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,
#4751
Anupam Mazumdar
#59588
Overall Influence
Anupam Mazumdar is a theoretical physicist at the University of Groningen specializing in cosmology and quantum gravity. Together with Sougato Bose, Mazumdar has proposed a bonafide test for the existence of the graviton in a table-top experiment, via witnessing gravitationally-mediated entanglement between two macroscopic superpositions of masses. A positive test of this phenomenon would establish experimentally that gravity is quantum mechanical in nature, and establish the existence of the graviton. The test crucially depends on the quantum nature of gravity, creating non-classical states o...
Go to Profile#4752
Marcel Golay
#54356
Overall Influence
1927 - 2015 (88 years)
Marcel Golay was a Swiss astronomer, professor at Geneva University and the eighth director of the Geneva Observatory from 1956 to 1992. Golay was a member of the International Astronomical Union and president of several of its commissions including "Stellar Classification" and "Astronomical Photometry and Polarimetry". In 1991, University of Basel awarded him an honorary professorship. Asteroid 3329 Golay is named after him.
Go to Profile#4753
Hong‐zheng Chen
#122175
Overall Influence
#4754
Naama Barkai
#66388
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Naama Barkai is an Israeli systems biologist and professor for Molecular Genetics and Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization .
Go to Profile#4755
William P. Winfree
#96681
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
William Paul Winfree is an American experimental physicist who is known for his contributions to the field of nondestructive evaluation. Winfree received his B.A. in 1973 from George Mason University, where he graduated magna cum laude and was awarded the department citation as the outstanding undergraduate in mathematics and physics. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from The College of William and Mary in 1975 and 1978, respectively.
Go to Profile#4756
Peter Dunsby
#104402
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Peter Dunsby is a full professor of gravitation and cosmology at the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He was the co-director of the Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre at the university until 2016. He also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Modern Physics.
Go to Profile#4757
James C. Wyant
#89750
Overall Influence
James Clair Wyant is professor at the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona where he was Director and Dean . He received a B.S. in physics from Case Western Reserve University and M.S. and Ph.D. in optics from the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#4758
Reinhard Pippan
#122225
Overall Influence
#4759
Luca Gammaitoni
#69756
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Luca Gammaitoni is a scientist in the area of noise and nonlinear dynamics. He is currently the Director of the Noise in Physical System Laboratory at the Physics Department of the Università di Perugia, in Italy.
Go to Profile#4760
Paul Lecoq
#113080
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Paul Lecoq is a senior physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research , Geneva, Switzerland. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for "contributions to scintillator detectors for high-energy physics and medical imaging".
Go to Profile#4761
Amos Ori
#77627
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Amos Ori is a professor of Physics at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. He received media attention in 2005 when he proposed, in a letter to Physical Review Letters, what he claimed was a more "realistic" model for time travel.
Go to Profile#4762
Xiaoguang Duan
#122278
Overall Influence
#4763
Tomonori Totani
#109212
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Tomonori Totani is a Japanese astronomer, professor at University of Tokyo. He is a director of FastSound Project at Subaru Telescope, Hawaii. He specializes in cosmology, galaxy formation, and high-energy astrophysics.
Go to Profile#4764
R. C. Van Wagoner
#122292
Overall Influence
#4765
Philip J. Wyatt
#86194
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Philip J. Wyatt is the founder and Chairman of Wyatt Technology, located in Santa Barbara, California. He is known for contributions to laser light scattering, more specifically the physics of the inverse scattering problem and for commercializing analytical methods and instruments involving laser light scattering, which are widely used in academia, industry, and government.
Go to Profile#4766
Alexandra Olaya-Castro
#59437
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Alexandra Olaya-Castro is a Colombian-born theoretical physicist, currently a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London. She is also the Vice-Dean for the Mathematical and Physical science Faculty.
Go to Profile#4767
William R. Hendee
#122394
Overall Influence
#4768
Eleonora Troja
#118004
Overall Influence
Eleonora Troja is an Italian astrophysicist. In 2017 she led the discovery of X-ray emission from the gravitational wave source GW170817. Education Troja completed a B.A. in physics and astronomy at University of Palermo in 2002. She completed a thesis, X-ray spectroscopy of He-like ions in optically thin astrophysical plasmas, under supervisor Giovanni Peres. Troja earned a M.Phil. in physics and astronomy at Palermo in 2005 under Fabio Reale. Her graduate thesis was titled XMM-Newton observations of the supernova remnant IC 443: analysis of the thermal X-ray emission. She completed a Ph.D. in physics and astronomy in 2009 under advisor Giancarlo Cusumano.
Go to Profile#4769
Ulf Lindström
#43652
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ulf Lindström is a Swedish theoretical physicist working in the fields of string theory, supersymmetry, and general relativity. He earned his fil. kand. university degree at Stockholm University in 1972 and continued under the supervision of Bertel Laurent with doctoral studies. The title of his PhD thesis was "Extensions of general relativity: scalar tensor theory, topology of space-time and supergravity."
Go to Profile#4770
Ivan Marusic
#106879
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ivan Marusic is an Australian engineer and physicist. He is known for his work on turbulence at high Reynolds number, using both theoretical and experimental approaches. He received his PhD in 1992 and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1987 from the University of Melbourne. From 1998 to 2002 he was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, USA, where he was a recipient of an NSF Career Award, Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and Taylor Career Development Award. He received an ARC Federation Fellowship in 2006, ARC Laureate Fellowship in 2012 and since 2014 is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
Go to Profile#4771
Dieter Neher
#122459
Overall Influence
#4772
Bradley Marc Sherrill
#74183
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Bradley Marc Sherrill is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Michigan State University. Education and career Sherrill obtained his B.A. from Coe College in 1980 and following it earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. After graduation, he joined the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and in 1991 became assistant professor of physics at MSU. He is a director of the NSCL and scientific director at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.
Go to Profile#4773
Robert A. Jenness
#122465
Overall Influence
#4774
Horia-Roman Patapievici
#30228
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Horia-Roman Patapievici is a Romanian physicist and essayist who served as the head of the Romanian Cultural Institute from 2005 until August 2012. Between 2000 and 2005, he was a member of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, supporting more openness regarding the files of the Securitate.
Go to Profile#4775
Nora Berrah
#122463
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nora Berrah is an Algerian physicist who studies how light and matter interact. She is a professor at the University of Connecticut, where she previously was chair of the physics department. Berrah earned a diploma in physics in 1979 from the University of Algiers. She completed her PhD in 1987 from the University of Virginia. She worked from Argonne National Laboratory from 1987 to 1992, and became a professor at Western Michigan University in 1999. She moved to the University of Connecticut in 2014.
Go to Profile#4776
John Martinis
#122475
Overall Influence
#4777
Stefan Nolte
#122482
Overall Influence
#4778
Stephen K. Burley
#83793
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Stephen Kevin Burley is a British-born scientist, naturalized in both Canada and the United States, specializing in oncology and structural biology. He is a University Professor and Henry Rutgers Chair at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Burley directs the RCSB Protein Data Bank , the Center for Integrative Proteomics Research, and the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine.
Go to Profile#4779
Gianluigi Botton
#115978
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gianluigi A. Botton is a French Canadian scientist and engineer. As a Canada Research Chair at McMaster University, he leads the Botton's Group to investigate new materials on the atomic-scale. Early life and education Botton was born in 1963. He completed his Bachelor of Engineering degree in physics and PhD in materials engineering from Polytechnique Montréal. Following his PhD, Botton was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge working under Colin Humphreys from 1993 to 1998. He then joined the Materials Technology Laboratory of Natural Resources Canada in 1998 as a research scientist.
Go to Profile#4780
Arthur Komar
#70427
Overall Influence
1931 - 2011 (80 years)
Arthur Baraway Komar was a theoretical physicist, specializing in general relativity and helping to develop the canonical approach to quantum gravity. Arthur Komar made a significant contribution to physics as an educator, research scientist, and administrator. He had wide interests in numerous other subjects, and his friends knew him as a renaissance man.
Go to Profile#4781
L. Jay Guo
#122529
Overall Influence
#4782
Hans Joachim Specht
#114038
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Hans Joachim Specht is a German experimental particle and nuclear physicist and university professor at the Heidelberg University. Biography Born in Unna, Specht attended the Gymnasium in Kamen and studied physics from 1956 until 1962 at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Technical University of Munich and the ETH Zurich. He received his diploma in 1962 at the TU Muenchen, followed by his doctorate summa cum laude in 1964 with Heinz Maier-Leibnitz on the basis of experiments at the Forschungsreaktor Muenchen . As a postdoc he had a NRC Fellowship at the AECL Nuclear Physics Laboratories in Chalk River in Canada.
Go to Profile#4783
Martin Richardson
#99906
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Martin Richardson is a British-American scientist and Professor of Physics. He is best known for the development of high power lasers, and for their use in understanding laser-induced plasma. Biography Martin Richardson received his B.Sc. in 1964 from Imperial College London. He completed his Ph.D. at London University in 1966, and he completed postdoctoral training Culham Laboratory. Professor Richardson worked at the National Research Council until 1979 when he joined the University of Rochester. In 1990, he moved to the University of Central Florida with appointments as a Professor of Physics and as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Go to Profile#4784
Fumio Koyama
#122567
Overall Influence
#4785
Xie Shengwu
#96130
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Xie Shengwu is a Chinese physicist who served as President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 1997 to 2006. Xie was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. From 1960 to 1966, he studied in the department of engineering physics at SJTU, majoring in nuclear reactors. From 1966 to 1970, he was a teaching assistant in the physics teaching office at SJTU. Xie later became a teaching assistant and vice director of the laser research lab. From 1978 to 1981, he studied optics in the department of applied physics at SJTU and obtained a master's degree. From 1981 to 1991, Xie was elevated to a full professor of physics, and later served as the chair of the physics department.
Go to Profile#4786
Bengt U. Ö. Sonnerup
#122585
Overall Influence
#4787
Sergei Alexandrovich Zhevakin
#91370
Overall Influence
1916 - 2001 (85 years)
Sergei Alexandrovich Zhevakin was a Russian astronomer. Zhevakin is credited for identifying ionized helium as the valve for the heat engine that drives the pulsation of Cepheid variable stars. Early life and education S. A. Zhevakin was born on April 11, 1916, in Moscow. The family moved to Nizhny Novgorod in the late 1920s. Zhevakin graduated from N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod in 1939, and, after two years of working at various local factories, entered a graduate program in 1941. However, because of the invasion of Nazi Germany, he was conscripted into the army in July 1941, where he served with distinction until January 1946.
Go to Profile#4788
Manfred K. A. Thumm
#122608
Overall Influence
#4789
Alexander Szameit
#112333
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Alexander Szameit is a German physicist working in experimental solid-state optics. Biography Szameit studied physics at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and the University of Jena, graduating in 2004. Following that, from 2004 to 2007 he pursued a doctoral degree at the University of Jena, graduating with the highest honor of "summa cum laude". From 2009 he worked at the Technion in Haifa as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Mordechai Segev. In 2011 he returned to the University of Jena as a junior professor and acquired his habilitation in 2015. Since 2016, he is a professor at the University of Rostock, where he leads the Experimental Solid-state Optics group.
Go to Profile#4790
Bruno. Morosin
#122656
Overall Influence
#4791
Michael Hochberg
#43794
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michael Hochberg is an American physicist. He’s authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, has founded several companies, and has been an inventor on over 60 patents. Hochberg's research interests include silicon photonics and large-scale photonic integration. He has worked in a number of application areas, including data communications, biosensing, quantum optics, mid-infrared photonics, optical computing, and machine learning. Much of his work in silicon photonics has been the product of a longstanding series of collaborations with Thomas Baehr-Jones.
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Stephen A. Fulling
#72591
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Stephen Albert Fulling is an American mathematician and mathematical physicist, specializing in the mathematics of quantum theory, general relativity, and the spectral and asymptotic theory of differential operators. He is known for preliminary work that led to the discovery of the hypothetical Unruh effect .
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David G. Turner
#98375
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
David G. Turner is a Canadian astronomer and professor in the department of astronomy and physics at Saint Mary's University. Early life and education Turner was born in Toronto in 1945. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo, followed by a Master of Science and PhD from the University of Western Ontario.
Go to Profile#4794
David B. Williams
#81065
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
David Bernard Williams was the dean of the College of Engineering at the Ohio State University from 2011-2021. He was previously the fifth president of the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama from March 2007 until April 2011, and Vice Provost for Research and Harold Chambers Senior Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#4795
Matti Juhani Pitkänen
#122786
Overall Influence
#4796
Massimiliano Di Ventra
#122792
Overall Influence
#4797
Pierre Meystre
#122809
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#4798
Louis Michel
#107038
Overall Influence
1923 - 1999 (76 years)
Louis Michel was a French mathematical physicist at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques . He was born in Roanne, in the Loire department in central France, on 4 May 1923, and died in Bures-sur-Yvette , in the Île-de-France region, on 30 December 1999.
Go to Profile#4799
Stephen Wiggins
#44758
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Stephen Ray Wiggins is a Cherokee-American applied mathematics researcher and distinguished educator, also of British heritage, best known for his contributions in nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory and nonlinear phenomena. His wide contributions include Lagrangian aspects of fluid dynamics and reaction dynamics in theoretical chemistry.
Go to Profile#4800
Ricardo A. Broglia
#122825
Overall Influence
