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.

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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Physics,

#3601

Magnus Berggren

#45966

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Magnus Berggren , is a Swedish professor of organic electronics at Linköping University. Magnus Berggren was born in Skara, Sweden. In 1991 he received a master’s degree in physics and in 1996 a doctoral degree in physics at Linköping University. He then joined Bell Laboratories in the United States, for a one-year post doc research period. In 2001 he was appointed as a professor of organic electronics at Linköping University.

#3602

Ian Smail

#100216

Overall Influence

Ian Robert Smail is a British astrophysicist. He is Professor of Physics at the Durham University Department of Physics, based in the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, itself part of the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics. Since 2015, he has been ranked as one of the most highly-cited researchers in Space Sciences.

#3603

Britney Schmidt

#64376

Overall Influence

Britney Schmidt is an American earth scientist and astrobiologist at Cornell University. She has conducted research on the melting of ice shelves in Antarctica and studied Jupiter's moon Europa. In 2023, she was included on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world for her research on the Thwaites Glacier. She previously worked at Georgia Tech, and has been involved in projects with NASA. Schmidt was educated at the University of Arizona and University of California, Los Angeles.

#3604

Piers Coleman

#62462

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Piers Coleman is a British-born theoretical physicist, working in the field of theoretical condensed matter physics. Coleman is professor of physics at Rutgers University in New Jersey and at Royal Holloway, University of London.

#3605

Ctirad Uher

#81194

Overall Influence

Professor Ctirad Uher is the C. Wilbur Peters Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Born in Prague, Czech Republic, he graduated from the University of New South Wales, Australia in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. from there in 1979.

#3606

Gertrude Neumark

#25994

Overall Influence

1927 - 2010 (83 years)

Gertrude Fanny Neumark, also known as Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, was an American physicist, most noted for her work in material science and physics of semiconductors with emphasis on optical and electrical properties of wide-bandgap semiconductors and their light-emitting devices.

#3607

Miki Wadati

#103221

Overall Influence

#3608

W. Albert Hiltner

#95208

Overall Influence

1914 - 1991 (77 years)

William Albert Hiltner was an American astronomer, noted for his work leading up to the discovery of interstellar polarization. He was an early practitioner of precision stellar photometry, and a pioneering observer of the optical counterparts of celestial x-ray sources. Director of Yerkes Observatory for many years, while there he designed and built a rotatable telescope for polarization studies and developed photometric instrumentation. He was the acting director of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, then president of the Associated Universities for Research in Astronomy from 1968 ...

#3609

David Delano Clark

#57348

Overall Influence

1924 - 1997 (73 years)

David Delano Clark was a nuclear physicist best known for his work at Cornell University building nuclear reactors and using them to perform neutron activation analysis. Biography Born in Austin, Texas. He studied at the University of Texas and received his Bachelor of Arts at the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. He earned a Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1953. Dr. Clark worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York prior to joining Cornell in 1955. In 1961, Clark became the first director of Cornell's Ward Laboratory of Nuclear Engineering.

#3610

Michael W. Friedlander

#37158

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

Michael Wulf Friedlander was a South African-born American physicist and skeptic. Friedlander was professor emeritus of physics at Washington University in St. Louis. His research involved the study of cosmic rays and gamma ray astronomy. He is the author of the book At The Fringes Of Science , a scholarly study of fringe science. The book is notable for its criticism of the ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky.

#3611

Robert Anthony Antonia

#103300

Overall Influence

#3612

Robert H. Socolow

#33260

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Robert Harry Socolow is an American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. Education Robert Socolow has stated his parents and teachers imbued him with Weltschmerz and Tikkun Olam . He received his bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard College in 1959. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Harvard University in 1964. Between 1964 and 1966 he was National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Physics, at the University of California at Berkeley and the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

#3613

Karl-Heinrich Riewe

#95445

Overall Influence

Karl-Heinrich Riewe was a German nuclear physicist who participated in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons. After the World War II, Riewe was forced to live in Russia to work on nuclear weapons but went onto a strike at a defense related facility in 1948, he was accused of sabotage. He was sentenced to 25 years in the GULAG and disappeared.

#3614

Lee C. Teng

#17942

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Lee C. Teng was a Chinese-born physicist known for his work with the Advanced Photon Source of the Argonne National Laboratory. He has made numerous contributions to the field of accelerator physics.

#3615

Harry Levitt

#103435

Overall Influence

#3616

Erik Holmberg

#69677

Overall Influence

1908 - 2000 (92 years)

Erik Holmberg was a Swedish astronomer and cosmologist. He is most famous for his work in the effects of interacting galaxies. This research showed that galaxies that came near each other would likely combine to form a larger galaxy.

#3617

Wit Busza

#86408

Overall Influence

Wit Busza is an American physicist, born in Romania and of Polish descent. He is a professor in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He obtained a B.Sc. and Ph.D. from University College London. He began teaching at MIT in 1969 and was appointed as full professor in 1979. He was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow in 1995. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society.

#3618

Paul Crowell

#67898

Overall Influence

Paul A. Crowell is a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, United States. His research specialties include spin dynamics and transport in ferromagnets and ferromagnet-semiconductor heterostructures. Crowell received his BA in physics and mathematics from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania later earning his PhD in physics from Cornell University in 1994. He is an honors undergraduate physics instructor and is the leader of a research group exploring "Spin Dynamics, Transport and Magneto-optics."

#3619

Kazuhiko Koike

#103558

Overall Influence

#3620

Andrea Boattini

#88487

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Andrea Boattini is an Italian astronomer and a prolific discoverer of minor planets and comets. Career After developing a growing interest in minor planets, he graduated in 1996 from the University of Bologna with a thesis on near-Earth objects . He is involved in various projects related to NEO follow-up and search programs, with special interest in the NEO class known as Atens.

#3621

Josef Bille

#101193

Overall Influence

1944 - 2023 (79 years)

Josef Bille is a German physicist. Life Bille studied physics at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. From 1974 to 1978 he worked for the company Hoechst AG. Since 1978 Bille worked at Heidelberg University. From 1986 to 1991 Bille worked at the University of California. He patented surgical lasers for LASIK in 1988. He founded five companies in Heidelberg and United States.

#3622

Alvin Radkowsky

#30983

Overall Influence

1915 - 2002 (87 years)

Alvin Radkowsky was an American nuclear physicist and chief scientist at U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion division. His work in the 1950s led to major advances in nuclear-ship technology and civilian use of nuclear power.

#3623

Erik Ian Asphaug

Erik Ian Asphaug

#87230

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Erik Ian Asphaug is a Norwegian American planetary science professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at University of Arizona. Asphaug received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and English from Rice University and his PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona.

#3624

Peter E. Toschek

Peter E. Toschek

#88996

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Peter E. Toschek was a German experimental physicist who researched nuclear physics, quantum optics, and laser physics. He is known as a pioneer of laser spectroscopy and for the first demonstration of single trapped atoms . He was a professor at Hamburg University.

#3625

Donald M. Hunten

#103679

Overall Influence

#3626

Bernhard Keimer

#40486

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Bernhard Keimer is a German physicist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. His research group uses spectroscopic methods to explore quantum many-body phenomena in correlated-electron materials and metal-oxide heterostructures.

#3627

Alan R. Bishop

#93513

Overall Influence

Alan Reginald Bishop is an internationally recognized British/American physicist and academic, specializing in condensed matter theory, statistical physics, and nonlinear physics. He retired as Principal Associate Director - Science, Technology, and Engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2018.

#3628

Jos Engelen

#40384

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Prof. dr. Joseph Johannus Engelen , a Dutch physicist, was Chairman of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research from January 2009 to October 2016. Curriculum Vitae Jos Engelen studied physics at the Radboud University Nijmegen where he obtained an MSc degree in 1973. After graduation he worked at the same university as a researcher and lecturer, and gained also his PhD degree here in 1979. From 1979 to 1985 Engelen worked at CERN, the European research centre for particle physics in Geneva, Switzerland.

#3629

Timothy B. Spahr

#93027

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Timothy Bruce Spahr is an American astronomer and prolific discoverer of minor planets. From 2000–2014 he worked at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian Minor Planet Center. From September 2006 to December 2014 he was the director of Minor Planet Center. He is a co-discoverer of Callirrhoe, a moon of Jupiter, and of Albiorix, a moon of Saturn. He also discovered two periodic comets: 171P/Spahr and P/1998 U4. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 58 minor planets.

#3630

Michael I. Mishchenko

#103771

Overall Influence

#3631

David Wallace

#16729

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Sir David James Wallace, CBE, FRS, FRSE, FREng is a British physicist and academic. He was the Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University from 1994 to 2005, and the Master of Churchill College, Cambridge from 2006 to 2014.

#3632

Jorge Sahade

#71368

Overall Influence

1915 - 2012 (97 years)

Jorge Sahade was an Argentine astronomer with more than 200 publications in journals and conferences. His mother gave birth on February 17, but having been born very little, it was thought that he would not survive, so he was officially entered late on February 23.

#3633

David Saltzberg

#99295

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

David Saltzberg is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Saltzberg received a Sloan Fellowship, NSF Career Award, and Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Award while an assistant professor. Saltzberg earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1989 from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1994. From 1995-97 he worked at CERN in Switzerland. His research interests include high-energy collider physics and the radio detection of cosmic neutrinos.

#3634

Robert N. Shelton

#67902

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Robert N. Shelton is the president of Giant Magellan Telescope , an organization behind the development of the 24.5 meter Giant Magellan Telescope which is poised to be the world's largest astronomical telescope when it comes online early in the next decade.

#3635

Theo Geisel

#62576

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Theo Geisel is a German physicist. Geisel is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and professor of theoretical physics at the University of Göttingen. His research is primarily concerned with the behavior of complex systems ranging from theoretical investigations in quantum chaos to nonlinear phenomena occurring in the brain.

#3636

Yoichi Ando

#103873

Overall Influence

#3637

J. Ürgen Hafner

#103898

Overall Influence

#3638

Ari Ben-Menahem

#52456

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Ari Ben-Menahem has been professor of mathematics and geophysics at the Weizmann Institute of Science since 1964 and visiting professor at MIT. He is a seismologist, author, polymath, and historian of science. He coauthored with Sarvajit Singh, "Seismic Waves and Sources: the mathematical theory of seismology", a pioneering treatise since the nascent of this discipline at the turn of the 20th century.

#3639

Taksu Cheon

#54797

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

is a Japanese physicist notable for his work on quantum game theory and the foundations of quantum mechanics. Education He graduated from Kunitachi High School, in 1976. He obtained his BSc, 1980, his MSc, 1982, and PhD, under Akito Arima, 1985, all from the University of Tokyo. His PhD thesis topic was in the area of theoretical nuclear physics.

#3640

Grzegorz Pojmański

Grzegorz Pojmański

#96922

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Grzegorz Pojmański , is a Polish astronomer and professor at the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, Poland. In 1997 Pojmański together with professor Bohdan Paczyński implemented the project All Sky Automated Survey . With the ASAS Alert System Pojmański discovered two new comets: C/2004 R2 and C/2006 A1 . Pojmański connects with the ASAS automatic telescope located in Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, via Internet.

#3641

Kirill Tolpygo

#53048

Overall Influence

1916 - 1994 (78 years)

Kirill Borisovich Tolpygo was a Soviet physicist and a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was recognized for his works on condensed matter theory; the theory of phonon spectra in crystals; electronic structure and defects in insulatorss and semiconductors; and biophysics. He created the Department of Theoretical Physics and the Department of Biophysics at Donetsk National University. Tolpygo was a teacher, mentor and scientific adviser to graduate students. Tolpygo was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War .

#3642

Giulio Pozzi

#71683

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Giulio Pozzi is an Italian physicist. His research activity was mainly devoted to the development of electron microscopy techniques applied to the study of magnetic and electric fields. Together with Pier Giorgio Merli and Gian Franco Missiroli, he performed a version of the double slit experiment with single electrons.

#3643

Loucas G. Christophorou

#103970

Overall Influence

#3644

Stanton J. Peale

#67188

Overall Influence

1937 - 2015 (78 years)

Stanton Jerrold Peale was an American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, and Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include the geophysical and dynamical properties of planets and exoplanets.

#3645

George Crabtree

George Crabtree

#50357

Overall Influence

1944 - 2023 (79 years)

George William Crabtree was an American physicist known for his highly cited research on superconducting materials and, since 2012, for his directorship of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory.

#3646

M. Jamal Deen

#43453

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Mohamed Jamal Deen is an Indo-Guyanese professor and Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is also the Director of the Micro- and Nano-Systems Laboratory. His research specialty are in the broad areas of electrical engineering and applied physics, for which he was recognized in 2019 by an appointment to the Order of Canada.

#3647

Alan Nunn May

#62342

Overall Influence

1911 - 2003 (92 years)

Alan Nunn May was a British physicist and a confessed and convicted Soviet spy who supplied secrets of British and American atomic research to the Soviet Union during World War II. Early life and education May was the youngest of four children of Walter Frederick Nunn May, a brassfounder, and Mary Annie, née Kendall. He was born in Bedruthan, Park Hill, Moseley, Birmingham, and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham. As a scholarship student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he achieved a first in physics, which led to doctoral studies under Charles Ellis and lectureship at King's College Lo...

#3648

Ronald Ernest Aitchison

#38550

Overall Influence

1921 - 1996 (75 years)

Ronald Ernest Aitchison was an Australian physicist and electronics engineer who contributed to a range of fields and technologies from solid-state devices to satellite imaging. He was born in Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia on 29 December 1921.

#3649

John Harris

#95845

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

John William Harris is an American experimental high energy nuclear physicist and D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics at Yale University. His research interests are focused on understanding high energy density QCD and the quark–gluon plasma created in relativistic collisions of heavy ions. Dr. Harris collaborated on the original proposal to initiate a high energy heavy ion program at Cern in Geneva, Switzerland, has been actively involved in the CERN heavy ion program and was the founding spokesperson for the STAR collaboration at RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S.

#3650

Paul Grannis

#104089

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Paul Dutton Grannis is an American physicist. Grannis received the B. Eng. Phys., with Distinction, from Cornell University in 1961 and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 1965 under the supervision of Owen Chamberlain with thesis Measurement of the Polarization Parameter in Proton-Proton Scattering from 1.7 to 6.1 BeV. Since 1966 Grannis has been at Stony Brook University . He has been a visiting scientist at CERN , Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, University College London and Imperial College London.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions