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

#3451

Jin-Shan Wang

#186009

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Jin-Shan Wang , is a Chinese-American organic chemist and entrepreneur. Biography Wang was born in Jiangyan, Jiangsu, China in 1962. Wang obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees both in polymer science from the East China University of Science and Technology.

#3452

Kannan Krishnan

#186127

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Kannan M. Krishnan is the Campbell Chair Professor of Materials Sciences & Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for contributions to nano-magnetic technology in medicine.

#3453

Rodica Ramer

#186248

Overall Influence

Rodica Ramer is a Romanian born Australian professor of microelectronics at the University of New South Wales, where she and her team work on the development of radio-frequency microelectronic technologies, advancing wireless communication technology. She earned a Ph.D from the University of Bucharest in solid-state physics in 1992. Prior to working at UNSW, she was a senior research scientist at the Microwave Laboratory, National Centre for Nuclear Energy of Romania, a research associate at the Superconductivity Laboratory, the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and at the Microwave Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins.

#3454

Sarah Delaney

#186487

Overall Influence

Sarah Delaney is an American chemist who is a professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Brown University. Her research investigates DNA damage and how it is related to human disease. Early life and education Delaney was an undergraduate student at Middlebury College, where she majored in chemistry, researching cisplatin anti-cancer analogs. She moved to the California Institute of Technology for graduate research, where she worked alongside Jacqueline Barton on the role of DNA in charge-transfer reactions. In particular, she investigated whether the helical stack of base pairs in the...

#3455

Walter Becker

#186553

Overall Influence

#3456

Eugene W. Beier

#186950

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Eugene William Beier is an American physicist. Beier received in 1961 his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and in 1963 his M.S. and in 1966 his Ph.D., with advisor Louis J. Koester Jr., from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign with thesis A search for heavy leptons using a differential Cherenkov counter. He became in 1967 an assistant professor and in 1979 a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

#3457

J. Ritchie Patterson

#186969

Overall Influence

Ritchie Patterson is a physicist at Cornell University known for her research using the Large Hadron Collider to examine dark matter and the disappearance of antimatter. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3458

Michelle C. Chang

#187161

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (48 years)

Michelle C. Y. Chang is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a recipient of several young scientist awards for her research in biosynthesis of biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

#3459

Zhihong Chen

#187176

Overall Influence

Zhihong Chen is a Chinese-American nanoelectronics engineer known for her research on the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes and graphene. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.

#3460

Noemi Mirkin

#187257

Overall Influence

Noemi Mirkin from the University of Michigan, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after they were nominated by their Forum on International Physics in 2007, for her leadership in establishing productive international collaborations, her many achievements in biological molecular physics and for her long service to the international community as an officer and Executive Committee member of the Forum on International Physics.

#3461

Theda Daniels-Race

#187368

Overall Influence

Theda M. Daniels-Race is an American engineer and Michael B. Voorhies Distinguished Professor in the Division of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Louisiana State University. Her research is in nanoelectronics, specialising in the growth and characterization of nanomaterials and hybrid electronic devices based on compound semiconductors.

#3462

Murthy Devarakonda

#187381

Overall Influence

Murthy Devarakonda is a computer scientist at the AI Innovation Center of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for his contributions to measurement-based analytics of distributed systems for data center optimization.

#3463

Alan Herbert Glasser

#187586

Overall Influence

Alan Herbert Glasser is an American physicist. While working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Glasser was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1999, "[f]or contributions to the theory of toroidal ideal and resistive magnetohydrodynamic instabilities and their applications to plasma confinement for magnetic fusion energy research."

#3464

Michael A Sutton

#187611

Overall Influence

#3465

Bryant Villeponteau

#187932

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (81 years)

Bryant Villeponteau is an American scientist, entrepreneur, and longevity expert who has worked in both academia and industry. His early work included the cloning of the RNA component of human telomerase when working at Geron Corporation, which led to his winning the 1997 Distinguished Inventor Award for cloning human telomerase along with three of his Geron teammates. In 2008, Villeponteau went on to serve as Vice President of Research of the aging genetics company Genescient, Inc., which uses machine learning technologies, biochemistry, and Drosophila genetics to develop therapeutics to help delay the aging process.

#3466

Douglas Tobias

#188058

Overall Influence

Douglas James Tobias is an American chemist who is professor and chair of the department of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. His research is in the fields of biophysical, theoretical, and computational chemistry. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006. He was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2013 and of the American Physical Society in 2014. In 2014, he received the Theoretical Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society's Division of Physical Chemistry, and in 2017, he received the Soft Matter and...

#3467

Ward Winer

#188120

Overall Influence

Ward O. Winer is an American engineer, currently the Regents' Professor Emeritus at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, American Society for Engineering Education and ASME.

#3468

Shih-Ying Lee

#188206

Overall Influence

1922 - 2018 (96 years)

Shih-Ying Lee or S. Y. Lee was an American aerodynamicist, businessman, inventor, and mechanical engineer who was noted for his research and innovation in hydrodynamics-related technologies. He was also a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#3469

Wen Lianxing

#188270

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (57 years)

Wen Lianxing is a Chinese seismologist and geophysicist. He is a professor at Stony Brook University and the University of Science and Technology of China. He was awarded the James B. Macelwane Medal in 2003 and elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

#3470

Jane Wilhelms

#188462

Overall Influence

Jane Patricia Wilhelms was an American biologist and computer scientist known for her contributions to computer graphics, including work on anatomical simulation of humans and animals and collision detection in computer animation, and isosurfaces and volume rendering in scientific visualization. She was a professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

#3471

Mildred Widgoff

#188659

Overall Influence

1924 - 2004 (80 years)

Mildred Widgoff was an American experimental particle physicist and astroparticle physicist who became the first female faculty member at the Brown University physics department. Life Mildred Widgoff was born in Buffalo, New York, on August 24, 1924, graduated from the University at Buffalo in 1944 with a bachelor's degree in physics, and came to work for the Manhattan Project in the SAM Laboratories at Columbia University. She earned a Ph.D. in 1952 studying cosmic rays at Cornell University with Giuseppe Cocconi and Kenneth Greisen; her dissertation was Neutrons from Interactions of Mu Meso...

#3472

Melvin I. Simon

#188734

Overall Influence

#3473

Judy Vance

#188750

Overall Influence

Judy M. Vance is an American mechanical engineer known for her research on the use of virtual reality and haptic technology in design and manufacturing. She is a professor emerita of mechanical engineering and the former Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Professor of Engineering at Iowa State University.

#3474

Heidi N. Becker

#188924

Overall Influence

Heidi N. Becker is an American planetary scientist who studies Jupiter as radiation monitoring investigation lead for NASA Juno space mission. She works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Becker came to science late; she was a dance and theater student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and graduated from NYU with a bachelor of fine arts in 1990. After working in theater in New York, she became interested in science through hospital volunteer work, and returned to college in her mid-20s, initially in New York and then transferring to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

#3475

Erik M. Conway

#189078

Overall Influence

#3476

Robert Safranek

#189166

Overall Influence

Robert Safranek from the Benevue, Inc., Warren, New Jersey, was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to perceptual image and video compression and quality.

#3477

Li Zhang

#189348

Overall Influence

Li Zhang is a biologist currently working at University of Texas at Dallas. She is a professor of Biological Sciences and the Cecil H. and Ida Green Distinguished Chair in Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. During her 20+ years of independent research, Li Zhang has made major contributions to the understanding of Heme signaling and function in gene regulation, neuronal differentiation and survival, and lung cancer bioenergetics.

#3478

Libai Huang

#189795

Overall Influence

Libai Huang is a Chinese-American chemist who is a professor at Purdue University. She is interested in unravelling the structure-property relationships of next-generation solar materials. Early life and education Huang earned a doctorate BS from Peking University in 2001 and a PhD from University of Rochester in 2006. Her doctorate developed ultrafast nonlinear optical spectroscopy of single-wall carbon nanotubes. Huang then joined Argonne National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow.

#3479

Jennifer Bartlett

#189994

Overall Influence

Jennifer Lynn Bartlett is an American astronomer, the Kinnear Chair of Physics at the United States Naval Academy, and former Chief of the Software Products Division in the Astronomical Applications Department of the United States Naval Observatory. Her interests include the development of software for astrometry, the accurate measurements of distances to nearby stars, celestial navigation, the effects of the atmosphere on the brightness of the sky and celestial objects, the history of astronomy, and the preservation of historical astronomical data.

#3480

Sarah Spiegel

#190249

Overall Influence

Sarah Spiegel is professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University . In the mid-1990s she discovered the sphingosine-1-phosphate molecule, a lipid which has been identified as a signaler for the spread of cancer, inflammation, and cardiovascular disease. Her research continues to focus on S1P.

#3481

Reatha Clark King

Reatha Clark King

#190418

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (87 years)

Reatha Belle Clark King is an American chemist, the former vice president of the General Mills Corporation; and the former president, executive director, and chairman of the board of trustees of the General Mills Foundation, the philanthropic foundation of General Mills, Inc.

#3482

Daniel Akerib

#190522

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Daniel S. Akerib is an American particle physicist and astrophysicist. He was elected in 2008 a fellow of the American Physical Society . Biography Akerib graduated in 1984 with an A.B. from the University of Chicago and in 1990 with a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. A search for the rare decay + → + is the title of his Ph.D. thesis . As a postdoc he did research from 1990 to 1992 at California Institute of Technology and from 1993 to 1996 at UC Berkeley's Center for Particle Astrophysics . In the physics department of Case Western Reserve University, he was from 1995 to 2001 an ...

#3483

Kevin M. Short

#190538

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (62 years)

Kevin M. Short is an American mathematician and entrepreneur. He is a professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of New Hampshire. He is also co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Setem Technologies, in Newbury, Massachusetts. Since 1994, when he began at UNH, Short's academic research and work has continually focused on tying together nonlinear chaos theory and signal processing so that nonlinearity can play a major role in the future of technology development.

#3484

Pavlos Vlachos

#190575

Overall Influence

Pavlos P. Vlachos is a Greek-American engineer, scientist, academic, and entrepreneur. He is professor in Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering and in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, and the St. Vincent Health Professor of Healthcare Engineering. He serves as the Director for the Purdue Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering .

#3485

Christopher Keane

#190732

Overall Influence

Christopher J. Keane is an American physicist and astronomer currently at Washington State University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3486

Robert Ecke

#190832

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Robert Everett Ecke is an American experimental physicist who is a laboratory fellow and director emeritus of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Affiliate Professor of Physics at the University of Washington. His research has included chaotic nonlinear dynamics, pattern formation, rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, two-dimensional turbulence, granular materials, and stratified flows. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , was chair of the APS Topical Group on Statistical and Nonlin...

#3487

Barry Stevens

#190855

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (76 years)

Barry Stevens is an American technology business developer, scientist, author, speaker and entrepreneur in technology-driven enterprises; Founder of TBD America Inc., a technology business development group .

#3488

Gennady Erlikhman

#191221

Overall Influence

#3489

Kurt H. Becker

#191276

Overall Influence

Kurt H. Becker is a physicist and entrepreneur. His research focuses on experimental atomic, chemical, and plasma physics. He is vice dean of research, innovation, and entrepreneurship at New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering. Becker holds seven patents regarding the generation and maintenance of atmospheric-pressure plasmas and their application.

#3490

G. Marshall Molen

#191729

Overall Influence

G. Marshall Molen is an American engineer currently at Mississippi State University. He is a former Distinguished Engineering Professor.

#3491

Jesse Russell

#191787

Overall Influence

#3492

Marcus Cicerone

#192080

Overall Influence

Marcus T. Cicerone is an American physicist, focusing in noninvasive spectroscopic imaging, currently at Georgia Tech and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

#3493

Peter Engels

#192082

Overall Influence

Peter Engels is a professor of physics at the Washington State University, who conducts research in the field of ultracold atomic gases. His group at WSU performs a variety of experiments involving quantum hydrodynamics, spin–orbit coupling , soliton formation, condensed matter physics, and more using Rb-87 and K-40 . Recently, in collaboration with the theorists Prof. Michael Forbes, Yongping Zhang, and Thomas Busch, his team published research demonstrating negative mass hydrodynamics in a spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensate.

#3494

Vijay K. Goel

#192107

Overall Influence

Vijay K. Goel is an American engineer, currently the Distinguished University Professor and McMaster-Gardner Endowed Chair at University of Toledo.

#3495

Marc Wold

#192280

Overall Influence

Marc S. Wold is an American biochemist currently at University of Iowa and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research interests are eukaryotic cells and DNA and his high citations for this field is 1254, 547 and 471.

#3496

Allen Adler

#192424

Overall Influence

Edward Allen Adler is an American businessman and physicist, who as of 2017 was the vice president of Enterprise Technology Strategy for The Boeing Company. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, with the citation:

#3497

Robert White McFarland

Robert White McFarland

1825 - 1910 (85 years)

Robert White McFarland was an American engineer who served as a university professor, president and Civil War officer. McFarland was born in Champaign County, Ohio, to Robert and Eunice McFarland. He received his A.B and M.A. degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University. In 1856 he received a teaching appointment at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he remained until the university closed in 1873. On leave from Miami, McFarland became an officer in the 86th Ohio Infantry during the American Civil War and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

#3498

George Frederick Barker

George Frederick Barker

1835 - 1910 (75 years)

George Frederick Barker was an American physician and scientist. He graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1858. He was successively chemical assistant in Harvard Medical School in 1858–1859 and 1860–1861, professor of chemistry and geology in Wheaton College. In 1864 he became the Professor of Natural Science at the Western University of Pennsylvania, now known as the University of Pittsburgh, where he undertook experiments to produce electric light by passing the current through a resisting filament which he claimed was "the first steady electric light generated in Pittsburgh, if not in the country".

#3499

David M. Dennison

David M. Dennison

1900 - 1976 (76 years)

David Mathias Dennison was an American physicist who made contributions to quantum mechanics, spectroscopy, and the physics of molecular structure. Education In 1917, Dennison entered Swarthmore College, where he graduated in 1921. He then went to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, for graduate studies in physics with Walter F. Colby and Oskar Klein. Klein, already associated with the Kaluza–Klein theory , joined the faculty at Michigan in 1922, after a six-year stay at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, under Niels Bohr, at the University of Copenhagen. It was through Klein that D...

#3500

James Olds

1922 - 1976 (54 years)

James Olds was an American psychologist who co-discovered the pleasure center of the brain with Peter Milner while he was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in 1954. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern neuroscience and received numerous distinctions ranging from election to the United States National Academy of Sciences to the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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