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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List of the most influential people

#3351

Merwin Sibulkin

#178077

Overall Influence

1926 - 2006 (80 years)

Merwin Sibulkin was an American scientist active in the field of aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and combustion. Early life and education A World War II Navy veteran, he earned his PhD at California Institute of Technology in 1956.

#3352

Michael Dennis Feit

#178170

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Michael Dennis Feit was an American physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California. Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, he studied physics at Lehigh University, graduating B.A in physics in 1964, which was followed by a Ph.D. in 1969 from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After a brief period as a research associate in the department of physics at the University of Illinois he joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1972.

#3353

Arthur F. Turner

#178178

Overall Influence

1906 - 1996 (90 years)

Arthur F. Turner was president of the Optical Society of America in 1968. He is well known for his contributions to the field of optical thin-film coatings. He was awarded the Technical Oscar in 1959 for the Balcold projection mirror, and the Frederic Ives Medal in 1971.

#3354

Judy Karpen

#178187

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Judith Tobi Karpen is an American astrophysicist who works for NASA as chief of the Space Weather Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She is known for her research on solar prominences and the solar wind, including the use of the Solar Dynamics Observatory to observe the fine structure of plumes in the solar corona.

#3355

Steve Sawyer

#178338

Overall Influence

Steven Burton Sawyer is a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He is known for his research on social and organizational informatics, how people work together and how they use technology, and the relationships among changing forms of work & organization. Sawyer has worked on improving the social components of teamwork, as well as the distinctions between packaged and custom software development. His research is done through field-based studies of software developers, scientific collaborators, scientific data repositories, real estate agents, police officers, ...

#3356

Troy Carter

#178436

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (52 years)

Troy Alan Carter is an American plasma physicist and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was co-awarded the 2002 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for his work on driven magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma.

#3357

Mary Rakowski DuBois

#178467

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (79 years)

Mary Rakowski DuBois is an inorganic chemist, now retired from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory . She made multiple contributions to inorganic and organometallic chemistry, focusing on synthetic and mechanistic studies. In recognition of her scientific contributions, she received several awards.

#3358

Lawrence W. Fagg

#178711

Overall Influence

1923 - 2015 (92 years)

Lawrence Wellburn Fagg Jr. was an American physicist. Lawrence Wellburn Fagg Jr. was born in New Jersey to Lawrence W. Fagg Sr. and his wife Doris Virginia Shea Fagg on October 10, 1923. The elder Fagg was recorded in the Army List and Directory of 1923 and 1926 as an infantry captain who had reported for duty on July 16, 1922. Fagg Jr. was raised in Washington D.C., and attended the United States Military Academy. Fagg then completed a Master of Science in physics at the University of Maryland, followed by a Master of Arts in the same subject at the Illinois University, before pursuing a doctorate in nuclear physics at Johns Hopkins University.

#3359

Richard Packard

#178718

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Richard Packard is an American physicist, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for discovering Josephson oscillations in superfluids and using related effects to build the first quantum gyroscope with his colleagues. He is also recognized for making the first visualization of quantum vortices as well as conceiving the idea that neutron stars suddenly speed up due to metastability of superfluid vortices in the star's interior. He also suggested a model for the nature of dark matter by drawing an analogy between cosmic strings and quantized vortex lines. His research is ...

#3360

Kevin Insik Hahn

Kevin Insik Hahn

#178874

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Kevin Insik Hahn is a South Korean physicist who is an expert in the fields of nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. Since December 2019, he has been the director of the Center for Exotic Nuclear Studies at the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea. He also holds an endowed professorship in the Department of Science Education at Ewha Womans University, where he has worked since 1999. In his research, he has worked on accelerator-based as well as non-accelerator-based experiments. His current research activities involve a number of accelerators around the world, including the RI Bea...

#3361

Andrew J Saxon

#178934

Overall Influence

#3362

Jess McIver

#178935

Overall Influence

Jess McIver is an American astronomer. She is an Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. McIver is a member of LIGO, one of the recipients of the Science 2017 Breakthrough of the Year.

#3363

Srinivasan Ramakrishnan

#179005

Overall Influence

Srinivasan Ramakrishnan is a condensed matter physicist working on experimental ultra-low temperature research. He was the director and distinguished professor of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research . Recently, he joined IISER Pune as a distinguished professor.

#3364

Kenneth Hedberg

#179109

Overall Influence

1920 - 2019 (99 years)

Kenneth Wayne Hedberg was an American chemist. Early life Hedberg was born on February 2, 1920, to parents Gustave and Ruth. As a child, he lived in Portland, Oregon and Hoquiam, Washington. Hedberg completed high school in Medford, Oregon. Upon graduating from Oregon State University, Hedberg worked for Shell Development Company. After World War II ended, Hedberg returned to school, obtaining a doctorate at California Institute of Technology in 1948, under Linus Pauling and Verner Shoemaker. Hedberg was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and Guggenheim Fellowship. While researching in Norway, Hedberg met and Lise Smedvik - later Lise Hedberg.

#3365

Chris Tinney

#179156

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (61 years)

Chris Tinney is an astronomer at the University of New South Wales who is focused on extrasolar planet and brown dwarf research. He is a member of the Anglo-Australian Planet Search team which has discovered over twenty planets by doppler spectroscopy. He is also the former head of astronomy at the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

#3366

Paul Brumer

#179160

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Paul Brumer is a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto in the field of chemical physics. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1993 for "the development of quantum and classical dynamics of isolated molecules and the coherent control of chemical reactions."

#3367

Alfred U. MacRae

#179326

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (93 years)

Alfred Urquhart MacRae is an American physicist. MacRae was born in New York City on April 14, 1932. MacRae is of Scottish descent, and learned how to play the bagpipes, which he did throughout college. MacRae earned his bachelor's and graduate degrees at Syracuse University, where he studied physics. Upon completing his doctorate in 1960, MacRae began working for Bell Labs. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1964. MacRae later led his own company, MacRae Technologies. He was the 1994 recipient of the J. J. Ebers Award, presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Electron Devices Society at the International Electron Devices Meeting.

#3368

Michael Kotschenreuther

#179331

Overall Influence

Michael Thomas Kotschenreuther is an American physicist. Kotschenreuther earned a doctorate at the Princeton University, where he authored the thesis The effect of small-scale fluctuations on several plasma processes. He subsequently joined the Institute for Fusion Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1998, Kotschenreuther was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society "[f]or fundamental contributions to the self-consistent theory of magnetic island formation, for the implementation of the delta f numerical technique, and for developing theoretical techniques that quantitati...

#3369

David Hogg

#179352

Overall Influence

#3370

Julie Libarkin

#179433

Overall Influence

Julie Carol Libarkin is a professor of Earth Sciences and Director of the Geocognition Laboratory at Michigan State University. Her research considers how people understand and make decision about the planet. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. She also researches and addresses inequality in academia, and tracks academic sexual misconduct cases.

#3371

Ying Ge

#179470

Overall Influence

Ying Ge is a Chinese-American chemist who is a Professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research considers the molecular mechanisms that underpin cardiac disease. She has previously served on the board of directors of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. In 2020 Ge was named on the Analytical Scientist Power List.

#3372

Jay Fineberg

#179482

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Jay Fineberg is an Israeli physicist. He is a professor at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for his work on various aspects of nonlinear physics, mainly in the fields of fracture and friction . He is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society and the Israel Physical Society.

#3373

Geoffrey Scammell

#179503

Overall Influence

1925 - 2006 (81 years)

Geoffrey Vaughan Scammell was a British historian and fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who was an authority on Tudor and Stuart maritime history. Early life Geoffrey Scammell was born on 11 July 1925 in Wallasey, Merseyside, England. Attended Wallasey Grammar School. He graduated from Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, BA in 1948 . After service at sea and a position at Durham, he became a Fellow of Pembroke College 12 years later, where he remained as a lecturer and scholar until his retirement in 1992.

#3374

Konstantin Malkov

#179525

Overall Influence

Konstantin Malkov is an American mathematician and businessman, Chief Technology Officer and Director of AI1 Technologies. Previously at 5nine Software, an Acronis Company . His works are in the area of mathematical modelling; non-linear differential equations, AI/ML, network security and mathematical methods in economics.

#3375

Sebastian Wolf

#179620

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (52 years)

#3376

Roberto Zenit

#179633

Overall Influence

Roberto Zenit is a Mexican scientist currently at the Brown University School of Engineering. Zenit previously worked at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. His field of expertise is Fluid Mechanics, including Two-Phase Flows, Non-Newtonian Fluids, the Fluid Mechanics of Painting, and Biological Flows. Recent work has also focused on studying the behaviour of Bubbly Drinks.

#3377

Giulia Tagliabue

#179671

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (40 years)

Giulia Tagliabue is an Italian engineer specialized in nanophotonics. She is a professor at EPFL's School of Engineering, where she leads the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies . Career Tagliabue studied mechanical engineering at University of Udine and received her Master degree in 2009. The same year, she also received a Diploma from the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Udine. In 2009, she joined John Thome's laboratory at EPFL as a research assistant and then in 2010 moved to ETH Zurich to work as a graduate student with Dimos Poulikakos. She obtained a PhD in mechanical engineering in 2015 with a thesis on nanophotonic engineering for energy devices.

#3378

Thomas Keller

#179686

Overall Influence

#3379

Yang-Tse Cheng

#179698

Overall Influence

Yang-Tse Cheng is an American materials scientist currently the University of Kentucky Frank J. Derbyshire Professor of Materials Science at University of Kentucky and an Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors Materials Research Society and American Physical Society.

#3380

Kendal Broadie

#179731

Overall Influence

Kendal Broadie is an American biologist specializing in genetic dissection of nervous system development, function and plasticity, currently the Eldon Stevenson, Jr. Professor at Vanderbilt University.

#3381

Khanh D. Pham

#179832

Overall Influence

Khanh Dai Pham is a Vietnamese-born American aerospace engineer. He is noted for his work in statistical optimal control theory, game-theoretic operations research of military satellite communications, space control autonomy, and space domain awareness and the government leadership in innovation ecosystem and coalition of government agencies, small business and industry. He is a Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory , the National Academy of Inventors , the Institution of Engineering and Technology , the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers , the Royal Aeronautical Society ...

#3382

Andrew D. Hershey

#179922

Overall Influence

#3383

Amitava Datta

#180121

Overall Influence

#3384

Ryan Julian

#180397

Overall Influence

Ryan Julian is an American chemist and Professor at the University of California, Riverside. His research uses mass spectrometry to study proteins and protein structure. His work has resulted in over 85 publications and he has been recognized with numerous honors including the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Biemann Medal in 2017.

#3385

Jennie Stephens

#180413

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (50 years)

Jennie C. Stephens is an academic researcher, professor, author, and social justice advocate. She is Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also affiliated with the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the department of Cultures, Societies & Global Studies.

#3386

Audeen W. Fentiman

#180453

Overall Influence

Audeen W. Fentiman is an American engineer, and Crowley Family Professor in Engineering Education, at Purdue University. She is Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Interdisciplinary Programs. She is a fellow of the American Nuclear Society. She won a Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education.

#3387

Douglas D. Taylor

#180619

Overall Influence

Douglas D. Taylor is an entrepreneur and former academic researcher in the field of extracellular vesicles. Taylor attained a bachelor's degree from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. from Wake Forest University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Boston University. Taylor was a professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women's Healthheld at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He was also on the faculty of the University of California, Davis. From 2013 to 2015, he was the Chief Scientific Officer of Aethlon Medical's wholly owned subsidiary,...

#3388

Lisa Welp

#180658

Overall Influence

Lisa Welp is a biogeochemist who utilizes stable isotopes to understand how water and carbon dioxide are exchanged between the land and atmosphere. She is a professor at Purdue University in the department of Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences.

#3389

Deborah K. Watson

#180858

Overall Influence

Deborah Kay Watson is an American physicist known for her work on the many-body problem in quantum mechanics. She is a professor emerita of physics at the University of Oklahoma. Education and career Watson is a 1972 graduate of Allegheny College and completed her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1977 at Harvard University. Her dissertation was in two parts, I. Time-dependent Hartree–Fock studies of small molecular systems and II. Adiabatic and resonance states of Li2 and dissociative recombination of Li2+, and was supervised by Alexander Dalgarno.

#3390

Deborah Jackson

#180870

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Deborah J. Jackson is an American physicist and Program Manager at the National Science Foundation, and a Fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists. She was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. She is an expert on "electromagnetic phenomena" with a research and development career that spans the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum from materials studies using hard x-ray wavelengths, to nonlinear optics and spectroscopy in the near-infrared, to the fielding of radio frequency instrumentation on deep space missions such as Cass...

#3391

Georgios Ginis

#180874

Overall Influence

Georgios Ginis is an electrical engineer with ASSIA, Inc. in San Mateo, California. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to transmission optimization in digital subscriber loops.

#3392

John Prestage

#180899

Overall Influence

John D. Prestage is an American physicist currently at NASA and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. He pioneered and designed several ion-trap atomic clocks including the physics package for the NASA Deep Space Atomic Clock Technology Demonstration Mission.

#3393

Fausto Cattaneo

#180930

Overall Influence

Fausto Cattaneo is an Italian physicist, currently at University of Chicago and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

#3394

Paula Diaconescu

#180936

Overall Influence

Paula L. Diaconescu is a Romanian-American chemistry professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is known for her research on the synthesis of redox active transition metal complexes, the synthesis of lanthanide complexes, metal-induced small molecule activation, and polymerization reactions. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3395

Georgeanne R. Caughlan

Georgeanne R. Caughlan

#180981

Overall Influence

1916 - 1994 (78 years)

Georgeanne Caughlan was an American astrophysicist known for her work on stellar energy generation. Her compilation of experimental data of the rates of nuclear reactions was instrumental in establishing the theory of nucleosynthesis that led to a Nobel Prize for William A. Fowler.

#3396

Ding Kuiling

#180993

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (59 years)

Ding Kuiling is a Chinese organic chemist. He has been Executive Vice President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University since October 2018, and formerly served as President of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

#3397

Robert Heath

#180998

Overall Influence

#3398

Cynthia Selassie

#181041

Overall Influence

Cynthia Rachel D. Selassie is an American bio-organic and medicinal chemist known for her work with quantitative structure-activity relationships . She is the Blanche and Frank R. Seaver Professor of Science and professor of chemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

#3399

Thad Vreeland Jr.

#181095

Overall Influence

1924 - 2010 (86 years)

Thad Vreeland Jr. was an American materials scientist. He was Professor of Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology. Career Vreeland's career at Caltech began with his B.S., earned in 1949 and his Ph.D. in 1952. He served as Professor of Mechanical Engineering and then Professor of Materials Science from 1954 to 1991, and afterward Professor Emeritus.

#3400

Joel Bowman

#181138

Overall Influence

Joel Mark Bowman is an American physical chemist and educator. He currently serves as the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Emory University. Publications, awards and affiliations Bowman is the author or co-author of more than 600 publications and is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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