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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School

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List of the most influential people

#2251

Lawrence Lidsky

#106781

Overall Influence

1936 - 2002 (66 years)

Lawrence Mark Lidsky was a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Lidsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 15, 1935. He did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, graduating in 1958, and earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1962 with a thesis entitled "Plasma Generation and Acceleration", after which he joined the MIT faculty.

#2252

José María Kenny

#106874

Overall Influence

#2253

Peter C. Ford

#106923

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (84 years)

#2254

Michael D. Waterfield

#106955

Overall Influence

#2255

Jerry Goldstein

#106988

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Jerry Goldstein is a space physicist whose research has focused on the Earth's plasmasphere, a high-altitude extension of the ionized portion of the planet's upper atmosphere. During the years 2002–2005 he published a series of papers on the density structure and global dynamics of the plasmasphere.

#2256

Beverley McKeon

#107021

Overall Influence

Beverley J. McKeon is a physicist and aerospace engineer specializing in fluid dynamics, and in particular in turbulent flows near walls. She was Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. Currently she is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.

#2257

Sabrina Stierwalt

#107095

Overall Influence

Sabrina Stierwalt is an American extragalactic astrophysicist who studies gas dynamics and the formation and evolution of galaxies through surveys utilizing x-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, submillimeter, and radio wavelengths. She is experienced in science communication and advocating for equality and equity for underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

#2258

Robert O'Handley

#107129

Overall Influence

1942 - 2013 (71 years)

Robert O'Handley was a professor and research scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received an MS and PhD at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. O'Handley authored many books.

#2259

Geoffrey E. Coates

#107134

Overall Influence

1917 - 2013 (96 years)

Geoffrey Edward Coates was an English organometallic chemist and academic. He developed the basics for new materials in plastics, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. During his career, he was a professor at Durham University, the University of Bristol, and head of the chemistry department at the University of Wyoming. Coates is known for contributions to the organometallic chemistry of beryllium, as well as authorship of the seminal textbook Organometallic Compounds.

#2260

Max Wyman

#107141

Overall Influence

1916 - 1991 (75 years)

Max Wyman was a Canadian mathematician and academic administrator. He served as president of the University of Alberta from 1969 to 1974. He was educated at the University of Alberta and California Institute of Technology . He rejoined his alma mater in 1943, the University of Alberta as a lecturer, and became a professor in 1956. In 1961, he was chair of the Department of Mathematics, and from 1963 to 1965 was the Dean of Science. He was named Vice President of the university in 1964, and became president in 1969. He was the first former student of the University to become president. Wyman...

#2261

Bernd Berg

#107209

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (76 years)

Bernd A. Berg is the emeritus Dirac Professor of Physics at the Florida State University. His multicanonical approach to computer simulations is popular in structural biology. He is also author of a computational physics textbook, Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulations and Their Statistical Analysis. In 2008, he was chosen to receive Germany's Humboldt Research Award, given to outstanding academics who are at the peak of their careers. Among other honors, Berg was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004 and was awarded the Leibniz Professorship of Leipzig University in 2005.

#2262

David Ginger

#107286

Overall Influence

David S. Ginger is an American physical chemist. He is the B. Seymour Rabinovitch Endowed Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. He is also a Washington Research Foundation distinguished scholar, and chief scientist of the University of Washington Clean Energy Institute. In 2018, he was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for his work on the microscopic investigation of materials for thin-film semiconductors. He was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, and was a 2016 National Finalist of the Blavatnik Awards for Y...

#2263

Adam S. Veige

#107296

Overall Influence

Adam S. Veige is a professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida, his research focuses on the usage of inorganic compounds. Education Veige received a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Cornell University in 2003 under the direction of Peter T. Wolczanski. He pursued postdoctoral research under the direction of Daniel G. Nocera at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#2264

Janet Allen

#107345

Overall Influence

Janet Katherine Allen is an American biochemist and industrial engineer whose research concerns uncertainty in the engineering design process and its quantification and control through robust design processes, statistical methods, simulation of alternative designs, and the use of the design of experiments to systematically explore alternatives in large design spaces. She is a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Oklahoma, where she holds the John and Mary Moore Chair of Engineering.

#2265

David Gerdes

#107429

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (61 years)

David Gerdes is an American astrophysicist, professor, and administrator at the University of Michigan. He is known for his research on trans-Neptunian objects, particularly for his discovery of the dwarf planet, .

#2266

Lang Tong

#107459

Overall Influence

#2267

Miriam B. Goodman

#107494

Overall Influence

Miriam B. Goodman is an American neuroscientist and biologist. She is currently the Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor of Cell Biology at Stanford University. At Stanford she is also Chair of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Goodman's lab is currently working to develop a mechanistic model of sensation in C. elegans.

#2268

Carla Green

#107504

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Carla Beth Green is an American neurobiologist and chronobiologist. She is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and a Distinguished Scholar in Neuroscience at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is the former president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms , as well as a satellite member of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine at the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

#2269

Richmond Sarpong

#107520

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (51 years)

Richmond Sarpong is a Ghanaian-American chemist who is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Sarpong works on natural product total synthesis to better understand biological systems and allow for the development of novel therapeutics. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017, and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. He serves on the editorial boards of Organic Syntheses, Accounts of Chemical Research and Synlett.

#2270

Allison Koenecke

#107598

Overall Influence

Allison Koenecke is an American computer scientist and an assistant professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. Her research considers computational social science and algorithmic fairness. In 2022, Koenecke was named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science.

#2271

Brad R. Roth

#107771

Overall Influence

Brad Richard Roth is a professor of political science and law at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Biography His research has focused on international law, political theory, and human rights. He received a B.A. from Swarthmore College, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been described by James Gathii as a neoconservative realist in reference to Roth's book Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law.. This description has been rejected by Roth in his response to Gathii's review. Roth a...

#2272

Bruce Bilby

#107826

Overall Influence

1922 - 2013 (91 years)

Bruce Alexander Bilby FRS was a British mechanical engineer, and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield. Life He was a graduate of Dover Grammar School for Boys. He once taught at University of Birmingham and was the Professor of the Theory of Materials at the University of Sheffield from 1966 to 1984. He was a colleague of Alan Cottrell.

#2273

Vigor Yang*

#107850

Overall Influence

#2274

Hugh C. Jenkyns

#107871

Overall Influence

#2275

Andrew Blain

#107975

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Andrew Blain is a British astronomer, and assistant professor at California Institute of Technology. He is chairman of ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee , as well as a member of the HerMES international consortium.

#2276

Daniel J. Sargent

#108046

Overall Influence

#2277

Lay Nam Chang

#108065

Overall Influence

1943 - 2020 (77 years)

Lay Nam Chang was an American theoretical physicist. Over the course of his career, he published research on topics in particle physics, nuclear physics, general relativity, and quantum cosmology. In the mid-1970s, he also published pioneering work on the foundations of string theory. In 2003, he served as the founding dean of the College of Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and held that position until 2016.

#2278

Stein B. Jacobsen

#108081

Overall Influence

#2279

Kevin L.G. Parkin

#108135

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (48 years)

Kevin L.G. Parkin is an American British scientist who is best known for his study of beamed energy propulsion. Areas of interest Rocket propulsion and gasdynamics, high power microwaves and directed energy, object-oriented software engineering, space mission design. ince 2016, Kevin has served as the systems director of Breakthrough Starshot, a $100M initiative to send a beam-driven probe to Alpha Centauri within the next generation.

#2280

Joel Stefaan Vandekerckhove

#108150

Overall Influence

#2281

Halton C. Arp

#108203

Overall Influence

#2282

Andrew Turberfield

#108208

Overall Influence

Andrew J Turberfield is a British Professor of Physics based at the University of Oxford. Turberfield's research is largely based on DNA nanostructures and photonic crystals, and his work on both nanomachines and photonic crystals has been highly cited. Turberfield is a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

#2283

Jun Ni

#108213

Overall Influence

#2284

Mark H. Engelhard

#108215

Overall Influence

#2285

Harvey Raymond Butcher

#108220

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (78 years)

Harvey Raymond Butcher III is an astronomer who has made significant contributions in observational astronomy and instrumentation which have advanced understanding of the formation of stars and of the universe. He received a B.Sc. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1969, where he contributed to the development of advanced infrared spectrometry applied in the first survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths .

#2286

Valeria Molinero

#108234

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Valeria Paula Molinero is an Argentinian physicist who is the Jack and Peg Simons Endowed Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Utah. Her research investigates the simulation of the behavior of materials. She was awarded the American Physical Society Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics in 2023.

#2287

Donald V. Helmberger

#108430

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Donald Vincent Helmberger was an American seismologist; described in his Seismological Research Letters obituary as "one of the most impactful seismologists to have lived". A memorial issue in Earthquake Science was published in his honor February 2022. He served as head of the Caltech Seismological Laboratory from 1998 to 2003, and was the Smits Family Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus upon his death. He was named to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.

#2288

Oleg Jardetzky

#108457

Overall Influence

#2289

Raghavan Srinivasan

#108481

Overall Influence

#2290

Keith Bowman

#108489

Overall Influence

Keith John Bowman is a materials scientist and dean of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County College of Engineering and Information Technology, working to advance research benefiting society and elevating student educational success. He is a Fellow of The American Ceramic Society. Bowman has worked extensively to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion across engineering disciplines and the science, technology, engineering, and math pipeline. He is a member of 500 Queer Scientists. He is internationally recognized for his research on the property anisotropy and preferred orientation i...

#2291

Elizabeth Beise

#108552

Overall Influence

Elizabeth J. Beise is a Professor of Physics and Associate Provost at the University of Maryland, College Park. She works on quantum chromodynamics, nucleon structure and fundamental symmetries. Early life and education Beise studied physics at Carleton College, and graduated in 1981. She joined MIT for her graduate research, earning a PhD in 1988. She was awarded the Peter T. Demos Award for the best PhD thesis from the MIT-Bates Accelerator Center. She worked at the California Institute of Technology Kellogg Radiation laboratory as a senior research fellow from 1988 to 1993. Since this fell...

#2292

Gideon Dreyfuss

#108615

Overall Influence

#2293

John M. Sedivy

#108624

Overall Influence

John Michael Sedivy is the Hermon C. Bumpus Professor of Biology and a professor of Medical Science at Brown University. He is listed as a F1000 Prime faculty member and on Who's Who in Gerontology. He has published over 130 original articles.

#2294

Willard S. Moore

#108646

Overall Influence

#2295

Stephen R. Kane

Stephen R. Kane

#108784

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (52 years)

Stephen Kane is a full professor of astronomy and planetary astrophysics at the University of California, Riverside who specializes in exoplanetary science. His work covers a broad range of exoplanet detection methods, including the microlensing, transit, radial velocity, and imaging techniques. He is a leading expert on the topic of planetary habitability and the habitable zone of planetary systems. He has published hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers and has discovered/co-discovered several hundred planets orbiting other stars. He is a prolific advocate of interdisciplinarity science...

#2296

John Steinhoff

#108828

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (83 years)

John Steinhoff is a classical physicist, best known for his important contributions to computational fluid dynamics field. He invented a physics based method called vorticity confinement to compute the numerical solution of partial differential equations.

#2297

Catherine H. Graham

#108931

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Catherine H. Graham is an American team leader and senior scientist working on the Biodiversity & Conservation Biology, and the Spatial Evolutionary Ecology research units at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. From 2003 to 2017 she was an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the Stony Brook University, and since her appointment at the WSL in 2017 she has maintained adjunct status there. She received both her M.S. degree and her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and did post-doctoral training at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley.

#2298

X. George Xu

#108963

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Xie George Xu was the Edward E. Hood Chair Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Troy, New York, United States, before he relocated in 2020 to China and joined the faculty of the University of Science and Technology of China .

#2299

Dmitri Ryutov

#108965

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Ryutov is a Russian theoretical plasma physicist. Early life and career Ryutov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1962 and from the Kurchatov Institute in 1965, where he received his doctorate in plasma theory in 1966. From 1968 to 1997, he was at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, where he expanded the fusion research program from 1979 and was promoted from deputy director to chief scientist in 1994. He was also a professor of plasma physics at the Novosibirsk State University. From 1994, he was a senior visiting scientis...

#2300

Jeffrey Schwartz

#108997

Overall Influence

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