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).
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List of the most influential people in Physics,
#2201
Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli
#33526
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli is a Moroccan Professor of nuclear physics, at the faculty of science within the Mohammad V University of Rabat. She won the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science for her work on the Higgs Boson.
Go to Profile#2202
Jürgen Mlynek
#34092
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Jürgen Mlynek is a German physicist and was president of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres from 2005 to 2015. Biography Mlynek studied physics from 1970 to 1976 at the Technical University of Hannover and the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1979, he obtained his doctor´s degree and habilitated in 1984.
Go to Profile#2203
Manijeh Razeghi
#20246
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Manijeh Razeghi is an Iranian-American scientist in the fields of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices. She is a pioneer in modern epitaxial techniques for semiconductors such as low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition , vapor phase epitaxy , molecular beam epitaxy , GasMBE, and MOMBE. These techniques have enabled the development of semiconductor devices and quantum structures with higher composition consistency and reliability, leading to major advancement in InP and GaAs based quantum photonics and electronic devices, which were at the core of the late 20th century optical ...
Go to Profile#2204
Robert J. Schoelkopf
#33864
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Robert J. Schoelkopf III is an American physicist, most noted for his work on quantum computing as one of the inventors of superconducting qubits. Schoelkopf's main research areas are quantum transport, single-electron devices, and charge dynamics in nanostructures. His research utilizes quantum-effect and single-electron devices, both for fundamental physical studies and for applications. Techniques often include high-speed, high-sensitivity measurements performed on nanostructures at low temperatures. Schoelkopf serves as director of the Yale Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures and as associate director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering.
Go to Profile#2205
Christopher Kochanek
#76416
Overall Influence
Christopher Kochanek is an American astronomer. He works in the fields of cosmology, gravitational lensing, and supernovae. Kochanek currently is an Ohio Eminent Scholar at Ohio State University as well as an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#2206
Aleksandr Chudakov
#65933
Overall Influence
1921 - 2001 (80 years)
Aleksandr Evgenievich Chudakov was a Soviet Russian physicist in the field of cosmic-ray physics, known for Chudakov Effect, the effect of decreasing ionization losses for narrow electron-positron pairs and for experimentally confirming existence of the transition radiation. He was also the chairman of the IUPAP Cosmic Ray Commission.
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Anita Goel
#19748
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Anita Goel is an American physicist, physician, and scientist in the emerging field of Nanobiophysics. At the Nanobiosym Research Institute , Goel examines the physics of life and the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA.
Go to Profile#2208
Claude Bouchiat
#53212
Overall Influence
1932 - 2021 (89 years)
Claude Bouchiat was a French physicist, and member of the French Academy of sciences. Biography Graduate of the École Polytechnique in 1955. He completed a Ph.D. in 1960 titled La règle de sélection ΔT=0 dans les transitions de Fermi et la théorie de l'interaction vectorielle en radioactivité β.
Go to Profile#2209
Tracy Slatyer
#55514
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Tracy Robyn Slatyer is a professor of particle physics with a concentration in theoretical astrophysics with tenure at MIT. She was a 2014 recipient of the Rossi Prize for gamma ray detection of Fermi bubbles, which are unexpected large structure in our galaxy. Her research also involves seeking explanations for dark matter and the gamma ray haze at the center of the Milky Way. In 2021, she was awarded a New Horizons in Physics Prize for "major contributions to particle astrophysics, from models of dark matter to the discovery of the "Fermi Bubbles."
Go to Profile#2210
Josefa Masegosa Gallego
#72891
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Josefa Masegosa Gallego is a Spanish astronomer and scientific researcher. She is a winner of both the Granada, City of Science and Innovation award and the Mariana Pineda Award of Equality. Life Gallego was born in 1957 in Oria, Spain. She has a PhD from the University of Granada.
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John Thomas Finch
#19451
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
John Finch FRS was a British X-ray crystallographer and electron microscopist. After working and receiving a PhD at Birkbeck College London, where he was hired by Rosalind Franklin, he worked at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge from 1962 on biological structures and macromolecules, including of nucleosomes and of viruses such as tobacco mosaic virus.
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Alfred Gordon Gaydon
#67579
Overall Influence
1911 - 2004 (93 years)
Alfred Gordon Gaydon was a leading spectroscopist and combustion scientist. He was brought up at Surbiton, Surrey, where he attended Kingston Grammar School. There he became a keen oarsman, later rowing for Imperial College, London, and Kingston Rowing Club. In 1929 he graduated in Physics from the Royal College of Science and, after a period of post graduate study there accepted a post at the Shirley Institute of the Cotton Research Association near Manchester.
Go to Profile#2213
George Zaslavsky
#63449
Overall Influence
1935 - 2008 (73 years)
George M. Zaslavsky was a Soviet mathematical physicist and one of the founders of the physics of dynamical chaos. Early life Zaslavsky was born in Odessa, Ukraine on 31 May 1935. His father was an artillery officer who dragged his cannon in World War II and survived there. Zaslavsky received his education at the University of Odessa and moved to Novosibirsk in 1957 where a golden age of Siberian physics was beginning.
Go to Profile#2214
Dieter Vollhardt
#43419
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Dieter Vollhardt is a German physicist and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Augsburg. Scientific work Vollhardt is one of the founders of the Dynamical Mean-Field Theory for strongly correlated materials such as transition metals and their oxides, i.e. materials with electrons in open d- and f-shells. The properties of these systems are determined by the Coulomb repulsion between the electrons which makes these electrons strongly correlated. The repulsion has the tendency to localize electrons. This leads to a multitude of phenomena such as the Mott-Hubbard metal insulator transition.
Go to Profile#2215
Harald Rose
#30755
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Harald Rose is a German physicist. Rose received in 1964 his physics Diplom in theoretical electron optics under Otto Scherzer at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. From 1976 to 1980 he was principal research scientist at The New York State department of Health. In 1973–1974 he spent one research year at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago and in 1995–1996 one research year at Cornell and the University of Maryland. From 1980 to his retirement in 2000 as professor emeritus, he was active at the University of Darmstadt in the Physics Department. Since 2009 he has held a Carl Zeiss funded Senior Professorship at the University of Ulm.
Go to Profile#2216
Robert Spekkens
#57370
Overall Influence
Robert W. Spekkens is a Canadian theoretical quantum physicist working in the fields of quantum foundations and quantum information. He is known for his work on epistemic view of quantum states , quantum contextuality, quantum resource theories and quantum causality.
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W. David Arnett
#62022
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
William David Arnett is a Regents Professor of Astrophysics at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, known for his research on supernova explosions, the formation of neutron stars or black holes by gravitational collapse, and the synthesis of elements in stars; he is author of the monograph Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis which deals with these topics. Arnett pioneered the application of supercomputers to astrophysical problems, including neutrino radiation hydrodynamics, nuclear reaction networks, instabilities and explosions, supernova light curves, and turbulent convective flow in tw...
Go to Profile#2218
Charles H. Henry
#23723
Overall Influence
1937 - 2016 (79 years)
Charles H. Henry was an American physicist. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He received an M.S. degree in physics in 1959 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. degree in physics in 1965 from the University of Illinois, under the direction of Charlie Slichter. In March 2008, he was featured in an article in the Physics Illinois News, a publication of the Physics Department of the University of Illinois.
Go to Profile#2219
Jo Dunkley
#58136
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Joanna Dunkley is a British astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at Princeton University. She works on the origin of the Universe and the Cosmic microwave background using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope .
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C. Marcella Carollo
#60202
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
C. Marcella Carollo worked as a professional astronomer for 25 years between 1994 and 2019. Her scientific career was ended by the ETH Zürich who, following accusations that she had bullied students, made her the first Professor to be dismissed at ETH Zurich in the 165 years of its history. Carollo has maintained her innocence against these accusations, publicly commenting on her case in terms that indicate "academic mobbing". The dismissal was appealed unsuccessfully to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court.
Go to Profile#2221
Gerald Lucovsky
#76767
Overall Influence
#2222
Ronald Adrian
#58711
Overall Influence
Ronald J. Adrian is the Ira A. Fulton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Arizona State University's Fulton School of Engineering and heads the Laboratory for Energetic Flow and Turbulence. He is well known for his contributions to the field of fluid dynamics in the areas of wall turbulence, thermal convection, coherent structures in turbulence and laser instrumentation. He is the Associate editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Co-editor of the Springer Series in Experimental Fluid Mechanics and Co-founder and editor of eFluids.com.
Go to Profile#2223
Robley D. Evans
#41789
Overall Influence
1907 - 1995 (88 years)
Robley Dunglison Evans was an American nuclear physicist and pioneer of nuclear medicine. He was the president of the Health Physics Society in 1972–1973. Biography His father Manley Jefferson Evans and mother Alice Jennie Turner married in August 1905 in O'Neill, Nebraska. Manley J. Evans was a professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Robley D. Evans was their only child. He is named in honor of Admiral Robley D. Evans, but there is no immediate family connection. In 1912 the family moved to Los Angeles County. Manley J. Evans taught at Hollywood High School for 32 years. At Hollywood High School, Robley D.
Go to Profile#2224
Bruce Elmegreen
#74363
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Bruce Gordon Elmegreen is an American astronomer. Life Elmegreen was born in Milwaukee, and received his bachelor's degree in 1971 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his PhD in 1975 from Princeton University in astrophysics under Lyman Spitzer. From 1975 to 1978 he was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. From 1978 to 1984 he was an assistant professor at Columbia University. Beginning in 1984 he has been employed at IBM doing research at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
Go to Profile#2225
Charles Liu
#57563
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Charles Tsun-Chu Liu is an American astronomer and astronomy educator. His research interests include merging and colliding galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and the star formation history of the universe. He is a former director of the William E. Macaulay Honors College and The Verrazano School at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island. He currently serves as a professor of physics and astronomy at the College of Staten Island, and as President of the Astronomical Society of New York. In 2019, he was named a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.
Go to Profile#2226
Robert Hamilton Austin
#72726
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Robert Hamilton Austin is an American physicist and a professor of physics at Princeton University. Life He was born in St. Charles, Illinois in 1946. He received his BA in 1968 from Hope College. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His current work concerns biological systems evolution and the research behind it.
Go to Profile#2227
David Rodbard
#76860
Overall Influence
#2228
Denis Rousseau
#27033
Overall Influence
Denis L. Rousseau is an American scientist. He is currently professor and university chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Biography Rousseau is professor and university chairman of physiology and biophysics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, of Yeshiva University, a position he has held since 1996. He received his B.A. from Bowdoin College and received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Princeton University. After holding a position as research associate in the physics department at the University of Southern California, ...
Go to Profile#2229
Jane C. Charlton
#54323
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Jane C. Charlton is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University where she is a specialist in galaxy formation and evolution. She also has a daughter named Thomasin. Early life and education Charlton was born in New Eagle, Pennsylvania. She was a child prodigy who obtained her Bachelor of Science in chemistry and physics from Carnegie Mellon University at the age of 18, in 1983. Charlton received both her PhD, in 1987, and her Master of Science, 1984, from the University of Chicago.
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Beth Willman
#65357
Overall Influence
Beth Willman is an American astronomer who is the Chief Executive Officer of the LSST Discovery Alliance, an astronomical organization notable for its support of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. She was previously the deputy director of the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory and an associate professor of astronomy at Haverford College.
Go to Profile#2231
A. W. Peet
#56515
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
A. W. Peet is a professor of physics at the University of Toronto. Peet's research interests include string theory as a quantum theory of gravity, quantum field theory and applications of string theory to black holes, gauge theories, cosmology, and the correspondence between anti-de Sitter space and conformal field theories .
Go to Profile#2232
Min Gu
#47363
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Min Gu is a Chinese-Australian physicist who currently serves as the Executive Chancellor and Professor at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. Previously he was Distinguished Professor and Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research Innovation & Entrepreneurship at RMIT University.
Go to Profile#2233
Joel Feldman
#21949
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Joel Shalom Feldman is a Canadian mathematical physicist and mathematician. Feldman studied mathematics and physics at the University of Toronto with bachelor's degree in 1970 and at Harvard University with master's degree in 1971 and with PhD in 1974 under Arthur Jaffe with thesis field theory in a finite volume. In 1974–1975 he did research at Harvard on constructive quantum field theory and was from 1975 to 1977 a Moore Instructor at MIT. At the University of British Columbia he became in 1977 an assistant professor, in 1982 an associate professor, and in 1987 a professor.
Go to Profile#2234
Paul Chaikin
#49463
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Paul Michael Chaikin is an American physicist known particularly for many significant contributions to the field of soft condensed matter physics. Education and research career After graduating from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Paul Chaikin earned his B.S. in physics from California Institute of Technology in 1966, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 working with Kondo superconductors. He joined the physics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1972 and studied thermopower, density waves, and high field phenomena mostly in organic superconductors.
Go to Profile#2235
Jamie Farnes
#56118
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (40 years)
Jamie S. Farnes is a British cosmologist, astrophysicist, and radio astronomer based at the University of Oxford. He studies dark energy, dark matter, cosmic magnetic fields, and the large-scale structure of the universe. In 2018, it was announced by Oxford that Farnes may have simultaneously solved both the dark energy and dark matter problems, using a new negative mass dark fluid toy model that "brings balance to the universe".
Go to Profile#2236
Phil Nicholson
#63706
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Philip D. Nicholson is an Australian-born professor of astronomy at Cornell University in the Astronomy department specialising in Planetary Sciences. He was editor-in-chief of the journal Icarus between 1998 and 2018.
Go to Profile#2237
David H. Auston
#48777
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
David Henry Auston is a Canadian-American physicist, known for his work on terahertz technology, and in particular, the development of the Auston switch. Auston was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1940, and completed his B.A.Sc. and M.A. degrees in Engineering Physics and Electrical Engineering respectively, from the University of Toronto. He then moved to California to work at the General Motors Defense Laboratory, and completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, working in the then-new area of laser physics. He was then offered a job at the AT&T Bell Labs with an open research mandate.
Go to Profile#2238
Carlo Beenakker
#51794
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Carlo Willem Joannes Beenakker is a professor at Leiden University and leader of the university's mesoscopic physics group, established in 1992. Early life and education Born in Leiden as the son of physicists Jan Beenakker and Elena Manaresi, Beenakker graduated from Leiden University in 1982 and obtained his doctorate two years later.
Go to Profile#2239
Kenneth G. Libbrecht
#75922
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Kenneth G. Libbrecht is a professor of physics and department chairman at the California Institute of Technology. Biography Libbrecht received a B.S. in physics at Caltech in 1980. He was originally trained as a solar astronomer, studying under Robert Dicke at Princeton University and received his Ph.D. in 1984. However, much of his recent research has focused on the properties of ice crystals, particularly the structure of snowflakes. In addition to his professional papers, he has published several popular books illustrating the variety of snowflake forms:The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beaut...
Go to Profile#2240
William G. Tifft
#59213
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
William G. Tifft was an astronomer at the University of Arizona. His main interests were in galaxies, superclusters and redshift quantization. He was influential in the development of the first redshift surveys, and was an early proponent of crewed space astronomy, conducted at a proposed moon base for example. In retirement, he was a principal scientist with The Scientific Association for the Study of Time in Physics and Cosmology .
Go to Profile#2241
Claire Ellen Max
#47111
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Claire Ellen Max is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is affiliated with the Lick Observatory. She was the Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UCSC, 2007-2014. Max received the E.O. Lawrence Award in Physics.
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Dietrich Marcuse
#77179
Overall Influence
#2243
Wolfgang Götze
#46321
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Wolfgang Götze was a German theoretical physicist. He began his physics education at Humboldt University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin, after which he obtained his doctorate at the Technical University of Munich in 1963. After temporary positions at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, in 1970 Götze accepted a chair for theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich. There he did research on various problems of condensed matter physics as well as fluid dynamics.
Go to Profile#2244
Christopher J. Pethick
#75560
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Christopher John Pethick is a British theoretical physicist, specializing in many-body theory, ultra-cold atomic gases, and the physics of neutron stars and stellar collapse. Education and career Pethick studied at the University of Oxford, where he received his BA in 1962 and his PhD in 1965. He was then a postdoc at Magdalen College, Oxford and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was an associate professor from 1970 to 1973, a full professor from 1973 to 1995, and an adjunct professor from 1995 to 1998. For two academic years from 1970 to 1972 he was a Sloan Research Fellow.
Go to Profile#2245
Lawrence John Hall
#67544
Overall Influence
Lawrence John Hall is a theoretical particle physicist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics. Biography Hall received his bachelor's degree from Oxford in 1977 and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1981 with Howard Georgi. He was a Miller Fellow at Berkeley and an assistant professor at Harvard where he was a Sloan Foundation Fellow, before becoming professor at Berkeley in 1983, where he won a Presidential Young Investigator Award.
Go to Profile#2246
Roger Malina
#38851
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Roger Malina is an American physicist, astronomer, Executive Editor of Leonardo Publications by Leonardo, the International Society of Arts, Sciences and Technology and distinguished professor of arts and technology, and professor of physics at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Go to Profile#2247
Elias Burstein
#59968
Overall Influence
1917 - 2017 (100 years)
Elias Burstein was an American experimental condensed matter physicist whose active career in science spanned seven decades. He is known for his pioneering fundamental research in the optical physics of solids; for writing and editing hundreds of articles and other publications; for bringing together scientists from around the world in international meetings, conferences, and symposia; and for training and mentoring dozens of younger physicists.
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Aaldert Wapstra
#66138
Overall Influence
1922 - 2006 (84 years)
Aaldert Hendrik Wapstra was a Dutch physicist renowned for his work on the Atomic Mass Evaluation. He worked on the Atomic Mass Evaluation originally with Josef Mattauch at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and later on with his colleague Georges Audi at Université de Paris-Sud. For this work he obtained the SUNAMCO medal of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics in September 2004.
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Shri Krishna Joshi
#55821
Overall Influence
1935 - 2020 (85 years)
Prof. Shri Krishna Joshi was an Indian physicist. He was born on 6 June 1935 in the village of Anarpa in Kumaun, Uttarakhand, India. Career Joshi received his Ph.D. in physics from Allahabad University in 1962. Joshi's broad areas of interest are condensed matter and collision processes. His early research was in the study of phonons in metals and insulators. Later, he studied electronic states in disordered systems and electron correlation in narrow band solids. He has also worked on Surface states and Segregation in materials. Joshi conducted studies on excitation and ionization processes in atoms, ions, and molecules.
Go to Profile#2250
Alessandro Morbidelli
#59275
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Alessandro Morbidelli is an Italian astronomer and planetary scientist who is currently employed by the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur in Nice. Morbidelli specialises in Solar System dynamics, especially planetary formation and migration and the structure of the asteroid and Kuiper belts.
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