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,
#9001
Stephen Harvey
#88114
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Stephen C. Harvey is a structural biologist with research interest in nucleic acids, the ribosome, virus structure and high density lipoprotein. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and professor emeritus and Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar emeritus in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. Harvey did his undergraduate work at the University of California , where he received his A.B. degree in physics. In the 1960s, he worked as a rocket test engineer on the A...
Go to Profile#9002
Mark Bolsterli
#183582
Overall Influence
1930 - 2012 (82 years)
Mark Bolsterli was an American theoretical physicist, specializing in nuclear physics. Biography Mark Bolsterli attended high school in Webster Groves, Missouri, where he became an Eagle Scout. He graduated in 1955 from Washington University in St. Louis with a Ph.D. in physics. His Ph.D. thesis A perturbation procedure for bound states of nuclei was supervised by Eugene Feenberg. Bolsterli received a Fulbright Scholarship to England for the academic year 1955–1956, a fellowship to the Niels Bohr Institute for the academic year 1961–1962, and a Guggenheim Fellowship to the University of Oxford for the academic year 1964–1965.
Go to Profile#9003
Matthieu Verstraete
#184306
Overall Influence
Matthieu Verstraete is an American physicist, currently at University of Liège and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has been the chair of the steering committee of the European The European Theoretical Spectroscopy Facility and a member of the international advisory committee of ABINIT .
Go to Profile#9004
Huan Z. Huang
#184309
Overall Influence
Huan Zhong Huang is a Chinese physicist. Huang earned a bachelor's degree at Fudan University in 1984, followed by a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990. He began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995. In 2012, Huang was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society, "[f]or experimental measurements of strange hadrons, in particular hyperons, and quark number scaling in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC".
Go to Profile#9005
Peter C. M. Van Zijl
#184349
Overall Influence
#9006
Hana El-Samad
#125429
Overall Influence
Hana El-Samad is a Lebanese-American scientist who is a founding Principal Investigator at Altos Labs and a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work considers control theory and the function of complex biological systems. Her group has made contributions to systems biology, synthetic biology, and cell engineering.
Go to Profile#9007
Michael E. Greenberg
#36437
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael Greenberg is an American neuroscientist who specializes in molecular neurobiology. He served as the Chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School from 2008 to 2022. Biography Michael Greenberg grew up in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1976 with a degree in chemistry. He conducted his Ph.D. research and began his post-doctoral research at Rockefeller University in New York City in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman. He later completed his postdoctoral research with Edward Ziff at New York University Medical Center.
Go to Profile#9008
Fabrizio Carbone
#170210
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Fabrizio Carbone is an Italian and Swiss physicist and currently an Associate Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne . His research focuses on the study of matter in out of equilibrium conditions using ultrafast spectroscopy, diffraction and imaging techniques. In 2015, he attracted international attention by publishing a photography of light displaying both its quantum and classical nature.
Go to Profile#9009
Ibiyinka A. Fuwape
#174562
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Ibiyinka A. Fuwape is a Nigerian academic, professor in physics and the 2nd substantive Vice-Chancellor of the Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, a private university in Nigeria. Early life Ibiyinka Fuwape was born in Lagos State on December 8, 1962 to the family of David Ademokun. She started her education at Reagan Memorial Baptist Girls Primary School, Yaba, Lagos. She proceeded to Methodist Girls High School where she earned her Ordinary level certificate, later earned her Higher School Certificate from 1979 to 1981 at Queen's College Yaba. She graduated from the University of Ibadan with a Bachelor of Science first class honors degree in Physics.
Go to Profile#9010
Marina Guenza
#178725
Overall Influence
Marina Guenza is an Italian theoretical physical chemist who studies the fluid dynamics of macromolecules. She is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oregon. Education and career Guenza earned a master's degree at the University of Genoa in 1985, and completed her Ph.D. in 1989 through a consortium of the University of Genoa, University of Turin, and University of Pavia.
Go to Profile#9011
Herbert Deinert
#92211
Overall Influence
1930 - 2010 (80 years)
Herbert Deinert was a Professor Emeritus in the Department of German Studies, Cornell University. He was a noted scholar focusing on German literature and intellectual history since the time of Martin Luther. His early work centered on the influence of Rilke on music but later focused on the works of Goethe , Hesse, Kafka, Mann, Brecht. More recently he has helped to understand the influence of Protestantism on Germany directly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Writing on the subject, Deinert said:
Go to Profile#9012
Agnès Fienga
#143331
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Agnès Fienga is a French astronomer working at the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides. She is active in the field of planetary ephemerides generation and is member of the International Astronomical Union . She collaborated with Dr. E. Myles Standish in researches on the asteroids and their impact on the orbital motions. Fienga is also interested in testing gravitational theories from planetary motions. She has recently processed Cassini ranging data, finding an anomalous feature of motion in Saturn's orbit, according to the results by Dr. Elena V. Pitjeva.
Go to Profile#9013
Evgenia Zabolotskaya
#138484
Overall Influence
Evgenia Andreevna Zabolotskaya was a Russian-American physicist known for her contributions to nonlinear acoustics. The Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya equation and the Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov equation in nonlinear acoustics are named in part for her.
Go to Profile#9014
Hanhee Paik
#148726
Overall Influence
Hanhee Paik is a South Korean experimental quantum computing researcher who works for IBM Research at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where she helps develop superconducting devices for storing and operating on qubits.
Go to Profile#9015
Erwin Schwab
#78821
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Erwin Schwab is a German amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets, who works at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, near Darmstadt, Germany. He has discovered and co-discovered more than 80 asteroids from the Starkenburg , Tzec Maun and Taunus observatories . As volunteer scientist for the European Space Agency he recovered near-Earth objects and comets. From 2014 to 2021 he recovered 30 lost comets, which equates to about 25% of the worldwide proportion in that timespan. Using the Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto Observatory to search for a lost comet he discovered i...
Go to Profile#9016
Francesca Iacopi
#174073
Overall Influence
Francesca Iacopi is an engineer, researcher and an academic. She specializes in materials and nanoelectronics engineering and is a professor at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a chief investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, and a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Go to Profile#9017
Shaikh Abdus Salam
#42779
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Shaikh Abdus Salam is a Bangladeshi academician, writer sports organizer and professor. He was a long time professor of Dhaka University. He is currently serving as the 13th Vice Chancellor of the Islamic University.
Go to Profile#9018
Juan José Giambiagi
#182983
Overall Influence
1924 - 1996 (72 years)
Juan José Giambiagi was an Argentinian physicist and discoverer of the dimensional regularization.
Go to Profile#9019
Vladimir Bolotin
#48097
Overall Influence
1926 - 2008 (82 years)
Vladimir Vasilyevich Bolotin was a Soviet and Russian physicist in the field of solid mechanics, Doctor of Sciences, Distinguished Professor at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Academician of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences , Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Engineering, Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Engineering . Laureate of the 1985 USSR State Prize and of the 2000 State Prize of the Russian Federation.
Go to Profile#9020
Pankaj Joshi
#182590
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Pankaj S. Joshi is an Indian astrophysicist and cosmologist whose research is mainly focused on areas of gravitational collapse and spacetime singularity. He has published more than 225 research papers in national and international journals, and books and monographs on the subject. Currently he is a Distinguished Professor of Physics, and founding director of the International Center for Space and Cosmology at Ahmedabad University.
Go to Profile#9021
Emmanuel Hugot
#120207
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Emmanuel H. Hugot is a French astrophysicist. known for his contribution to the developments of new technologies that help to improve telescopes used by professional astronomers around the world. This includes the development of more efficient curved detectors, but also improvements in the manufacturing methods for optical elements and active optics systems. The technologies developed by Hugot and his group are used on the SPHERE instrument mounted on the European Very Large Telescope, as well as the coronagraphic instrument of the future NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which are us...
Go to Profile#9022
Marcel G A van der Heijden
#184525
Overall Influence
#9023
Peter Wells
#108283
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Peter Neil Temple Wells CBE DSc FMedSci FREng FIET FInstP FLSW FRS was a British medical physicist who played a major role in the application of ultrasound technology in medicine. Education Wells was educated at Birmingham College of Advanced Technology and the University of Bristol where he was awarded his PhD in 1966.
Go to Profile#9024
Sarah Eno
#82784
Overall Influence
Sarah C. Eno is an American experimental particle physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is a professor of physics and UMD Distinguished Scholar–Teacher. She has participated in several large experimental collaborations in high-energy physics, including the AMY experiment at the Japanese TRISTAN particle accelerator, the DØ experiment at Fermilab in the US, the Collider Detector at Fermilab, and the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland.
Go to Profile#9025
Gunnar Løvhøiden
#184602
Overall Influence
1939 - 2017 (78 years)
Gunnar Løvhøiden was a Norwegian nuclear physicist from Oslo. Løvhøiden graduated from the University of Oslo in 1966 and started his career as a teacher at Tyrifjord høyere skole. Already the year after he returned to the university as an assistant for Per Olav Tjøm who was working in close collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. The work Løvhøiden made in Copenhagen became the foundation for his doctoral thesis that he defended in 1972. Løvhøiden was immediately offered a post doc. position at McMaster University in Canada.
Go to Profile#9026
Elżbieta Kossecka
#173223
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Elżbieta Kossecka is a Polish physicist. She is a professor of technical sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences. Education and career A graduate of the University of Warsaw, she graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in 1962, obtaining a master's degree in theoretical physics. After a one-year internship at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, the University of Warsaw, she worked for two years as an assistant at the Department of Mathematical Methods of Physics. In 1965, she started working at the Institute ...
Go to Profile#9027
Hiroshi Mori
#173800
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Hiroshi Mori is a Japanese amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. The Minor Planet Center credits him with the discovery of 45 numbered minor planets in collaboration with amateur astronomer Masaru Arai at Yorii Observatory during 1988–1991.
Go to Profile#9028
Martinus Tels
#86115
Overall Influence
1926 - 2008 (82 years)
Martinus Tels was a Dutch physicist and chemical engineer. He was a professor of chemical engineering, dean of the department of chemical engineering and the ninth rector magnificus of the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Go to Profile#9029
Digby McLaren
#70569
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Digby Johns McLaren, was a Canadian geologist and palaeontologist. Born in Carrickfergus, Ireland, and educated at Sedbergh School, he received a Bachelor of Arts in geology from the University of Cambridge. During World War II, he fought in the Middle East and Europe with the Royal Regiment of Artillery. After the war, he received a Master of Arts in geology from the University of Cambridge in 1948. In 1948, he moved to Canada and joined the Geological Survey of Canada . In 1951, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#9030
Charles Legéndy
#171378
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Charles Rudolf Legéndy , is a Hungarian-born American engineer, theoretical physicist, and neuroscientist. In physics, Legéndy is known for his theoretical work on the helicon phenomenon, In neuroscience, he is known for introducing the "Poisson surprise" test used for burst detection in neuronal spike trains, and for his calculations of brain capacity.
Go to Profile#9031
Jabez McClelland
#183976
Overall Influence
Jabez Jenkins McClelland is an American physicist. He is best known for his work applying the techniques of laser cooling and atom optics to nanotechnology. This work involved expanding the number of atomic species that could be laser cooled from the alkalis and a few alkaline earth and noble gas species, to transition metals such a chromium and rare earths such as erbium. In the early 1990s he and colleagues showed that the nodes of an optical standing wave could act as lenses, focusing chromium atoms as they deposit onto a surface to create a permanent grating structure whose periodicity is precisely tied to an atomic resonance frequency, making it a useful nanoscale length standard.
Go to Profile#9032
Stephen Thomas Knight
#27217
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Stephen Thomas Knight MA , PhD , F.A.H.A., F.E.A. was, until September 2011, a distinguished research professor in English literature at Cardiff University; and is a professorial fellow of Literature at the University of Melbourne. His areas of expertise include medieval English and European literature, Robin Hood, Merlin, cultural studies, crime fiction, and Australian matters. He has authored over thirty books, and is well known in the public sphere for his contribution to a range of fields. His most recent books have been The Politics of Myth , Towards Sherlock Holmes: A Thematic History o...
Go to Profile#9033
Marc Rafelski
#184774
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Marc Alexander Rafelski is an American astrophysicist. Rafelski studied astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles with Andrea Gehz. He obtained his PhD in physics from the University of California, San Diego, under supervision of Arthur Wolfe, in 2011.
Go to Profile#9034
Renata Wentzcovitch
#169782
Overall Influence
Renata M. M. Wentzcovitch is a condensed matter physicist, known for her work on simulating materials at the quantum-mechanical level, including participating in the Quantum ESPRESSO project. Her work has focused mainly on materials at extreme pressure and temperature conditions typical of planetary interiors. She is a professor of material science and applied physics and of earth and environmental science at Columbia University.
Go to Profile#9035
Fritz Luty
#103581
Overall Influence
1928 - 2017 (89 years)
Fritz Luty was an American physicist. He was born in Essen, Germany, and briefly saw action as a teenager in the German Army towards the end of World War II. He then studied physics and was awarded a PhD by the University of Göttingen. After working as an assistant professor in Stuttgart, he moved in 1965 to the US to be a full professor at the University of Utah, where he subsequently spent his whole career.
Go to Profile#9036
Marialuisa Aliotta
#182637
Overall Influence
Marialuisa Aliotta is an Italian experimental nuclear astrophysicist whose research uses particle accelerators located deep underground to investigate the nuclear reactions within stars, nucleosynthesis, and the connections between these reactions and the lifetime and evolution of stars. She is a professor at the University of Edinburgh, where she holds a personal chair in experimental nuclear astrophysics.
Go to Profile#9037
Carlos Stroud
#159890
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Carlos Ray Stroud, Jr. is an American physicist and an educator. Working in the field of quantum optics, Stroud has carried out theoretical and experimental studies in most areas of the field from its beginnings in the late 1960s, studying the fundamentals of the quantum mechanics of atoms and light and their interaction. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed papers and edited seven books. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, as well as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer of the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society. In this ...
Go to Profile#9038
Willetta Greene-Johnson
#181210
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Willetta Greene-Johnson is a senior lecturer in the physics and chemistry departments at Loyola University Chicago. She was one of the first African-American women to complete a Ph.D. degree in theoretical physics. Greene-Johnson is also a Grammy award winning musician for her song "Saved" .
Go to Profile#9039
Geoff Malcolm
#139232
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Geoffrey Norman Malcolm was a New Zealand physical chemist. Appointed in 1969, he was the first chemistry professor at Massey University. Biography Born in Feilding on 23 April 1931, Malcolm was educated at Feilding Agricultural High School. He then studied at Canterbury University College, graduating Master of Science with first-class honours in 1954. He was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Memorial Scholarship, and completed doctoral studies at the University of Manchester in 1956.
Go to Profile#9040
John Robert Beyster
#143293
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
John Robert Beyster , often styled J. Robert Beyster, was an American scientist and entrepreneur, and the founder of Science Applications International Corporation. He was Chairman of the Board until his retirement in July 2004, and served as chief executive officer until November 2003. Beyster's primary areas of interest were national security and nuclear reactor physics. Beyster also founded two nonprofit organizations to assist organizations considering employee ownership: the Beyster Institute and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.
Go to Profile#9041
Ian Chubb
#42532
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Ian William Chubb is an Australian neuroscientist and academic, who was the Chief Scientist of Australia from 23 May 2011 to 22 January 2016. Career Chubb has a Masters in Science, a DPhil from the University of Oxford, honorary doctorates from Flinders University, Charles Darwin University, Australian National University, Monash University, Sunshine Coast University and Melbourne University.
Go to Profile#9042
Monica Craciun
#181195
Overall Influence
Monica Felicia Crăciun is a British-Romanian physicist who is a Professor of Nanoscience at the University of Exeter. Her research investigates 2D Materials for civil engineering, wearable technologies and optoelectronic devices. Craciun has pioneered the incorporation of graphene into concrete, wearable technologies and optoelectronic devices.
Go to Profile#9043
Ian Butterworth
#170706
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Ian Butterworth CBE FRS was a particle physicist. His career included a period as a research director at CERN from 1983 to 1986. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1981, and was made Commander of the British Empire in 1984.
Go to Profile#9044
Miguel Alcubierre
#184932
Overall Influence
#9045
Stefano Sposetti
#113799
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Stefano Sposetti is a Swiss amateur astronomer and a prolific discoverer of minor planets. He lives in Gnosca, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland in the Ticino Alps, where the Gnosca Observatory is located.
Go to Profile#9046
Laurie Rousseau-Nepton
#69395
Overall Influence
Laurie Rousseau-Nepton is a Canadian astronomer at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and was the first Indigenous woman in Canada to obtain a Ph.D. in astrophysics.
Go to Profile#9047
Susan Houde-Walter
#162281
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Susan Nicole Houde-Walter is an academic and technical executive in the field of optics. She was professor of optics at the University of Rochester from 1987-2005. She used to run LaserMaxDefense, a manufacturer of laser equipment for military and law enforcement. She served as president of the Optical Society in 2005 and has travelled extensively with the US military. Currently, she is the director of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#9048
Susan Lepri
#184520
Overall Influence
Susan Lepri is an American space scientist and is currently Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. She led development of portions of the Heavy Ion Sensor which was launched onboard the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter mission in February 2020. She has been director of the University of Michigan Space Physics Research Laboratory since 2021.
Go to Profile#9049
Stuart Meeson
#126875
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Stuart Meeson is a physicist who having done research in Electrical Impedance Tomography and Mammography has been working in Computed Tomography with the Radiology Group of the University of Oxford. Areas of particular interest include imaging the cervical spine, abdominal sepsis and low contrast features in the abdomen and liver. His work in CT led to a collaborative study with the UK Health Protection Agency on the Third UK national CT dose survey.
Go to Profile#9050
Tai-Kai Ng
#184952
Overall Influence
Tai-Kai Ng is a physicist from Hong Kong. Ng earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Hong Kong, then graduated from Northwestern University with a doctorate. He returned to Hong Kong for a professorship at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In 2000, Ng was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society "[f]or his work on the Coulomb effects in a quantum dot, leading to the prediction of conductance enhancement due to the Kondo resonance."
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