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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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Physics,

#4301

Victor V. Flambaum

#114868

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

#4302

Gunzi Saito

#114899

Overall Influence

#4303

Shuichi Nosé

#30442

Overall Influence

1951 - 2005 (54 years)

was a Japanese physicist. Nosé is best known for his two 1984 papers in which he proposed a method to specify the temperature of molecular dynamics simulations. This method was later improved by William G. Hoover and is known as the Nosé–Hoover thermostat.

#4304

James A. Krumhansl

#70842

Overall Influence

1919 - 2004 (85 years)

James Arthur Krumhansl was an American physicist who specialized in condensed matter physics and materials science. He spent much of his career at Cornell University. He also served as president of the American Physical Society and assistant director for mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering for the National Science Foundation. In 1987 he testified before Congress that the Superconducting Super Collider would be too costly.

#4305

Neil J. Gunther

Neil J. Gunther

#14573

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Neil Gunther is a computer information systems researcher best known internationally for developing the open-source performance modeling software Pretty Damn Quick and developing the Guerrilla approach to computer capacity planning and performance analysis. He has also been cited for his contributions to the theory of large transients in computer systems and packet networks, and his universal law of computational scalability.

#4306

Petr Paucek

#92442

Overall Influence

Petr Paucek is a Czech-born biophysicist and biomedical researcher and an associate professor of biology at Portland State University. Early life and education Paucek attended the Academy of Science at Prague, where he obtained doctorates in biophysics and physiology, and later trained at the Medical College of Ohio and the Oregon Health & Science University. He relocated from Oregon to Maine in 2005 to conduct research at the Thomas M. Teague Biotechnology Center in Fairfield.

#4307

Cinna Lomnitz

#24132

Overall Influence

1925 - 2016 (91 years)

Cinna Lomnitz Aronsfrau was a Chilean-Mexican geophysicist known for his contributions in the fields of rock mechanics and seismology. Early life and education Lomnitz was born to a Jewish family in Cologne, Germany. He graduated as engineer from the University of Chile in 1948. He then studied with Karl von Terzaghi in Harvard University and obtained a Master's degree in soil mechanics.

#4308

Pierre Gaspard

#84182

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Pierre Gaspard is a Belgian physicist and professor at the Interdisciplinary Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems and the Service de Physique Non-Linéaire and Mécanique Statistique of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles . His research interests are on nonlinear physics, statistical physics, and chemical physics.

#4309

Kennedy J. Reed

#68773

Overall Influence

Kennedy J. Reed is an American theoretical atomic physicist in the Theory Group in the Physics & Advanced Technologies Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a founder of the National Physical Science Consortium , a group of about 30 universities that provides physics fellowships for women and minorities.

#4310

Emily Rice

#81980

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Emily Rice is an astronomy professor at the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York. In addition to her scientific contributions to the study of the atmospheric properties of low mass astronomical bodies, she has become well known for her astronomy-related public outreach projects. She is the co-founder of the astro-centric fashion shop STARtorialist, a host for the public outreach series Astronomy on Tap, a parody video creator, and a current research associate for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She has appeared as a guest on the popular podcast StarTalk , and was a host for their spinoff show, StarTalk All-Stars.

#4311

Rebecca Elson

#70918

Overall Influence

1960 - 1999 (39 years)

Rebecca Anne Wood Elson was a Canadian–American astronomer and writer. Early life and education Rebecca "Becky" Anne Wood Elson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Jeanne Bridgman, née Hickey and John Albert Elson , a geologist and professor at McGill University. Her older sister, Sally was born in 1958. As a teenager Elson often travelled Canada with her geologist father as he performed field research.

#4312

Sandro Stringari

#111334

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Sandro Stringari is an Italian theoretical physicist, who has contributed to the theory of quantum many-body physics, including atomic nuclei, quantum liquids and ultra-cold atomic Bose and Fermi gases. He has developed in a systematic way the sum rule approach to the collective behavior of interacting systems.

#4313

Raoul Gatto

#115135

Overall Influence

#4314

Christoph Cremer

#38079

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Christoph Cremer is a German physicist and emeritus at the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, former honorary professor at the University of Mainz and was a former group leader at Institute of Molecular Biology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, who has successfully overcome the conventional limit of resolution that applies to light based investigations by a range of different methods . In the meantime, according to his own statement, Christoph Cremer is a member of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.

#4315

Daniela Bortoletto

Daniela Bortoletto

#96033

Overall Influence

Daniela Bortoletto is an Italian high energy physicist, head of Particle Physics at the University of Oxford and Nicholas Kurti Senior Research Fellow in Physics at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. She works in silicon detector development and was a co-discoverer of both the Higgs boson and the top quark.

#4316

Glenn White

#33228

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Glenn J. White is Professor of Astronomy at the Open University, UK, and Research Group Leader of the Astronomy Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He carries out research on star formation and on exoplanets.

#4317

Alim‐louis Benabid

#115183

Overall Influence

#4318

Kathrin Altwegg

#77644

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Kathrin Altwegg is an astrophysicist, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Space Research and Planetology, and former director of the at the University of Bern. She is a member of the International Astronomical Union.

#4319

John Wheater

#88749

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

John Feather Wheater is a British physicist, and Professor specialising in particle physics at the University of Oxford. Education Wheater was educated at the University of Oxford where he read Physics at Christ Church, Oxford, during 1976–79, graduating with a first class degree, also winning the Scott Prize for Physics. He undertook a DPhil degree on electroweak radiative corrections, supervised by Chris Llewellyn Smith during 1979–81.

#4320

Wim van Saarloos

#62199

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Wim van Saarloos is a Dutch physicist, academic and researcher. He is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Leiden University Van Saarloos has written over 280 papers and has been cited over 12000 times. His research interests include Statistical Physics, non-equilibrium pattern formation and soft condensed matter physics. He has also done work on Front propagation into unstable states.

#4321

Alexander Tielens

Alexander Tielens

#78461

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Alexander Godfried Gerardus Maria Tielens is an astronomer at Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, in the Netherlands. In 2012 he received the highest distinction in Dutch science, the Spinoza Prize.

#4322

Rudolf Podgornik

Rudolf Podgornik

#102667

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Rudolf Podgornik is a physicist. His fields of research are: physics of soft matter, physics of Coulomb fluids, physics of macromolecular interactions, Lifshitz theory of Casimir - van der Waals dispersion interaction, Casimir effect, physics of membranes, polymers and polyelectrolytes and physics of DNA, RNA and viruses.

#4323

Katsuyoshi Nishinari

#115345

Overall Influence

#4324

Hidetsugu Ikegami

#107834

Overall Influence

Hidetsugu Ikegami is a Japanese physicist. He is Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Physics at Osaka University, where he has been director of the Research Center for Nuclear Physics and organized and chaired international symposia.

#4325

N. Michael Green

#115376

Overall Influence

#4326

Lawrence R. Hafstad

#55337

Overall Influence

1904 - 1993 (89 years)

Lawrence Randolph Hafstad was an American electrical engineer and physicist notable for his pioneering work on nuclear reactors and development of proximity fuzes. In 1939, he created the first nuclear fission reaction in the United States.

#4327

Thomas W. Baumgarte

#114133

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Thomas W. Baumgarte is a German physicist specializing in the numerical simulation of compact objects in general relativity. Career Baumgarte completed his BSc in 1992 at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and his PhD in 1995 also at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He worked as a postdoc at Cornell University and University of Illinois and is currently a professor of physics at Bowdoin College. He is the author of over 65 articles about general relativity and astrophysics . In 2010, along with Stuart L. Shapiro, he published a book on numerical relativity. In 2012, he received t...

#4328

Cornelia Denz

#91229

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Cornelia Denz is a German Professor of Physics at the University of Münster. She works in nonlinear optics and nanophotonics, and is a Fellow of The Optical Society and The European Optical Society.

#4329

Robert Malcolm Simmons

#110100

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Robert Malcolm Simmons FRS was Director of the Medical Research Council Muscle and Cell Motility Unit from 1991 to 2003 and the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics at King's College London from 1995 to 2001.

#4330

Elizabeth Lada

#81794

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Elizabeth Lada is an American astronomer whose self-described research interests include "understanding the origin, properties, evolution and fate of young embedded clusters within molecular clouds".

#4331

Wolfram Weise

#115475

Overall Influence

#4332

Bennie Ward

#90328

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Bennie Franklin Leon Ward is a theoretical particle physicist at Baylor University in Texas, US. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is currently co-editor-in-chief of The Open Nuclear and Particle Physics Journal.

#4333

Richard McCray

#110021

Overall Influence

1937 - 2021 (84 years)

Richard Alan McCray was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. McCray received his B.S. in physics from Stanford University in 1959 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1967 from the University of California, Los Angeles with thesis advisor Peter Goldreich. McCray was a research fellow at Caltech from 1967 to 1968 and then an assistant professor at Harvard University from 1968 to 1971. At the department of astrophysical and planetary sciences of the University of Colorado Boulder, he was from 1971 to 1975 an associate professor, from 1975 to 1997 a full professor, from 1997 to 2004 the George Gamow Distinguished Professor Astrophysics, and from 2004 to 2013 a professor emeritus.

#4334

Jay Paul Boris

#115511

Overall Influence

#4335

Ni Wei-tou

#111192

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Ni Wei-tou is a Taiwanese physicist, who graduated from the Department of Physics of National Taiwan University , and got his PhD of Physics & Mathematics from California Institute of Technology. After his retirement on 1 October 2000, he is now appointed as a professor emeritus of the Department of Physics of National Tsing Hua University at Hsinchu, Taiwan, since 2006.

#4336

Stephen Kevan

#77709

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Stephen Douglas Kevan is an American condensed matter physicist who researches "surface and thin film physics; electronic structure and collective excitations at surfaces; nanoscale spatial and temporal fluctuations in magnetic and other complex materials". He is the current director of the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. He is also a faculty member on leave from the University of Oregon and served as division deputy for science at the ALS prior to his directorship.

#4337

Duncan G. Steel

Duncan G. Steel

#74029

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Duncan G. Steel is an American experimental physicist, researcher and professor in quantum optics in condensed matter physics. He is the Robert J. Hiller Professor of Electrical Engineering, Professor of Physics, Professor of Biophysics, and Research Professor in the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan. Steel is also a Guggenheim Scholar and a Fellow of American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He coedited the five-volume series on the Encyclopedia of Modern Optics.

#4338

Mrinal Kumar Das Gupta

Mrinal Kumar Das Gupta

#70154

Overall Influence

1923 - 2005 (82 years)

Mrinal Kumar Das Gupta FNI was an Indian astronomer. He was born in erstwhile Barishal district in present-day Bangladesh. He received his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Physics from Dhaka University in 1944 and 1945 respectively. Later he joined the department of Radio Physics and Electronics of the University of Calcutta as a researcher.

#4339

Colin Webb

#93439

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Colin Edward Webb is a British physicist and former professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in lasers. Education Webb was educated at the University of Nottingham and Oriel College, Oxford .

#4340

Paul Frederick Zweifel

#115589

Overall Influence

#4341

Vytenis Marija Vasyliunas

#115628

Overall Influence

#4342

Shirley Ho

#93110

Overall Influence

Shirley Ho is an American astrophysicist and machine learning expert, currently at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at Flatiron Institute in NYC and at the New York University and the Carnegie Mellon University. Ho also has visiting appointment at Princeton University.

#4343

David B. Cline

#110812

Overall Influence

1933 - 2015 (82 years)

] David Bruce Cline was an American particle physicist known for his contributions to the discovery of the Higgs boson and the W and Z intermediate bosons. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he went on to join the university's physics faculty and founded the "Pheno Group". Shorthand for phenomenology, the group consisted of particle physicists designing and running experiments alongside developing theoretical models that went beyond the current standard model of particle physics. He later moved to UCLA where he became a Distinguished Professor of Physics & Ast...

#4344

Merle Gold

#89334

Overall Influence

1921 - 2017 (96 years)

Merle Eleanor Gold was an American astrophysicist, best known for her study of the Sun with Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Early life and education Merle Gold was born on 7 March 1921 and grew up in Rochester, Minnesota to Nathaniel and Eleanor Tuberg. She graduated high school in 1939 as Valedictorian of her class. She trained as a medical secretary at Mayo Clinic for two years before undertaking her undergraduate degree at University of Chicago. After graduating, she went on to complete her PhD in astrophysics under Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar at Yerkes Observatory. Her thesis w...

#4345

Andrzej Sobolewski

#51046

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Andrzej Sobolewski is a Polish physicist and academic working at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Foundation for Polish Science as well as a member of the National Science Centre.

#4346

K. A. Jun. Gschneidner

#115745

Overall Influence

#4347

Luciano Guerriero

#108703

Overall Influence

Luciano Guerriero is an Italian physicist. He earned his degree in physics at University of Padua in 1952 and is now based in Bari University. Between 1988 and 1992 He headed the Italian Space Agency and has set up programs of collaboration with NASA such as the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn.

#4348

Peter A. Bandettini

#115753

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

#4349

David H. Weinberg

#115799

Overall Influence

#4350

James Stone

#94510

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

James McLellan Stone is an American astrophysicist who specialises in the study of fluid dynamics. He is currently a faculty member at the school of natural sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study. Stone is also the Lyman Spitzer Jr. Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, emeritus, and professor of astrophysical sciences and applied and computational mathematics, emeritus, at Princeton University.

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