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).

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List of the most influential people in Physics,

#4051

Sheila Rowan

#72567

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Sheila Rowan is a Scottish physicist and academic, who is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and director of its Institute for Gravitational Research since 2009. She is known for her work in advancing the detection of gravitation waves. In 2016, Rowan was appointed the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Scottish Government.

#4052

John Michael Cornwall

#101407

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

John Michael Cornwall is an American theoretical physicist who does research on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory as well as geophysics and physics of near-space. He is known for the Pinch Technique.

#4053

David Brydges

#62331

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

David Chandos Brydges is a mathematical physicist. Brydges received in 1976 his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan with thesis advisor Paul Federbush and thesis A Linear Lower Bound for Generalized Yukawa Model Field Theories. Brydges was a professor at the University of Virginia and is now a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

#4054

Andreas Stohl

#110863

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

#4055

Richard Bondo Larson

#110872

Overall Influence

#4056

Yang Fujia

#35401

Overall Influence

1936 - 2022 (86 years)

Yang Fujia was a Chinese nuclear physicist. He was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a renowned nuclear physicist and a Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, England. He was President of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China .

#4057

Silke Bühler-Paschen

#40541

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Silke Bühler-Paschen is a German-Austrian solid-state physicist and has been professor for physics at TU Wien, Austria since 2005. Education Bühler-Paschen studied physics at Graz University of Technology and earned her diploma in 1992. In 1995 she earned her PhD with her thesis titled "Electron transport in polymer composites" at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

#4058

Lennart Lindegren

Lennart Lindegren

#85964

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Lennart Lindegren is a member of the staff at Lund Observatory, Sweden, where he obtained his PhD in 1980, and became a full professor of astronomy in 2000. Space astrometry and its various applications has been his main focus in astronomy since 1976. His career has been marked by his continuous involvement in, leadership of, and profound contributions to, ESA's Hipparcos and Gaia missions over their entire duration.

#4059

Carole Mundell

#77754

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Carole Mundell is Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy at the University of Bath. She is an observational astrophysicist who researches cosmic black holes and gamma ray bursts. „We are all natural born physicists."

#4060

Alexander G. Petrov

Alexander G. Petrov

#99837

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Alexander Georgiev Petrov is a Bulgarian professor of physics and a Fellow of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Biography A.G. Petrov was born in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. He has a master's degree in atomic physics from the Sofia University and holds a Ph.D. on liquid crystals from the Institute of Solid State Physics . He has received a Doctor of Sciences degree in 1987, a full Professorship in 1990 and has been elected a Fellow of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 2003.

#4061

Keijo Kajantie

#50813

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Keijo Olavi Kajantie is a Finnish theoretical physicist and Professor and Adjoint Scientist at the Helsinki Institute of Physics. He was Professor of Physics at the University of Helsinki from 1973 to 2008. From 1985 to 1990 he was a Research Professor of the Academy of Finland and he has worked in the CERN Theory Division. He is best known for his contributions to the study of the electroweak and strong interactions at high temperatures, as well as to the field of ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. His research interests include ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions, finite temperature fie...

#4062

U.f. Kocks

#111094

Overall Influence

#4063

Thomas Frauenheim

#111114

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#4064

William Liller

#92993

Overall Influence

1927 - 2021 (94 years)

William Liller was an American astronomer, known for his research on "planetary nebulae, comets, asteroids, magnetic activity in cool stars, the optical identification of X-ray sources, and astro-archaeology."

#4065

Meir Shinitzky

#111121

Overall Influence

#4066

Philip A. Pincus

#111146

Overall Influence

#4067

Pratibha Gai

#37121

Overall Influence

Dame Pratibha Laxman Gai-Boyes is a British microscopist and Professor and Chair of Electron Microscopy and former Director at The York JEOL Nanocentre, Departments of Chemistry and Physics, University of York. She created the atomic-resolution environmental transmission electron microscope and is an outspoken advocate for women with careers in science.

#4068

Richard Liboff

#70734

Overall Influence

1931 - 2014 (83 years)

Richard Lawrence Liboff was an American physicist who authored five books and over 100 other publications in variety of fields, including plasma physics, planetary physics, cosmology, quantum chaos, and quantum billiards.

#4069

Maxwell Irvine

#88822

Overall Influence

1939 - 2012 (73 years)

John Maxwell Irvine was a British theoretical physicist and university administrator, who served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the Aberdeen.

#4070

Anatoliy Koroteyev

#65375

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Anatoliy Sazonovich Koroteyev is a Soviet and Russian theoretical physicist and academic who contributed to the field of rocket engine physics. Biography Koroteyev was born in Baranovo, Moscow Oblast. In 1959, he graduated from S. Ordzhonikidze Moscow Aviation Institute.

#4071

Amanda Bauer

#82039

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Amanda Elaine Bauer is an American professional astronomer and science communicator. She is the Deputy Director and Head of Science and Education at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. She was previously based in Tucson, Arizona, working as Head of Education and Public Outreach at the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. From 2013 to 2016 she was a Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory . Her principal field of research concerns how galaxies form, how they create new stars, and particularly why they suddenly stop creating new stars.

#4072

Zohar Komargodski

#68017

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Zohar Komargodski is an Israeli theoretical physicist who works on quantum field theory, including conformal field theories, gauge theories and supersymmetry. Komargodski received his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute in 2008 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton afterwards. He currently holds a professor position at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University in New York.

#4073

Georgij A. Krasinsky

#101709

Overall Influence

1939 - 2011 (72 years)

Georgij Albertovich Krasinsky was a Russian astronomer active at the Institute of Applied Astronomy, Russian Academy of Science, St Petersburg. He was notable for research on planetary motions and ephemerides.

#4074

Seifallah Randjbar-Daemi

#65066

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Seifallah Randjbar-Daemi is an Iranian theoretical physicist. He is currently an Emeritus Scientist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Education and Academic career Seifallah Randjbar-Daemi received his PhD in 1980 from Imperial College London, University of London, UK. Randjbar-Daemi's contributions are in the area of theoretical high energy physics, quantum field theory, superstring theory, supersymmetry and supergravity theories in all dimensions and cosmology.

#4075

Anna Watts

#85294

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Anna Louise Watts is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam. She studies neutron stars and their thermonuclear explosions. Education Watts was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School. She studied physics at Merton College, Oxford, and graduated with a first class degree from the University of Oxford in 1995. She entered the science stream at the Ministry of Defence on a graduate scheme, where she worked for five years. Watts completed her PhD in physics supervised by in the general relativity group researching neutron stars.

#4076

Nasser N. Peyghambarian

#111298

Overall Influence

#4077

Suzanne Staggs

#106228

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Suzanne T. Staggs is an American physicist who is currently the Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics at Princeton University. Staggs has led the development of numerous cosmic microwave background experiments and is currently the principal investigator of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and founding member of the Simons Observatory . In 2020, Staggs was elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

#4078

Fa-Yueh Wu

#26425

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Fa-Yueh Wu was a Chinese-born theoretical physicist, mathematical physicist, and mathematician who studied and contributed to solid-state physics and statistical mechanics. Life Early stage Born on January 5, 1932, in Shimen County, Hunan Province, Republic of China, with his father, a member of the Legislature, as his fourth child. The temporary capital of the Chiang Kai-shek administration of Nationalist government was placed in Chongqing in December 1938, but before that, in 1937, he evacuated to Chongqing with his father and stepmother and entered an elementary school there. However, due to repeated Bombing of Chongqing, he was unable to settle in one place.

#4079

Max G. Lagally

#96169

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Max Gunter Lagally is Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Professor of Surface Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Education He received his BS 1963, Pennsylvania State University, his MS 1965, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his Ph.D. 1968, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

#4080

Alfred Benninghoven

#94804

Overall Influence

1932 - 2017 (85 years)

Alfred Benninghoven was a German physicist and mass spectrometry researcher known for his work on static secondary ion mass spectrometry. Career and Research Benninghoven graduated from the University of Cologne in 1961 where he worked with Fritz Kirchner and completed his habilitation in surface physics in Cologne two years later. He first worked as professor in Cologne from 1965 to 1973 until he moved to a full professor position in experimental physics at the University of Münster in 1972. He worked on static secondary ion mass spectrometry and its applications, and developed SIMS instruments.

#4081

C. Göran Andersson

#93595

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Claes Göran Andersson , is a Swedish academic. He was a full Professor of Power Systems in the Department of Information Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2010–2016 and is now emeritus. He is a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences , Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , and the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences . He was also elected as an International Member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for contributions to the development of high-voltage direct current technology and methods of power system voltage stab...

#4082

Harriet Dinerstein

#104857

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Harriet Dinerstein is an American astronomer. The American Astronomical Society honored her work by awarding her the Annie J. Cannon Prize in 1985. She also received the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in 1989. Dinerstein received her Bachelor of Science degree from Yale University in 1975 and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1980. She currently is a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin.

#4083

Ali Yazdani

#64151

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Ali Yazdani is an American physicist who focuses on understanding new quantum phases of matter. He is currently the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics at Princeton University and the Director of the Princeton Center for Complex Materials, a material research science and technology center supported by the National Science Foundation. Together with Seamus Davis, he is the recipient of the 2023 Buckley Prize from the American Physical Society.

#4084

Emma Bunce

#94530

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Emma J. Bunce is a British space physicist and Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics at the University of Leicester. She holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. Her research is on the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter. She is principal investigator of the MIXS instrument on BepiColombo, was deputy lead on the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer proposal, and co-investigator on the Cassini–Huygens mission.

#4085

Clarence Max Fowler

#65764

Overall Influence

1918 - 2006 (88 years)

Clarence Max Fowler was an American physicist who worked at Los Alamos between 1952 and 1996. His main contribution was on explosively pumped flux compression generators. Career From 1945 to 1952, Clarence "Max" Fowler did research, successively, at the United States Naval Academy, the University of Michigan, and Kansas State College. He began work for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1952, retiring in 1996. During this period Fowler became the highest Western authority on the research and application of explosively pumped flux compression generators. . In those years, mega-gauss technol...

#4086

Nadine G. Barlow

Nadine G. Barlow

#76907

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Nadine G. Barlow was an American planetary scientist. She was a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northern Arizona University . She became Associate Chair of the NAU Department of Physics and Astronomy in Fall 2010. She was also the director of the Northern Arizona University/NASA Space Grant Program and an associate director of the Arizona Space Grant Consortium.

#4087

Louise Harra

#94479

Overall Influence

Louise Harra is a Northern Irish physicist, born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She is the Director of the World Radiation Centre of the Physical Meteorological Observatory in Davos and affiliated professor at the Institute of Particle Physics and Astrophysics of ETH Zurich.

#4088

Alan Michael Dressler

#111496

Overall Influence

#4089

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino

#68037

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino has been Secretary General of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs since August 2002. He is also Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Milan and Senior Researcher at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics. Cotta-Ramusino is an adjunct Professor, Centre of International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and an Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

#4090

Kenneth Kellermann

#93704

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Kenneth Irwin Kellermann is an American astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He is best known for his work on quasars. He won the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society in 1971, and the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 2014.

#4091

Chin‐fu Tsang

#111537

Overall Influence

#4092

Louis Smullin

#64910

Overall Influence

1916 - 2009 (93 years)

Louis Dijour Smullin was an American electrical engineer who spend most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He is best known for his work with Giorgio Fiocco to measure the distance to the Moon using a ruby laser in 1962, shortly after that device was invented. Earlier, he had worked in the microwave radar field at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and was instrumental in creating the Lincoln Laboratory that carried on this work. Later he worked on developing instrumentation for nuclear fusion research and many other projects. He retired in 1986 but worked in the departmen...

#4093

Yaneer Bar-Yam

#15061

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Yaneer Bar-Yam is an American scientist and activist specializing in complex systems. An expert in the quantitative analysis of pandemics, he advised policy makers on the Western African Ebola virus epidemic and founded EndCoronavirus.org, a global network of several volunteers formed in February 2020 to provide information, guidelines, and policy advocacy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute , an independent research institution that studies complex systems science and its real-world applications.

#4094

Brian Kuhlman

#82668

Overall Influence

Brian A. Kuhlman is an American professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the UNC School of Medicine of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Sloan Research Fellow. Early life Kuhlman obtained Bachelor of Arts degree in chemical physics from Rice University in 1992. From 1993 to 1998 he studied under guidance of Daniel Raleigh to earn his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stony Brook University and from 1999 to 2002 he studied under guidance from David Baker to obtain Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Washington.

#4095

M. Cristina Marchetti

#103135

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Maria Cristina Marchetti is an Italian-born, American theoretical physicist specializing in statistical physics and condensed matter physics. In 2019, she received the Leo P. Kadanoff Prize of the American Physical Society. She held the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professorship of Physics at Syracuse University, where she was the director of the Soft and Living Matter program, and chaired the department 2007–2010. She is currently Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

#4096

Eicke Weber

#86579

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Eicke Richard Weber is a German physicist. Life Scientific activity Weber grew up from 1955 in Cologne, where he also took his Abitur. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Cologne from 1967. After graduating in 1972, he took on an assistant position at the RWTH Aachen and finished his doctorate in physics in 1976 with the topic Point Defects in Deformed Silicon and received his Ph.D. His habilitation followed in 1983 with the topic Transition Metals in Silicon. Weber joined the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkel...

#4097

Jack G. Powles

#111636

Overall Influence

#4098

Ruth Durrer

#97641

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Ruth Durrer is a professor of Cosmology at the University of Geneva. She works on the cosmic microwave background, brane cosmology and massive gravity. Early life and education Durrer was born in Kerns. She earned her high school diploma at Kantonales Lehrerseminar, and studied at the University of Zürich. She completed her PhD on perturbation theory with Norbert Straumann at the University of Zürich in 1988. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge for a year, before joining Princeton University in 1989. Durrer returned to Zürich in 1991, completing a postdoctoral fel...

#4099

Eiichi Fukada

#111698

Overall Influence

#4100

Masayoshi Tonouchi

#111717

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

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