 2002 and 2009, Ditto served as chair of the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida.

#8596

Dudley Williams

#170908

Overall Influence

1912 - 2004 (92 years)

Francis Dudley Williams was an American physicist. He served as president of the Optical Society of America from 1976 to 1980. Biography Williams was born to Ethel Turner and Arthur Dudley Williams in Covington, Georgia on April 12, 1912. In 1927 he entered Oxford College of Emory University, at Oxford, Georgia. A family move prompted him to transfer to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree in 1933. He pursued graduate studies at several institutions, but settled on UNC, where he received his MA in 1934 and his PhD in physics in 1936 for a thes...

#8597

Riccardo Levi-Setti

#157531

Overall Influence

1927 - 2018 (91 years)

Riccardo Levi-Setti was an Italian emeritus professor of physics and paleontology at the University of Chicago and a Holocaust survivor. Early life and education Riccardo was born in Milan in 1927 to Paolo and Gilda Levi, a decorated lieutenant colonel in the Italian army of World War I and a Venetian aristocrat. His family fled to Pavia after Benito Mussolini ordered a crackdown on Jews in his hometown. As a result of migration, he obtained his doctorate in physics from the University of Pavia in 1952 and then was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to go to the United States.

#8598

John R. Dutcher

#176649

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

John R. Dutcher is a Canadian physicist. Dutcher completed a co-op degree in engineering and physics at Dalhousie University in 1983, then chose to specialize in condensed matter physics, earning a master's degree in the subject at the University of British Columbia before obtaining a doctorate at Simon Fraser University. His laboratory at the University of Guelph researches soft matter and biological physics. Dutcher was granted a Tier I Canada Research Chair in 2006. In 2007, Dutcher was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society,"[f]or fundamental contributions to the understanding o...

#8599

Anders Omholt

#174021

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

Anders Kristian Omholt was a Norwegian physicist. He was born in Aker. He was appointed professor at the University of Oslo from 1963 to 1971. As researcher he has contributed to the fields of Aurora Borealis and cosmic physics. He had a leading position at the Federation of Norwegian Industries from 1971 to 1977, and was director of the research council Norges almenvitenskapelige forskningsråd from 1978 to 1988. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

#8600

Lucilla de Arcangelis

#108162

Overall Influence

Lucilla de Arcangelis is an Italian statistical physicist known for her work on percolation theory, self-organized criticality, power laws in fracture, and applications including earthquake prediction and neuroscience. She is a professor of physics at the Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli .

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