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 …

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School

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List of the most influential people

#1851

Anton Burg

#86968

Overall Influence

1904 - 2003 (99 years)

Anton Behme Burg was an American chemist. He was chairman of the University of Southern California chemistry department and an expert on boron. Burg joined USC in 1939 as an assistant professor. He built up USC's chemistry department, making it one of the best chemistry departments in the United States by the 1950s. Burg retired in 1974.

#1852

S. Waters Fox

#87037

Overall Influence

#1853

Richard G. Folsom

Richard G. Folsom

#87066

Overall Influence

1907 - 1996 (89 years)

Richard Gilman Folsom was an American mechanical engineer, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and the twelfth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also known as the 91st president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the year 1972–73.

#1854

Roger Noll

#87067

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Roger Noll is an American economist and emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University. He is also a fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the director of the Program in Regulatory Policy there. He is known for his research on sports economics, such as the construction of professional sports stadiums. He has testified against the NCAA in multiple court cases, including O'Bannon v. NCAA. In 1983, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in economics.

#1855

Gerard Parkin

#87154

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (66 years)

Gerard "Ged" F. R. Parkin is a professor of chemistry at Columbia University. Biography Gerard Parkin attended the English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College before working under Malcolm Green during both his undergraduate and graduate studies at Queens College of Oxford University. His work involved exploring the chemistry of tungsten phosphine derivatives. He obtained a post-doctoral position at the California Institute of Technology working with Professor John Bercaw on tungstenocene reactivity. In 1988, Ged joined the faculty at Columbia University, where he currently investigates a...

#1856

Jillian Lee Dempsey

Jillian Lee Dempsey

#87217

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Jillian Lee Dempsey is an American inorganic chemist and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, her work focuses on proton-coupled electron transfer, charge transfer events, and quantum dots. She is the recipient of numerous awards for rising stars of chemistry, including most recently a 2016 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a 2016 Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program .

#1857

James Burke

#87252

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (100 years)

James Donahue Burke was an American lunar settlement and exploration expert. He was known for being the first manager of the Ranger program, and considered one of the pioneers of America's space program.

#1858

Markus J Buehler

#87262

Overall Influence

#1859

Joshua Bloom

#87307

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (51 years)

Joshua Simon Bloom is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and was the CTO and co-founder of the machine-learning company wise.io . He received a Bachelor of Arts in astronomy and astrophysics and physics from the Harvard College in 1996, an M.Phil from Cambridge University in 1997, and a PhD in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 2002. He was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2002 to 2005. He was the chair of the Astronomy Department at UC Berkeley from 2020 to 2023. His astronomy research...

#1860

Michael K. Moe

#87311

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (88 years)

Michael K. Moe is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics and nuclear physics. He is known his role in 1987 in the direct detection of two neutrino double beta decay in 82Se.

#1861

Egidio Longo

#87429

Overall Influence

#1862

Melvin I. Simon

#87444

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (88 years)

Melvin Isaac Simon is an American molecular biologist, molecular geneticist, and microbiologist. Biography After secondary education at Manhattan's Yeshiva University High School for Boys, he graduated in 1959 with a B.S. from City College of New York and in 1963 with a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. From 1963 to 1965 he was a postdoc at Princeton University. From 1965 to 1982 he was a faculty member of the biology department of the University of California, San Diego . In 1982 he and UCSD professor John Abelson founded the Agouron Institute. In 1982 Simon and Abelson both moved to California Institute of Technology .

#1863

David J. Smith

#87504

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (77 years)

David J. Smith is a Regents' Professor of physics at Arizona State University. He is an Australian experimental physicist and his research is focussed on using the electron microscope to study the microstructure of different materials. He is a pioneer in high-resolution relectron microscopy technique and is very well known in his field. His interests are focused on thin films, nanostructures, novel materials and magnetism.

#1864

Francis Nimmo

#87536

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (54 years)

Francis Nimmo is a Professor of Planetary Science at the University of California Santa Cruz. Biography Education Nimmo attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geological Sciences from St John's College, Cambridge University, in 1993 and completed his Ph.D. on Volcanism and Tectonics on Venus from Cambridge in 1996.

#1865

Ashish Goel

#87561

Overall Influence

Ashish Goel is an American professor whose research focuses on the design, analysis and applications of algorithms. He is a professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Early life and early education Ashish Goel was born in Uttar Pradesh in India. He did his schooling at Uttar Pradesh including at St. Peter's, Agra. He was ranked first in IIT JEE 1990. He graduated with a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur in 1994. He then went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1999.

#1866

Leroy S. Fletcher

Leroy S. Fletcher

#87562

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (89 years)

Leroy Stevenson Fletcher is an American mechanical and aerospace engineer, and college dean, who served as the 104th president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1985–86, and was recipient of the 2002 ASME Medal.

#1867

Leonard Feldman

#87603

Overall Influence

Leonard Cecil Feldman is an American materials physicist. He gained his B.A. degree in 1961 from Drew University and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1967. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, working on semiconductor materials physics. In 1996 he assumed the position of Stevenson Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University and Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

#1868

Jack Edward Baldwin

#87660

Overall Influence

#1869

Peter Michelson

#87797

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Peter F. Michelson is an American physicist who focuses on high energy astrophysics, particularly X-ray and gamma-ray observations and instrument development. He is currently the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University.

#1870

Tapio Schneider

#87807

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (53 years)

Tapio Schneider is a climate scientist and a professor of environmental science and engineering at the California Institute of Technology. His research is focused on understanding how the turbulent dynamics of the atmosphere, from clouds to large-scale weather systems, shape Earth's climate. Ultimately, his goal is to develop a set of physical laws that govern climate.

#1871

Kenneth H. Nealson

#87840

Overall Influence

#1872

Richard A. Webb

#87918

Overall Influence

1946 - 2016 (70 years)

Richard A. Webb was an experimental solid-state physicist who is particularly noted for his work on the electronic properties of mesoscopic systems. Life Richard Webb received his BSc degree from UC Berkeley and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UC San Diego . Between 1978 and 1993 he was researcher at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. From 1993 to 2004 he was a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he worked at the Center for Superconductivity Research. Starting 2004, he was a professor at the University of South Carolina.

#1873

William H. Parker

#87952

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (84 years)

William H. Parker is an American professor of physics and academic administrator at the University of California, Irvine . Parker's earliest laboratory research involved seminal experiments that refined the precision of the measurements of fundamental constants. His later research focused on superconductors and other aspects of solid-state physics. In an administrative capacity at UCI, Parker has served in a variety of roles including as Dean, Department Chair, and Vice Chancellor.

#1874

Andrew N. Cleland

#87960

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (64 years)

Andrew N. Cleland is an American physicist, and is currently the John A. MacLean Sr. Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago.

#1875

Stephen Harvey

#88114

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Stephen C. Harvey is a structural biologist with research interest in nucleic acids, the ribosome, virus structure and high density lipoprotein. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and professor emeritus and Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar emeritus in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. Harvey did his undergraduate work at the University of California , where he received his A.B. degree in physics. In the 1960s, he worked as a rocket test engineer on the A...

#1876

Helen Caines

#88145

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Helen Louise Caines is a Professor of Physics at Yale University. She studies the quark–gluon plasma and is the co-spokesperson for the STAR experiment. Education Caines studied physics at the University of Birmingham and graduated in 1992. She earned her PhD at the University of Birmingham in 1996.

#1877

Tod R. Lauer

#88147

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

Tod R. Lauer is an American astronomer on the research staff of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. He was a member of the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera team, and is a founding member of the Nuker Team. His research interests includes observational searches for massive black holes in the centers of galaxies, the structure of elliptical galaxies, stellar populations, large-scale structure of the universe, and astronomical image processing. He was the Principal Investigator of the Destiny JDEM concept study, one of the precursors to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission.

#1878

David B. Bogy

#88162

Overall Influence

#1879

Suzanne Smrekar

#88210

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Suzanne E. Smrekar is an American geophysicist and Deputy Principal Investigator for the Mars InSight lander and the principal investigator for the planned VERITAS space probe to Venus. Background Smrekar obtained her B.S. degree in geophysics and mathematics from Brown University in 1984, and her doctorate in geophysics from Southern Methodist University in 1990. She was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT before joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1992.

#1880

John Reginald Richardson

#88241

Overall Influence

1912 - 1997 (85 years)

John Reginald Richardson was a Canadian-American physicist and one of the dominant figures in cyclotron development. His many achievements include participation in the first demonstration of phase stability, the development of the first synchrocyclotron and the first sector-focused cyclotron.

#1881

Fredn C. Anson

#88292

Overall Influence

#1882

Harry Rubin

#88340

Overall Influence

#1883

Ivan Georgiev Petrov

Ivan Georgiev Petrov

#88346

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (76 years)

Ivan Georgiev Petrov is a Bulgarian-American physicist, specializing in thin films, surface science, and methods of characterization of materials. His research and scientific contributions have been described as having an "enormous impact on the hard-coatings community". Petrov was the president of the American Vacuum Society for 2015.

#1884

Leonard Searle

#88363

Overall Influence

1930 - 2010 (80 years)

Leonard Searle was an English-born American astronomer who worked on theories of the Big Bang. He was born in Mitcham, a suburb of London, and studied at St Andrews in Scotland and Princeton in New Jersey. After receiving his doctorate he started working at the University of Toronto in 1953, leaving in 1960 for the California Institute of Technology. In 1963 he moved to Australia for a post at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, before settling finally at the Carnegie observatories in Pasadena, California, in 1968. In 1989 he became director of the Carnegie Observatories. In 1996 University of War...

#1885

Theresa M. Reineke

#88511

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (53 years)

Theresa M. Reineke is an American chemist and Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. She designs sustainable, environmentally friendly polymer-based delivery systems for targeted therapeutics. She is the associate editor of ACS Macro Letters.

#1886

Edray Herber Goins

#88597

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (53 years)

Edray Herber Goins is an American mathematician. He specializes in number theory and algebraic geometry. His interests include Selmer groups for elliptic curves using class groups of number fields, Belyi mapss and Dessin d'enfants.

#1887

John H. Smith

#88629

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

John Howard Smith is an American mathematician and retired professor of mathematics at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963, under the supervision of Kenkichi Iwasawa. In voting theory, he is known for the Smith set, the smallest nonempty set of candidates such that, in every pairwise matchup between a member and a non-member, the member is the winner by majority rule, and for the Smith criterion, a property of certain election systems in which the winner is guaranteed to belong to the Smith set. He has also made contributions to spectra...

#1888

Eric G. Adelberger

#88707

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (87 years)

Eric George Adelberger is an American experimental nuclear physicist and gravitational metrologist. Biography He graduated from Washington-Lee High School , and then matriculated at California Institute of Technology , where he was inspired by Richard Feynman. At Caltech Adelberger graduated in 1960 with a B.S. and in 1967 with a Ph.D. under the supervision of Charles A. Barnes . As a postdoc Adelberger was from 1967 to 1968 a research fellow at Caltech and from 1968 to 1969 a research associate at Stanford University. From 1969 to 1971 he was an assistant professor at Princeton University. A...

#1889

Monica Anderson

#88778

Overall Influence

Monica Anderson is an American computer scientist who is an associate professor of Computer Science at the University of Alabama. Anderson works on robotics, with a focus on multi-agent systems, multi-robot systems, and user interfaces. Anderson received the UPE Excellence in Instruction Award in 2008, and co-organized the AAAI 2008 Workshop on Mobility and Manipulation at the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

#1890

Ray M. Bowen

#88819

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (89 years)

Raymond Morris Bowen is an American academic. He served as the 21st president of Texas A&M University from 1994 until 2002. He served as Interim President of Oklahoma State University from 1993 until 1994, and Provost and VP for Academic Affairs at OSU from 1991 until 1993. He was Dean of Engineering at the University of Kentucky from 1983 until 1989. At The University of Kentucky, he also served as Director of the Center for Robotics and Manufacturing Systems and Director of the Center for Applied Energy Research. Bowen was Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Rice University from 1972 unti...

#1891

Aaron Fenster

#88883

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Aaron Fenster is a medical physicist at the University of Western Ontario Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario, Canada. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to medical imaging and three-dimensional ultrasound-guided interventions. He is also a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and co-program director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Imaging Program. He holds Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and received further training at the Ontario Cancer Institute.

#1892

Julia R. Greer

#88970

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (50 years)

Julia Rosolovsky Greer is a materials scientist and is the Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology . As of 2019, Greer is also the director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.

#1893

Robert Arns

#89010

Overall Influence

Robert George Arns , was an American experimental physicist working in nuclear and particle physics, and also an historian of physics, technology, and electrical history. Arns was a professor and for eight years vice president of academic affairs at the University of Vermont. He was a principal in the management consulting firm Arns & Green, Inc. He was also an accomplished painter, specializing most recently in works inspired by images from the Hubble Space Telescope. He had a Ph.D. in nuclear and particle physics from the University of Michigan.

#1894

Julie S. Biteen

#89040

Overall Influence

Julie Biteen is a Canadian-born American chemist who is professor of chemistry and biophysics at the University of Michigan. Her research considers the development of imaging systems for biological systems. She was named the Stanford University Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecturer in 2021.

#1895

Erick Jones

#89056

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Dr. Erick Christopher Jones Sr. is dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, joining the college in September 2022. Jones is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among other organizations, and is a former senior science advisor in the Office of the Chief Economist at U.S. State Department. In addition to his experience in academia and government, Jones has worked in the private sector as an industrial engineer, director of engineering, consultant and project manager and executive manager.

#1896

Graeme Stephens

Graeme Stephens

#89093

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Graeme Leslie Stephens is director of the center for climate sciences at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and professor of earth observation the University of Reading.

#1897

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...

#1898

Peter Kalmus

#89415

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (51 years)

Peter Kalmus is an American scientist and writer based in Altadena, California. He is a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an associate project scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering.

#1899

Nicholas Krall

#89489

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (93 years)

Nicholas Krall is an American theoretical plasma physicist. Dr Krall has authored over 160 science publications and has contributed to the fields of electron scattering, plasma stability, high energy nuclear physics and magnetohydrodynamics. He has worked at General Atomics, the University of California, San Diego, the Naval Research Laboratory and University of Maryland.

#1900

Larry Katz

#89601

Overall Influence

1956 - 2005 (49 years)

Lawrence C. Katz was an American neurobiologist. He was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab was located in Duke University Medical Center, where he was the James B. Duke Professor of Neurobiology.

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