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
#3051
Samuel L. Manzello
#155344
Overall Influence
Samuel L. Manzello is a technical advisor at Reax Engineering. He has worked on microgravity droplet combustion, droplet-surface interaction, soot formation in well-stirred reactor/plug flow reactor, fire-structure interaction, and structure vulnerabilities in wildland-urban interface fires.
Go to Profile#3052
Scott Milner
#155368
Overall Influence
Scott T. Milner is an American chemical engineer, currently the Joyce Chair and professor of chemical engineering at Pennsylvania State University and also a published author, being widely cited and widely held in libraries.
Go to Profile#3053
Peter W. Reiners
#155471
Overall Influence
#3054
Ellen Longmire
#155488
Overall Influence
Ellen Kathryn Longmire is an American applied physicist and mechanical engineer known for her research in experimental fluid dynamics and turbulence. She is a professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics at the University of Minnesota, where she is also Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Science & Engineering,, the former chair of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, and one of three editors-in-chief of the journal Experiments in Fluids.
Go to Profile#3055
Arvind Agarwal
#155511
Overall Influence
#3056
Michael R. Shurin
#155796
Overall Influence
#3057
George Barbastathis
#155825
Overall Influence
#3058
Bonny L. Schumaker
#155925
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Bonny Laura Schumaker is an American physicist and pilot who worked on the LISA Pathfinder. In 2010 she founded the nonprofit "On Wings of Care", a charity which protects animals and environments. Early life and education Schumaker was born and raised in Wisconsin, near Lake Michigan. She wanted to be a vet but was awarded a scholarship to study physics at the California Institite of Technology. She loved mathematics, and continued at the California Institute of Technology for her graduate studies, earning a PhD in 1985. She worked under the supervision of Kip Thorne. Over six papers, her PhD thesis considered theoretical investigations into nonlinear quantum optics.
Go to Profile#3059
Matthew A. Wilson
#156073
Overall Influence
#3060
Amy Barr
#156119
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
Amy Barr Mlinar is an American planetary geophysicist known for her studies of icy body formation. She is a member of the National Academies Standing Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science and a co-investigator on NASA's Europa Imaging System and REASON instruments.
Go to Profile#3061
Simon Benita
#156300
Overall Influence
#3062
Knox S. Long
#156394
Overall Influence
#3063
Changhuei Yang
#156411
Overall Influence
#3064
Bonnie Bartel
#156470
Overall Influence
#3065
Michele Vallisneri
#156481
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Michele Vallisneri is an Italian physicist, currently at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. He received his Ph.D. degree from the California Institute of Technology in 2002, with a doctoral thesis on "Modeling and detecting gravitational waves from compact stellar objects," under the supervision of relativist Kip Thorne. In 2017 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for "outstanding contributions to ground- and space-based detection of gravitational waves, critical to the nascent fiel...
Go to Profile#3066
Jack T. Pronk
#156485
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
#3067
Michael D. Breed
#156650
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
#3068
Wesley M. Brown
#156676
Overall Influence
#3069
Lee Casperson
#156825
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Lee Wendel Casperson is an American physicist and engineer. Casperson earned his bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. He then pursued a master of science and doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, graduating in 1971. Casperson subsequently taught at the Portland State University. While at Portland, he was elected a fellow of the IEEE, as well as a fellow of the American Physical Society. He later joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Go to Profile#3070
Gil Wernovsky
#156950
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
#3071
Stephen R. Sutton
#157041
Overall Influence
#3072
Marie Jakus
#157125
Overall Influence
1914 - 1997 (83 years)
Marie Agnes Jakus was an American biologist and microscopist specialized in electron microscopic studies of the fine structure of eye tissues. She was a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Retina Foundation, and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness before becoming a science administrator at the Center for Scientific Review.
Go to Profile#3073
Wolfgang Hillebrandt
#157234
Overall Influence
#3074
Jonathan Karn
#157299
Overall Influence
#3075
Arthur Whiteley
#157345
Overall Influence
1916 - 2013 (97 years)
Arthur Henry Whiteley was a zoologist who spent most of his research career at the University of Washington, where he studied developmental biology using sea urchins as a model organism. Early life and education Whiteley was born in 1916 in Michigan to English immigrants. He studied biology as an undergraduate at Kalamazoo College and then received a master's degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin. He moved to the University of California, Berkeley for his Ph.D., which focused on early use of 32P radioisotope labeling in biology, supervised by Sumner Cushing Brooks. Whiteley then spent time at Princeton University on a war-related project on decompression sickness in aviation.
Go to Profile#3076
Robert D. Braun
#157348
Overall Influence
#3077
Ted V. Shaneyfelt
#157350
Overall Influence
Ted V. Shaneyfelt is an American Computer Scientist and engineer known for producing the user interface on the first dual-mode cellular telephone to be commercially deployed in North America. Life In 1986, the University of Hawaii at Hilo awarded Ted Shaneyfelt their first Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. He received his Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering specializing in free space optical computing in 1995 from the University of California, San Diego. In private industry, Shaneyfelt worked at ASI, Hughes Network Systems, Sony Electronics Inc., MCSI, and POH. He completed his Ph.D.
Go to Profile#3078
Sergey Macheret
#157360
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Sergey O. Macheret is an American physicist and aerospace engineer known for his contributions to plasma science and engineering. Macheret formulas for endothermic exchange reactions and Macheret-Fridman model of vibration-dissociation coupling are widely used for analysis of hypersonic and other chemically reacting flows.
Go to Profile#3079
Jonathan P. Stewart
#157366
Overall Influence
#3080
Michael Steinmetz
#157497
Overall Influence
#3081
Margalith Galun
#157686
Overall Influence
1927 - 2012 (85 years)
Margalith Galun was an Israeli lichenologist. She was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and established the Israeli collection of lichens at Tel Aviv University. Founder of the academic journal Symbiosis, she served as its editor-in-chief between 1985 and 2006. In 1994, she was awarded the Acharius Medal and in 1996 won the Meitner-Humboldt Prize, for her contributions to the field. The International Association for Lichenology grants an award which bears her name to honor scholarship at their quadrennial symposium.
Go to Profile#3082
Jiming Liu
#157728
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
#3083
P. L. Thibaut Brian
#157779
Overall Influence
1930 - 2018 (88 years)
Pierre Leonce Thibaut Brian was an American chemical engineer. He was born in New Orleans and attended Louisiana State University. Upon graduation in 1951, Brian pursued a ScD in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under doctoral adviser Edwin R. Gilliland. Brian taught at MIT from graduation in 1956 to 1972, when he left for Air Products & Chemicals, where he served as vice president of engineering and on the company's board of directors. In 1975, Brian was named a member of the National Academy of Engineering for "contributions to both theory and engineering ...
Go to Profile#3084
Charles George Sammis
#157782
Overall Influence
#3085
Rahul Mahajan
#157990
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (124 years)
Rahul Mahajan is an American blogger, author, and educator. He has written two books and has had articles published in a wide range of newspapers including USA Today, Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, the Dallas Morning News. He currently serves on the Administrative Committee of anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, the Board of Directors of Peace Action, and the advisory board of website Occupation watch. In 2002 he was named "Best International Activist" by the Austin Chronicle in their annual "Best of Austin" list, and during the same year ran as the Green Party candidate for governor...
Go to Profile#3086
Robert Anthony Gallino
#158032
Overall Influence
#3087
Joseph Alper
#158313
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Joseph Seth Alper is a former professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is known for his work analyzing genetic discrimination and other issues related to human genetics research. He is a founding member of the Genetic Screening Study Group. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1963 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968. He did his postdoc in the laboratory of Robert Silbey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1968 to 1970.
Go to Profile#3088
Brent Fultz
#158453
Overall Influence
Brent Fultz is an American physicist and materials scientist and one of the world's leading authorities on statistical mechanics, diffraction, and phase transitions in materials. Fultz is the Barbara and Stanley Rawn, Jr. Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology. He is known for his research in materials physics and materials chemistry, and for establishing the importance of phonon entropy to the phase stability of materials. Additionally, Fultz oversaw the construction of the wide angular-range chopper spectrometer instrument at the Spallat...
Go to Profile#3089
Gregory H. Robinson
#158791
Overall Influence
Gregory H. Robinson FRSC is an American synthetic inorganic chemist and a Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Robinson's research focuses on unusual bonding motifs and low oxidation state chemistry of molecules containing main group elements such as boron, gallium, germanium, phosphorus, magnesium, and silicon. He has published over 150 research articles, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#3090
Roger M. Perlmutter
#158848
Overall Influence
Roger M. Perlmutter is the former executive vice president of Merck & Co. and former president of Merck Research Laboratories. He is currently a non-executive director of Merck Research Laboratories.
Go to Profile#3091
Ralph Waldo Hingson
#158865
Overall Influence
#3092
Roger N. Gunn
#158957
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
#3093
Phil Shevlin
#159004
Overall Influence
Professor Philip B. Shevlin is an American experimental chemist, based primarily at Auburn University. Professor Shevlin is an internationally recognized research scientist. His special field of expertise is centered on the chemistry of high energy reactive intermediates. These intermediates include atomic carbon, carbenes, monovalent carbon species and other energetic molecules.
Go to Profile#3094
Thomas Arthur Halgren
#159122
Overall Influence
#3095
Martin F. Yanofsky
#159191
Overall Influence
#3096
Kirill A. Bronnikov
#159365
Overall Influence
#3097
Jian Zhen Yu
#159557
Overall Influence
#3098
Carol Creutz
#159692
Overall Influence
#3099
Carlos Stroud
#159890
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Carlos Ray Stroud, Jr. is an American physicist and an educator. Working in the field of quantum optics, Stroud has carried out theoretical and experimental studies in most areas of the field from its beginnings in the late 1960s, studying the fundamentals of the quantum mechanics of atoms and light and their interaction. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed papers and edited seven books. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, as well as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer of the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society. In this ...
Go to Profile#3100
P. N. Shankar
#159969
Overall Influence
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
Pattamadai Narasimhan Shankar was an Indian scientist who worked in the field of fluid dynamics. He was married to Priti Shankar. Education He did his schooling in India and Switzerland, while obtaining his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1964 from Imperial College London. He completed his PhD degree in engineering science from California Institute of Technology under the supervision of Frank E. Marble in 1968.
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