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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people

#2601

Peter C. Searson

#124963

Overall Influence

#2602

Ronald E. Myers

#125031

Overall Influence

#2603

James Penner-Hahn

#125039

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

James Penner-Hahn is the George A. Lindsay Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and Biophysics at the University of Michigan. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors at Purdue University in 1979 and a PhD at Stanford University in 1984 under Keith Hodgson; his dissertation was titled X-ray Absorption Studies of Metalloprotein Structure: Cytochrome P-450, Horseradish Peroxidase, Plastocyanin, and Laccase. Penner-Hahn's research involves biophysical chemistry and inorganic spectroscopy including EXAFS and synchrotron radiation techniques which he helped to develop in his doctoral and post-doctoral work with Edward Solomon and Hodgson.

#2604

Pieter Meiert Grootes

#125137

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (81 years)

#2605

Deepak Srivastava

#125220

Overall Influence

#2606

George Dewey Cody

#125234

Overall Influence

#2607

Kiri Wagstaff

#125281

Overall Influence

Kiri Lou Wagstaff is an American computer scientist and planetary scientist whose research involves the use of machine learning in the analysis of data and autonomous control of planetary rovers and other space probes. She is a senior instructor in electrical engineering and computer science at Oregon State University.

#2608

Adam D'Angelo

#125285

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (41 years)

Adam D'Angelo is an American internet entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as the co-founder and CEO of Quora, based in Mountain View, California. Early life and education Adam D'Angelo was born on August 21, 1984 in New York, United States. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy for high school. There, he developed the Synapse Media Player along with Mark Zuckerberg and others.

#2609

Eric Beckman

#125290

Overall Influence

Eric J. Beckman is an American engineer. Beckman was born around 1959, and is married to Joanne. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, with a degree in chemical engineering. He worked for Monsanto Plastics and Resins and Union Carbide before opting to pursue further study, specializing in polymer chemistry and processing at the University of Massachusetts. Beckman earned his doctorate in 1988, and was a postdoctoral researcher at Battelle Memorial Institute's Pacific Northwest Laboratory. He joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1989, and was named an associate professor in 1994, followed by a promotion to full professor in 1997.

#2610

Guifre' Vidal

#125450

Overall Influence

#2611

Robert S. Bandurski

#125514

Overall Influence

#2612

David H. Marks

#125525

Overall Influence

David H. Marks is an American engineer, focusing in sustainable development, currently the Goulder Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems, Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#2613

Ronnie Fass

#125778

Overall Influence

#2614

Hisham Ghassib

#125792

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Hisham B. Ghassib is a Jordanian theoretical physicist and Marxist intellectual. He is professor of physics at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology , where he was formerly Dean. Ghassib gained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1974. In 1975 he became an assistant professor in physics at the University of Jordan in Amman. He served as the first President of PSUT from 1999 to 2010, when he was succeeded by Dr Issa Batarseh. He is President of the Socialist Thought Forum. He is known for his strong anti Zionist views He is author of several books on different fields.

#2615

David S. Wollan

#125852

Overall Influence

1937 - 2008 (71 years)

David S. Wollan was an American physicist and arms control specialist. Wollan was born in Massachusetts, attended Amherst College as an undergraduate physics major, and earned his Master's and Ph.D. in physics at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

#2616

Eileen Friel

#125936

Overall Influence

Eileen Dolores Friel is an American astronomer specializing in the metallicity of star clusters. She is a former director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and Lowell Observatory, and a professor emeritus of astronomy at Indiana University.

#2617

Mark C. Udey

#125945

Overall Influence

Mark C. Udey is an American biologist, focusing in epidermal Langerhans cells, dendritic cells, EpCAM , distal-less and skin immunology, currently at National Cancer Institute and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Udey is a professor of dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine, where he was also an graduate of the medical scientist training program.

#2618

Ellen Rothenberg

#125974

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Ellen V. Rothenberg is an American biologist who is an Edward B. Lewis Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. She investigates the molecular mechanisms that underpin lineage choice. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

#2619

Ariel Anbar

#125975

Overall Influence

Ariel Anbar is an isotope geochemist and President's Professor at Arizona State University. He has published over 180 refereed papers on topics ranging from the origins of Earth's atmosphere to detecting life on other worlds to diagnosing human disease.

#2620

Gerald J. Dolan

#126003

Overall Influence

1945 - 2008 (63 years)

Gerald J. Dolan was an American solid state physicist. Education and career Dolan received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1967 from the University of Pennsylvania and# his Ph.D. in 1973 from Cornell University under John Silcox. As a post-doctoral researcher, he was at the State University of New York at Stony Brook under J. E. Lukens, doing research on thin-film superconductors from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1987, he was at Bell Labs where he worked under the supervision of Theodore A. Fulton and then, from 1987 to 1989, at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. From 1989 to 1996, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

#2621

Jun Lou

#126014

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (51 years)

#2622

Michael H. Dickinson

#126030

Overall Influence

#2623

William Allen Zajc

William Allen Zajc

#126070

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (71 years)

William Allen Zajc is a U.S. physicist and the I.I. Rabi Professor of Physics at Columbia University in New York, USA, where he has worked since 1987. Early life Born in Barstow, California, on November 14, 1953, and raised in Brookfield, Wisconsin, he received his bachelor's degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1975. He went on to the doctoral program in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, where, as his thesis topic, he became the first person to use Hanbury-Brown Twiss correlations to measure the size of the interacting region between two colliding heavy ions...

#2624

Nabila Aghanim

#126073

Overall Influence

Nabila Aghanim is an Algerian observational cosmologist whose research concerns the interpretation of the cosmic microwave background and the light it sheds on galaxy formation and evolution, and the structure of galaxy filaments and the warm–hot intergalactic medium. She works in France as a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research , associated with the Institut d'astrophysique spatiale at the University of Paris-Saclay.

#2625

Kris Sigurdson

#126084

Overall Influence

Kris Sigurdson is a Canadian physicist and cosmologist. He is an associate professor in the University of British Columbia's department of physics and astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was previously a NASA Hubble Fellow and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology.

#2626

John M. Carpenter

#126144

Overall Influence

#2627

Charles H. Papas

#126197

Overall Influence

1918 - 2007 (89 years)

Charles Herach Papas was an American applied physicist and electrical engineer, known for his contributions to electromagnetic theory, microwaves, radiophysics, gravitational electromagnetics, astrophysics, guided waves, and remote sensing.

#2628

Munira A. Basrai

#126222

Overall Influence

Munira Adnan Basrai is an American geneticist researching genome stability and cell cycle regulation in yeast and human cancers. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Education Basrai received a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Her 1992 dissertation was titled, Modes of nutrient uptake in Candida albicans: peptide transport and fluid phase endocytosis. Basrai's doctoral advisor was Jeffrey M. Becker. She completed postdoctoral research with Philip Hieter in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

#2629

Larry D. Kirkpatrick

#126268

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (84 years)

Larry Dale Kirkpatrick is an American physicist. Kirkpatrick was born in the state of Washington in 1941. He studied physics at Washington State University, graduating in 1963, and pursued a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon completing his Ph.D in 1968, Kirpatrick accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Washington. In 1974, he joined the Montana State University faculty. He was president of the American Association of Physics Teachers in 1999. That same year, Kirkpatrick was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society, "for exceptional contrib...

#2630

Robert W Cox

#126313

Overall Influence

#2631

Jang Wook Choi

#126338

Overall Influence

#2632

Stephen M. Beverley

#126543

Overall Influence

#2633

Charles A. Wight

Charles A. Wight

#126596

Overall Influence

Charles A. "Chuck" Wight is the ninth president of Salisbury University, a master's-level university located in Salisbury, Maryland. Biography Born in Glen Cove, New York, Wight earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1977 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology , where his advisor was Jesse L. Beauchamp. After completing postdoctoral work for the University of Colorado, he spent nearly three decades as a chemistry faculty member then administrator at the University of Utah, where his roles included dean of the graduate school, assistant vice president of continuing education and others.

#2634

Zengjian J. Chen

#126639

Overall Influence

Zengjian Jeffrey Chen is a plant biologist and molecular geneticist, currently the D. J. Sibley Centennial Professor of Plant Molecular Genetics at University of Texas at Austin. Chen received his B.S. at Zhejiang Agricultural University , M.S. at Nanjing Agricultural University, and Ph.D. in Genetics at Texas A&M University. Following a postdoctoral position at University of Minnesota and as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, he joined the faculty at Texas A&M in 1999, where he was promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure. In 2005, he moved to Th...

#2635

Ramon Lugo III

#126695

Overall Influence

Ramon "Ray" Lugo III is an American aerospace engineer who served as the Director of NASA's Glenn Research Center. He currently serves as the Director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida. He previously served as Glenn's Deputy Director from 2007 to 2010.

#2636

John S. Lazo

#126700

Overall Influence

John Stephen Lazo is an American pharmacologist noted for his work discovering the fundamental mechanisms of action of small molecule therapeutics and the factors that confer drug resistance. He is a professor emeritus of pharmacology at University of Virginia.

#2637

Charles A. Beichman

#126981

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Charles Beichman is the current executive director of NASA Exoplanet Science Institute , senior faculty associate at California Institute of Technology and an astronomer. In 1975 Beichman received an Master of Science in astronomy from University of Hawaiʻi, In 1976 he received an M.S. in physics from University of Hawaiʻi, and in 1979 he received a PhD in astronomy. He has published numerous papers within his field, including research on exoplanets and Debris disks and is most notably credited with the discovery of a planetary system using IRAS.

#2638

Tang Youqi

#126991

Overall Influence

1920 - 2022 (102 years)

Tang Youqi was a Chinese physical chemist who was a professor at Peking University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a member of the 6th, 7th and 8th Central Committee of Jiusan Society. He was a member of the 6th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the 7th and 8th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

#2639

David E Levy

#127069

Overall Influence

#2640

Merav Opher

#127156

Overall Influence

Merav Opher is a professor of astronomy at Boston University known for her work on the heliosphere, the cocoon formed by the wind emanated from the Sun as it travels in the Galaxy. In 2021 she was named a William Bentinck-Smith Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

#2641

Carrie Nugent

#127198

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (41 years)

Carrie Nugent is an assistant professor of computational physics and planetary science at Olin College. She studies near-Earth objects. She is also a popular science communicator, and is a Senior TED Fellow. The asteroid 8801 Nugent was named after her.

#2642

Raymond Luebbers

#127365

Overall Influence

Dr. Raymond J. Luebbers was Professor of Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University and Ohio University, a Research Scientist at the Lockheed Martin Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, CA and founder of Remcom, Inc.

#2643

Stephen E. Schwartz

#127428

Overall Influence

#2644

Santiago Munné

#127448

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

#2645

Kalina Hristova

#127635

Overall Influence

Kalina A. Hristova is a Bulgarian–American engineer. She is a professor of materials science and engineering at Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering. Early life and education Hristova received her Bachelor of Science degree and Master's degree in physics from Sofia University in 1987 and 1988, respectively, before moving to the United States. She subsequently earned her PhD in mechanical engineering and materials science from Duke University in 1994 and worked as a post-doctoral associate and research scientist at the University of California, Irvine. During college, she b...

#2646

Timothy D. Stark

Timothy D. Stark

#127655

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (62 years)

Timothy D. Stark is a Professor of Geotechnical Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign since 1991. Dr. Stark teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Foundation Engineering and Earth Structures, respectively, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UIUC and numerous short courses for various entities. Dr. Stark has served as a consultant and expert on a range of domestic and international projects including levees and dams, buildings, bridges, slopes, geosynthetics, seismic issues, waste containment facilities, and highways.

#2647

A. Dalla S. Balogh

#127917

Overall Influence

#2648

Thomas L. Perry

#128022

Overall Influence

#2649

Antígona Segura

#128051

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (54 years)

Antígona Segura Peralta is a Mexican physicist and astrobiologist. Since 2006, she has been a researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and collaborator at the NASA Astrobiology Institute. As a feminist she actively advocates for the inclusion of women in the exact sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Segura has participated in several activities in and outside UNAM defending women's rights; she was awarded with the 2021 Hermila Galindo medal by the Congress of Mexico City.

#2650

Manoj Samanta

#128318

Overall Influence

Manoj Pratim Samanta is an Indian-American scientist and engineer working in the field of bioinformatics. Samanta became interested in mathematics at a young age, and was a member of India's team in the 1989 International Mathematical Olympiad. He subsequently graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, where he received the institute silver medal. In 1998, he received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University under the supervision of Supriyo Datta. He later conducted research on superconductors before becoming interested in biological systems. He is the founder of the Systemix Institute, a genomics research company based in Redmond, Washington.

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