65 Most Amazing Scientists who are still Alive Today

Jane Goodall HK-by Jeekc-Wikimedia Commons

65 Most Amazing Scientists Who Are Still Alive Today

Originally published by Vanessa M on February 2023 and updated by Vanessa M on May 2024.

Nearly everything in today’s world is impacted by scientific and technical advancements, sometimes completely reshaping them, from biotechnology and digital media to renewable energy and cloud computing. As a culture, we’ve grown accustomed to taking the benefits of science for granted, including the use of computers, access to running water and electricity, and our reliance on a range of modes of transportation and communication. However, all of these advantages result from the discoveries and innovations made by scientists as they try to understand how nature and its constituent parts function.

The most influential persons in the world now may be scientists. They have played an unmatched influence in influencing our culture’s outlook. We owe a debt of gratitude to our great scientists for the world’s continual benefit from their most significant past and present inventions and discoveries. Following a substantial impact on our planet, here are some of the most important scientists in our time and their greatest contributions to science through their ground-breaking innovations.

Read also; 15 Brightest Scientists of All Time

Most Amazing Physicists Who Are Still Alive Today

1. Alain Aspect

Alain Aspect (15420152598)-by Polytechnic University of Paris-Saclay-Wikimedia Commons

French physicist Alain Aspect, who was born on June 15, 1947, is renowned for his work on quantum entanglement. Together with John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, Aspect received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics “for experiments with entangled photons, showing the violation. He keeps up with his studies, which are crucial to our comprehension of how everything in the universe is connected. He is presently employing extremely cold atoms to investigate how waves localize in materials. Aspect is a professor at the École Polytechnique and holds the Augustin Fresnel Chair at the Institut d’Optique, both in Paris.

2. Anthony Fauci

Anthony Stephen Fauci, an American physician-scientist and immunologist born on December 24, 1940, held the positions of chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022 as well as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022. A wide range of diseases from potential bioterrorism agents, such as tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma, and allergies, are included in Fauci’s extensive research portfolio.

This includes applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses (such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases), as well as diseases from other sources. His exact articulation of the mechanisms by which immunosuppressive drugs modify the human immune response has earned him widespread acclaim.

3. Margaret J. Geller

MargaretGeller1981a-by ServiceAT-Wikimedia Commons

American astrophysicist Margaret J. Geller, born on December 8, 1947, works at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. She has developed and applied techniques for measuring the distribution of matter in the cosmos studied the interactions between galaxies and their surroundings and created groundbreaking maps of the local universe. 

Geller’s current main scientific interests include the Smithsonian Hectospec Lensing Survey (SHELS), a project that she directs and which employs the gravitational lensing phenomena to map the distribution of the enigmatic, pervasive dark matter in the cosmos. She is also in charge of the “HectoMAP” project, which uses massive databases of data to map galaxy clusters and subsequently helps us comprehend how these systems evolve over the course of the universe’s history. She is also looking into the ramifications of the discovery of hypervelocity stars.

4. Alan Guth

Alan Harvey Guth is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who was born on February 27, 1947. Guth has studied basic particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He holds the position of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics. Guth is the creator of inflationary cosmology, a universe theory that resolves the puzzle raised by the Big Bang as to why the universe appears flat, homogeneous, and isotropic when one would anticipate (on the basis of the physics of the Big Bang) a highly curved, heterogeneous, and anisotropic universe. A large portion of Guth’s current research focuses on the density fluctuations brought on by inflation, including the consequences of novel inflationary forms and whether the underlying theory can be strengthened.

5. Lene Hau

Professor Lene Hau in her laboratory at Harvard-by Justin Ide/Harvard News Office-Wikimedia Commons

Lene Vestergaard Hau is a Danish scientist and educator who was born on November 13, 1959. She holds the Mallinckrodt Professorship of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University. Cold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates are the focus of Hau’s most recent research. Her team effectively precools atoms to microkelvin temperatures using laser cooling. By optically producing quantum interference in a Bose-Einstein condensate, the Hau group has succeeded in lowering the speed of light, first to 17 meters per second and then to virtually zero m.p.s.

6. Peter Higgs

Peter Ware Higgs, a British theoretical physicist who was born on May 29, 1929, is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh and a recipient of the Nobel Prize for his research on the mass of subatomic particles. The discovery of the Higgs boson inspired researchers to search for even more profound theories and discoveries in particle physics by validating the remaining untested portion of the Standard Model’s approach to fundamental particles and forces.

7. Robert J. Marks II

Robert J. Marks II (2016)-by WasabiJones-Wikimedia Commons

American electrical engineer, computer scientist, and Distinguished Professor at Baylor University Robert Jackson Marks II was born on August 25, 1950. His contributions to the field of signal processing include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution, the Cheung-Marks theorem in the study of Shannon sampling theory, and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) method for multidimensional sampling.

Marks II has contributed significantly to technology in a wide range of fields, including the treatment of prostate cancer using spaced radium inserts, signal display, remote sensing, optical image sampling, optical computers, and the use of fuzzy logic to regulate the electrical grid (how electricity is delivered today depends crucially on the work of Marks). He has provided consulting services to organizations like Microsoft and Boeing.

8. Edward Witten

Theoretical physicist and American mathematician Edward Witten was born on August 26, 1951. He is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Witten researches mathematical physics in various fields, including supersymmetric quantum field theories, quantum gravity, and string theory. He is well known for his key mathematical contributions to the study of string theory. His discovery that different string theories can be mapped onto one another by specific guidelines, known as dualities, sparked a wave of research that is now referred to as the “second superstring revolution.”Witten was hailed as the greatest theoretical physicist alive in 2004, according to Time magazine.

9. Ashoke Sen

Dr. Ashoke Sen in Physics department of Scottish Church College-by Souravdas1998-Wikimedia Commons

Ashoke Sen is a renowned professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bengaluru, and an Indian theoretical physicist. He was born in 1956. Additionally, he holds the titles of distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study and Morningstar Visiting professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), both of which are located in Bhubaneswar, India. String theory is his primary field of study. He was one of the first recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize, which was given to him for opening the route to the discovery that all string theories are various limitations of the same underlying theory.

10. Monika Schleier-Smith

American experimental physicist Monika Schleier-Smith builds ultracold atom systems precisely to research many-body quantum physics. These systems created using atomic, molecular, and optical physics (AMO) have uses in quantum sensing, coherence control, and quantum computing. She holds the titles of Sloan Research Fellow, Associate Professor of Physics at Stanford University, and recipient of the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Schleier-Smith is a member of the Hertz Foundation’s board of directors as well.

11. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson at Howard University September 28, 2010-by Bruce F Press-Wikimedia Commons

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, was born on October 5, 1958. He became a staff scientist at the Hayden Planetarium and a visiting research scientist and lecturer at Princeton University in 1994. Tyson has served as the Hayden Planetarium’s director at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City since 1996. Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in 1997, and he has worked as a research associate there since 2003. He is an advocate for expanding the operations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

Read more on; Top 10 Facts about Neil deGrasse Tyson

12. Brian Cox 

Brian Edward, an English particle physicist and former musician who was born on March 3, 1968, holds the titles of Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and Professor of Particle Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. The public is most familiar with him as the host of science shows, particularly the Wonders of… series, and for his popular science books, including Why Does E=mc2? and The Quantum Universe.

13. Kip Thorne

Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kip Stephen Thorne, born on June 1, 1940, is an American theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to gravitational physics and astrophysics. He was a longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, and until 2009 he was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He was also one of the world’s leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. He is also an actor and producer best known for Interstellar (2014), The Big Bang Theory (2007), and Astronogeek (2015).

Most Amazing Biologists Who Are Still Alive Today

14. David Baltimore

Dr. David Baltimore2-by Bob Peace-Wikimedia Commons

David Baltimore, an American biologist, and professor who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was born on March 7, 1938. Baltimore was president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006 and is currently a professor of biology there. Additionally, he oversees the Joint Center for Translational Medicine, a program that brings together Caltech and UCLA to turn discoveries in basic science into applications in the clinic.

There are 680 peer-reviewed articles published by Baltimore. His most recent work is concentrated on the regulation of inflammatory and immunological responses, the functions of microRNAs in the immune system, and the use of gene therapy to treat cancer and HIV.

15. Pierre Chambon

The Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology in Strasbourg, France, was founded by Pierre Chambon, who was born on February 7, 1931, in Mulhouse, France. He was one of the top molecular biologists who first figured out how eukaryotic genes are structured and how they are regulated using gene cloning and sequencing techniques.

His greatest scientific achievements include the discovery of RNA polymerase II, the discovery of transcriptional regulatory elements, and the cloning and dissection of nuclear hormone receptors, which revealed their structure and showed how they affect human physiology. Chambon is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Strasbourg, an honorary professor at the Collège de France, and an emeritus professor at the University of Strasbourg’s Faculty of Medicine.

16. Ronald M. Evans

Apollo 17 astronaut Ronald E. Evans performs an EVA to retrieve film cassettes during the trans-Earth coast-by NASA-Wikimedia Commons

American biologist Ronald Mark Evans was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 17, 1949. He holds the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, as well as being a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Evans is renowned for his pioneering discoveries of nuclear hormone receptors (NR), a distinct class of transcriptional factors, and the clarification of their universal mechanism of action.

This mechanism describes how lipophilic hormones and drugs control nearly all developmental and metabolic pathways in both animals and humans. Currently, NRs are one of the most extensively researched groups of pharmacological targets in the world, and they have already helped with the development of drugs for conditions including cancer, muscular dystrophies, osteoporosis, type II diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular illnesses. His most recent studies concentrate on how nuclear hormone signaling affects metabolism and cancer.

17. Stanley B. Prusiner

Stanley Benjamin Prusiner, a neurologist, and scientist from the United States was born on May 28, 1942. He is the leader of the University of California, San Francisco’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (UCSF). Prusiner is most known for his discovery of a brand-new class of infections that he called “prions.” Prions are contagious proteins that cause neurological disorders in both humans and animals.

18. Andrew Z. Fire

Andrew Fire, Stanford University-by Linda A. Cicero-Wikimedia Commons

American biologist and professor of pathology and genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Andrew Zachary Fire was born on April 27, 1959. Together with Craig C. Mello, they shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNA interference (RNAi). Fire teaches genetics and pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He previously held an academic position at Johns Hopkins University’s biology department.

19. Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall is an English anthropologist and primatologist who was born on April 3, 1934. After 60 years of researching the social and family dynamics of wild chimpanzees, she is regarded as the best authority on chimpanzees. Today, Goodall travels roughly 300 days a year and spends almost all of her time advocating for chimpanzees and the environment. Additionally, she serves on the board of Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida. It is the biggest chimpanzee refuge in the world outside of Africa.

20. Leroy Hood

Leroy Hood-by Tabercis-Wikimedia Commons

American biologist Leroy “Lee” Edward Hood, born on October 10, 1938, has held faculty positions at the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Major advancements in the biological sciences and the medical sciences have been made possible because of groundbreaking scientific tools invented by Hood. These include the first automated DNA sequencer (1986), which identified the order of nucleotides in DNA, the first gas phase protein sequencer (1982), which determines the sequence of amino acids in a given protein; a DNA synthesizer (1983), which synthesizes short sections of DNA; a peptide synthesizer (1984), which combines amino acids into longer peptides and short proteins; ink-jet oligonucleotide technology for synthesizing.

21. Andrew H. Knoll

The Fisher Research Professor of Natural History and a Research Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, Andrew Herbert Knoll was born in 1951. Knoll is most known for finding microscopic remnants of early life (also known as “microfossils”) in a variety of places, including Spitsbergen, Greenland, Siberia, China, Namibia, western North America, and Australia. He was one of the pioneers in the interpretation of microfossils using the theories of taphonomy and paleoecology. Along with a few issues in Phanerozoic earth history, he is still researching the paleontology and biogeochemistry of the Archean and Proterozoic eras.

22. Craig C. Mello

Craig Mello 01-by Bengt Oberger-Wikimedia Commons

American biologist and professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, Craig Cameron Mello was born on October 18, 1960. Along with Andrew Z. Fire, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006 for discovering RNA interference (RNAi).

23. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard mg 4372-by Rama-Wikimedia Commons

German developmental biologist and 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner for her research on the genetic control of embryonic development Christiane (Janni) Nüsslein-Volhard was born on October 20, 1942. She is the sole German female recipient of a science Nobel Prize. She is also the founder and director of the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation, which aids female scientists who are also mothers.

24. Dennis Bray

Bray is an active emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge. The Oxford Centre for Integrative Systems Biology includes his organization. After focusing on cell growth and mobility throughout his early career in neurobiology,  Bray relocated to Cambridge to create computer models of cell signaling, particularly in connection to bacterial chemotaxis. The propagation of allosteric states in massive multi-protein complexes is one of Bray’s most recent research projects.

Along with these more well-known pieces, he also recently contributed to a symposium in Nature on the centenary of Alan Turing with the article “Is the Brain a Good Model for Machine Intelligence? ” and wrote an essay titled “Brain versus Machine” for the compilation Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment.

25. Seiji Ogawa

Seiji Ogawa Seiji Ogawa-by Rickinasia-Wikimedia Commons

Seiji Ogawa, a Japanese biophysicist, and neurologist who was born on January 19, 1934, is credited with developing the method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He is credited with founding contemporary functional brain imaging. He discovered that variations in blood oxygen levels affect its magnetic resonance imaging characteristics, enabling the construction of a map of blood flow and, by extension, functional activity in the brain.

The visual, auditory and sensory brain areas have been mapped using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Recently, the focus of the approach has shifted to higher-order mental processes like cognition. Modern research into how the brain functions use fMRI, one of the most innovative investigative methods in the recent history of biomedical science.

26. Simon Conway Morris

Simon Conway Morris FRS is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and astrobiologist who was born in England in 1951. He is well-known for his research on the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian explosion. Morris holds the Chair of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at Cambridge University’s Department of Earth Sciences. Morris has been researching evolutionary convergence, or the phenomena when unconnected groups of animals and plants evolve similar adaptations, in recent years. His bestselling book Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe advances this research’s fundamental argument.

27. Thomas C. Südhof

Thomas c südhof-by Juancamartos-Wikimedia Commons

German-American biochemist Thomas Christian Südhof, who was born on December 22, 1955, is well-known for his research on synaptic transmission. He is currently a professor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, as well as by courtesy in Neurology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Sciences. In 1986, Südhof established his own group at UT Southwestern, where he contributed to the discovery of a DNA fragment in the LDL gene that, when introduced into a viral promoter, resulted in sterol-mediated end-product repression.

This discovery sparked the creation of cholesterol-lowering drugs derived from statins, such as atorvastatin (Lipitor), a top-selling branded treatment today. The synaptic transmission mechanisms underlying disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and autism are now better understood thanks to research by Südhof. 

28. Shinya Yamanaka

Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese stem cell researcher, and Nobel Prize winner, was born on September 4, 1962. He is a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California, the director of the Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application, a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University, and an anatomy professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He was named a “Person Who Mattered” in Time magazine’s 2007 Person of the Year edition due to the importance of his scientific breakthroughs. 

Read more on; 10 of the Most Famous Japanese Scientists

29. Jack W. Szostak

jack-szostak-by Markus Pössel-Wikimedia Commons

Jack William Szostak, a biologist of Canadian and American descent of Polish and British ancestry, was born on November 9, 1952. He holds the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is a professor at the University of Chicago and a former professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is also an Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Szostak has significantly advanced the science of genetics.

His accomplishments aided in the mapping of mammalian gene locations and the creation of gene-editing methods. His study in this field has been helpful to the Human Genome Project as well. His lab is presently investigating how life first evolved on the early earth, specifically the physical and chemical factors that aided the shift from chemical evolution to biological evolution. 

30. Harold E. Varmus

Harold E. Varmus, a biologist and the current director of the National Cancer Institute, was born on December 18, 1939. He is currently a senior associate at the New York Genome Center and the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Varmus is well recognized for his studies on the hepatitis B virus family, retrovirus replication cycles, the activities of genes linked to cancer, and the creation of animal models for human cancer.

31. Craig Venter

Craigventer2-by Liza Gross-Wikimedia Commons

John Craig Venter is an American biotechnologist and businessman who was born on October 14, 1946. He is renowned for organizing the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome and heading one of the initial draft sequencings of the human genome. Venter also established the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). He is currently attempting to construct synthetic biological entities at JCVI. Venter’s JCVI is dedicated to science education as well and provides courses in technology, math, and science for children of all ages. 

32. James Watson

James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist who was born on April 6, 1928. He and Francis Crick collaborated on the scholarly publication that proposed the DNA molecule’s double helix shape in 1953. He has served as the Director, President, and Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), one of the top biological research facilities in the world.

33. Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Blackburn 01-by Bengt Oberger-Wikimedia Commons

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, an Australian-American Nobel laureate and former leader of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, was born on November 26, 1948. She formerly worked as a biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, where she examined the telomere, a chromosome’s protective structure at the end. Together with Carol W. Greider, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that renews the telomere, in 1984. She became the first Australian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for this work, sharing it with Greider and Jack W. Szostak. 

34. Richard Dawkins

David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and expert on animal behavior. He is well-known for his ability to explain concepts from his research and beyond to non-specialists. Thus, he has played a critical role in increasing public understanding of science. He is also well-known for his views on eliminating religion from science education and public policy.

The crux of Richard’s communication is presenting gene-centered concepts that explain the process of animal evolution compellingly. He is a strong supporter of the survival of the fittest theory and believes that our behavior is preprogrammed in our DNA. He is a strong critic of creationism and frequently appears in the media to express his views. 

Most Amazing Chemists Who Are Still Alive Today

35. Allen Bard

KSA 2068 (13112572023)-by ENERGY.GOV-Wikimedia Commons

American scientist Allen Joseph Bard was born on December 18, 1933. For his pioneering work creating the scanning electrochemical microscope, his co-discovery of electrochemiluminescence, his significant contributions to the photoelectrochemistry of semiconductor electrodes, and his co-authorship of a seminal textbook, Bard is regarded as the “father of modern electrochemistry.” Bard holds the Norman Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair at the University of Texas, where he also directs the Center for Electrochemistry.

His current research is concentrated on utilizing solar energy to create sustainable energy. His University of Texas lab experiments with several chemical substances in the pursuit of a substance that will perform synthetic photosynthesis. If such discoveries are not found, Bard is adamant that humanity would be in serious difficulty once fossil fuels run out.

36. Jean Fréchet

Jean M.J. Fréchet, a French-American chemist and Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was born in August 1944. His work in polymers, including macroporous separation media, dendrimers, polymer-supported chemistry, chemically amplified photoresists, and polymers for therapeutics, is what is most well-known about him. He was listed as one of the top ten chemists in 2021. His research focuses on the design, fundamental comprehension, synthesis, and applications of functional macromolecules, with an emphasis on organic synthesis and polymer chemistry applied to nanoscience and nanotechnology.

37. Martin Karplus

Martin Karplus Nobel Prize 22 2013-by Bengt Nyman-Wikimedia Commons

Martin Karplus, an American and Austrian theoretical chemist, was born on March 15, 1930. He is the director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a cooperative facility run by the University of Strasbourg and the French National Center for Scientific Research. Additionally, he has the title of Emeritus Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University.

38. Henry F. Schaefer III

Fritz Schaefer III, a computational and theoretical chemist, was born on June 8, 1944. With a Thomson Reuters H-Index of 121 as of 2020, he is one of the most often mentioned chemists in the entire globe. He holds the positions of Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Schaefer is credited with creating the area of computational quantum chemistry and advancing it into a dependable quantitative field of study in chemistry.

39. James Tour

Professor James Tour-by James M Tour-Wikimedia Commons

American chemist and nanotechnologist James Mitchell Tour (born 1959) is also a prominent proponent of pseudoscience, notably rejecting the study of abiogenesis and endorsing young earth creationism. He holds academic appointments at Rice University in Houston, Texas, where he teaches computer science, materials science, and chemistry. With an h-index of 165 and more than 125,000 total citations, Tour is a leading researcher in his area and was recognized as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher. The field of molecular electronics, which deals with nanoscale electrical devices using molecular switching molecules, has benefited the most from his contributions.

40. George M. Whitesides

Professor of chemistry at Harvard University and American chemist George McClelland Whitesides was born on August 3, 1939. He is renowned for his work in a wide range of chemistry-related fields, including molecular self-assembly and self-organization, organometallic chemistry, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, nanotechnology, NMR spectroscopy, and origin of life studies. In 2011, he obtained the highest Hirsch index rating of all active chemists. The areas of interest for Whitesides’ current research projects continue to be highly diverse, ranging from cell-surface biochemistry to science for emerging markets.

41. Tu Youyou

Tu Youyou 5012-1-2015-by Bengt Nyman-Wikimedia Commons

Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malarialologist Tu Youyou was born on December 30, 1930. She made a significant contribution to twentieth-century tropical medicine by discovering the antimalarial drugs artemisinin (also known as qīnghāosù, 青蒿素, ) and dihydroartemisinin, which prevented or treated millions of deaths in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. Tu shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Satoshi Mura and William C. Campbell for her work, which also earned her the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine. She is the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and the first person from the People’s Republic of China to win a Nobel Prize overall.

42. Paul Anastas

Paul T. Anastas, an American scientist, inventor, author, businessman, educator, and public servant, was born on May 16, 1962, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Anastas was previously the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisor as well as the agency’s assistant administrator for research and development, both positions were appointed by President Barack Obama. He is currently the director of Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. He is renowned as the “Father of Green Chemistry” for his contributions to the development and production of environmentally friendly and non-hazardous chemicals. He supports sustainability science and innovation for preserving the environment.

43. Carolyn Bertozzi

Carolyn Bertozzi-by Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck-Wikimedia Commons

Born on October 10, 1966, Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi is an American scientist and Nobel laureate who is renowned for her extensive work in both biology and chemistry. She came up with the phrase “bioorthogonal chemistry” to describe chemical processes that work well with living things. Her most recent work includes the manufacture of chemical instruments to investigate the role of glycans, which are sugars found on cell surfaces, in conditions like cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19. She currently holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. 

44. Eric R. Scerri

Elisa Seidner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eric Scerri, a UCLA chemistry professor, historian, and philosopher of science, has been named Academic Influence’s second-most influential academic in chemistry over the last decade. He is well-known for his periodic table books and philosophy of chemistry.  Scerri’s first book on the periodic table received the Newby McCoy prize from the UCLA chemistry department and was named Choice Magazine’s best academic book of the year. His second book on the subject was also named Choice Magazine’s academic book of the year.

His most recent book, “A Tale of Seven Elements,” was named one of the top twelve science books of 2013 by New Scientist magazine. He has also published two books of his own research papers and edited three books on the philosophy of chemistry and the elements. His books have been translated into 12 different languages, and he is currently working on a new book about rare earth elements. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Foundations of Chemistry, an international journal dedicated to all aspects of chemistry.

Most Amazing Computer Scientists Who Are Still Alive Today

45. Timothy Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist who was born on June 8th, 1955, is best known for creating the World Wide Web. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) and a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. Berners-Lee received the first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in 2013, one of five Internet and web pioneers to receive the honor. The University of St. Andrews also conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree upon him. He was also enshrined by the Internet Society in the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.

Read more on; 10 Famous Computer Scientists You Should Know About

46. Donald Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth-by Alex Handy-Wikimedia Commons

American computer scientist Donald Ervin Knuth, who was born on January 10, 1938, is also a mathematician and retired professor at Stanford University. He won the ACM Turing Award in 1974, which is regarded as the Nobel Prize in computer science. Knuth has been referred to as the “father of algorithm analysis.”He developed the computer programming languages WEB and CWEB with the goal of promoting and facilitating literate programming.

47. Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun, a German-American businessman, professor, and computer scientist, was born on May 14, 1967. He serves as chairman and co-founder of Udacity as well as CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation. Prior to that, he held the positions of Google Vice President and Fellow, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University. Thrun started Google X and the company’s self-driving car unit. Thrun is renowned for his work on robotic probabilistic algorithms, especially robotic mapping. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2007 in appreciation of his services at the age of 39. He was also listed as one of 20 “fighters for internet freedom” by The Guardian.

48. Gordon Moore

Gordon Moore Scientists You Must Know-by Staff videographer-Wikimedia Commons

American businessman, engineer, co-founder, and former chairman of Intel Corporation Gordon Earle Moore was born on January 3, 1929. In addition, he is the father of Moore’s law which states that over the course of computer hardware development, the number of transistors on integrated circuits has doubled roughly every two years. Numerous honors have been bestowed on Moore, including the Bower Award for Business Leadership in 2002 and the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2008. He became a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in 1998.

49. Mark Zuckerberg

Anthony Quintano from Honolulu, HI, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Zuckerberg started using computers to write software in middle school and went on to study computer science at Harvard. While he was there, he created a website called ‘facemash’ where students could select the most attractive person from a selection of photos. However, Harvard shut down the website, and Zuckerberg publicly apologized for using photos without permission. By January 2004, he had begun writing the code for Facebook. Facebook has since grown from strength to strength, with Zuckerberg becoming one of the world’s richest people.

Someone said on a science forum that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the greatest and most brilliant computer scientist in history, ranking alongside computer pioneers such as Alan Turing. I doubt this is true, but do you agree or disagree with that statement?

Most Amazing Medical Scientists Who Are Still Alive Today 

50. Eric Kandel

Eric Richard Kandel is a neuroscientist, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a medical doctor with a focus on psychiatry. He was born on November 7, 1929. He is also an expert in Austrian history and culture. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his studies on the physiological underpinnings of memory storage in neurons along with Paul Greengard and Arvid Carlsson.

51. Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande, USAID Assistant Administrator-by United States Agency for International Development-Wikimedia Commons

Atul Atmaram Gawande, an American surgeon, author, and researcher in public health was born on November 5, 1965. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a professor in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management as well as the Samuel O.Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He also works in public health as the chairman of the organization Lifebox and the executive director of Ariadne Labs, a cooperative center for health systems innovation. 

52. Walter Willett

MaynardClark, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., is a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Over the last 40 years, he has spent much of his time developing and evaluating methods for studying the effects of diet on the occurrence of major diseases, using both questionnaire and biochemical approaches. Since 1980, he has used these methods in the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II, as well as the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

These cohorts, which include nearly 300,000 men and women who have undergone repeated dietary assessments, provide the most detailed data on the long-term health consequences of food choices. Dr. Willett has published over 2,000 original research papers and reviews, primarily on lifestyle risk factors for heart disease, cancer, and other conditions. He also wrote the textbook Nutritional Epidemiology, which is now in its third edition and is published by Oxford University Press.

Most Amazing Astronomers Who Are Still Alive Today 

53. Jeremiah P. Ostriker

Born on April 13, 1937, Jeremiah Paul “Jerry” Ostriker is an American astronomer, professor of astronomy at Columbia University, and Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, where he also works as a senior research fellow. He is most recognized for his work on dark matter and dark energy, the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), galaxy formation and black hole growth, and the interaction between quasars and their environs.

54. Phil Plait

Philip Plait 2007-by skeptic-Wikimedia Commons

American astronomer, skeptic, and popular science blogger Philip Cary Plait, commonly known as The Bad Astronomer, was born on September 30, 1964. Plait has contributed to the Hubble Space Telescope team’s work on astronomical object pictures and spectra in addition to advocating for NASA missions through public outreach. He is the author of Bad Astronomy and Death from the Skies. Additionally, he has made appearances in a number of science programs, such as Discovery Channel’s How the Universe Works. He was president of the James Randi Educational Foundation from August 2008 until August 2009. 

55. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Bruce F Press, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Born in New York City on October 5, 1958, Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astronomer who made science more widely known through his books and numerous radio and television appearances. He is one of America’s most well-known scientists and has dedicated much of his career to sharing his knowledge. He has a great ability to present complex concepts in a clear and understandable manner. He began working for the Hayden Planetarium in 1996 and eventually became its director. In addition, he has hosted NOVA ScienceNow and the StarTalk Radio podcast. Tyson is still a popular TV science expert today.

Most Amazing Mathematicians Who Are Still Alive Today 

56. Roger Penrose

Born on August 8, 1931, Sir Roger Penrose is a British mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science, and recipient of the Physics Nobel Prize. He has the title of Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, as well as honorary fellowships at St. John’s College in Cambridge and University College London. He is also an emeritus fellow of Wadham College in Oxford.

Penrose, who received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University, made significant contributions to early pure mathematics research on the tiling problem (filling a plane with various shapes, leaving no gaps). Additionally, he popularized paradoxical constructions like the Penrose triangle, Penrose steps, and others that he referred to as “impossibility in its purest form.” These concepts have been a recurring theme in the works of artist M.C. Escher, whose earlier illustrations of impossibly complex objects served as a source of inspiration. In addition, Penrose developed the twistor theory, a fresh perspective on the structure of spacetime that helped us better comprehend gravity.

57. Persi Diaconis

Persi Diaconis 2010- by Søren Fuglede Jørgensen-Wikimedia Commons

Persi Warren Diaconis, an American mathematician of Greek ancestry and a former professional magician, was born on January 31, 1945. He serves as Stanford University’s Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics. Diaconis is renowned in particular for solving mathematical conundrums requiring unpredictability and randomization, such as coin tossing and card shuffling.

58. Andrew Wiles

Sir Andrew John Wiles, an English mathematician who specializes in number theory and has a Royal Society Research Professorship at the University of Oxford, was born on April 11, 1953. His most famous accomplishment is his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, for which he received the Royal Society’s 2017 Copley Medal and the 2016 Abel Prize. Most recently, he has made new advancements in the construction of ℓ-adic representations attached to Hilbert modular forms and has used these to prove the “main conjecture” for cyclotomic extensions of totally real fields once more. This is an impressive result because none of the traditional cyclotomic field tools are applied to these problems.

59. Terence Tao

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Terence Tao (born 17 July 1975 in Adelaide, Australia) is sometimes referred to as the “Mozart of mathematics”. When he was 13, he became the youngest-ever winner of the International Mathematical Olympiad, and when he was 24, he became the University of California, Los Angeles’ youngest tenured professor.

Tao has received the MacArthur Fellowship, the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, and the Fields Medal, the highest award in mathematics, for “his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis, and additive number theory”. He and Ben Green proved the Green-Tao theorem, which states that prime numbers can be arranged in arbitrarily long arithmetic sequences.

Most Amazing Linguists Alive Today

60. Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, 2004-by Duncan Rawlinson-Wikimedia Commons

American public thinker Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Chomsky, who is sometimes referred to as “the father of contemporary linguistics,” is also a significant figure in analytic philosophy and one of the pioneers of the discipline of cognitive science. He is the author of more than 150 works on subjects like linguistics, conflict, and politics. He has the titles of Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He supports libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism as ideologies.

61. David Crystal

Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, on July 6, 1941. He is an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, and he works as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster on language and linguistics, with a focus on English. He has written numerous books about linguists, including the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, the Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia of the English Dictionary, and many others.

His books on English literature and linguistics are well known. In his books, he has explained technical concepts in an understandable and accessible manner. According to one of his hypotheses, the English language will mix with local languages and become incomprehensible. As a result, there is a need to standardize spoken English.

Most Amazing Climatologists Alive Today

62. Corinne Le Quéré

Professor Corinne Le Quere FRS-by Duncan.Hull-Wikimedia Commons

Scientist Corinne Le Quéré was born in Canada in July 1966. She is a former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and a Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She is a member of the UK Climate Change Committee and the chair of the French High Council on Climate. Her work focuses on how the carbon cycle and climate change interact.

63. Dr. Scott Goetz

Dr. Scott Goetz is a professor at Northern Arizona University. He worked as a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center from 2002 to 2016, where he also served as Deputy Director for five years. Over the last 30 years, he has conducted satellite remote sensing research for environmental science applications, organizing and serving on numerous working groups for the IPCC, UN-REDD, US Global Change Research Program, US National Academy of Sciences, NASA, and NSF programs on arctic and carbon cycle science, climate change, and terrestrial ecology.

Most Amazing Geomorphologists Alive Today

64. Taylor Perron

Taylor Perron focuses on the formation and evolution of landscapes, both on Earth and on other planets. His method incorporates theoretical research, numerical modeling, field and remote sensing observations, data analysis from planetary missions, and lab experiments. The three main focuses of his group’s research are: elucidating important landscape patterns, like branching river networks, using field studies to understand how climate influences landscapes, and studying planetary landforms to understand the evolution of other planets.

65. Susan Brantley

Susan L. Brantley is an American geologist and geochemist who holds the Dr. Hubert Barnes and Dr. Mary Barnes Professorship at Pennsylvania State University. She was born in 1958. Her research focuses primarily on interactions between fluids and minerals at low temperatures, biological reactions in water-rich fluids within soils, and geochemical processes that convert rock into soil.

Among many other topics, she has written about carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes, the environmental impact of shale gas extraction, and nuclear waste disposal. Throughout her career, Brantley has published over 200 research papers and book chapters, received academic prizes and fellowships from many of the world’s leading geoscience societies, and has been described as “one of the leading aqueous geochemists of her generation.”