2026 GLOBAL EDITION

Polymer Chemist
Ranking

A curated ranking celebrating the polymer chemists whose ideas, discoveries, and materials shaped the modern field.

01 — THE RANKING

Global leaderboard

Explore all 63 entries. Search by name or narrow the ranking by the tier labels supplied with the ranking.

Showing 63 of 63

Rank	Scholar	Tier	Type	Score
01	Ben Zhong Tang	S0	C	99.6
02	Robert H. Grubbs	S0	X	98.2
03	Takuzo Aida	S0	C	97.2
04	Alan G. MacDiarmid	S1	X	96.8
05	Tobin J. Marks	S1	X	96.3
06	E. W. “Bert” Meijer	S1	C	95.9
07	Ludwik Leibler	S1	X	95.5
08	Maurice Brookhart	S1	X	95.1
09	Krzysztof Matyjaszewski	S1	C	94.8
10	Hideki Shirakawa	S1	C	94.5
11	Klaus Müllen	S1	C	94.2
12	Walter Kaminsky	S2	X	93.8
13	Timothy M. Swager	S2	C	93.4
14	Zhenan Bao	S2	C	92.9
15	Richard R. Schrock	S2	X	92.6
16	Craig J. Hawker	S2	C	92.2
17	David A. Tirrell	S2	X	91.9
18	Jean M. J. Fréchet	S2	C	91.5
19	Ian Manners	S2	C	91.3
20	Joseph M. DeSimone	S2	X	91.0
21	Virgil Percec	A+	C	90.8
22	Nikos Hadjichristidis	A+	C	90.6
23	Karen L. Wooley	A+	C	90.0
24	Donald A. Tomalia	A+	C	89.8
25	Samuel I. Stupp	A+	X	89.6
26	Harry R. Allcock	A+	C	89.4
27	Jeffrey S. Moore	A+	C	89.2
28	Kazunori Kataoka	A+	X	89.0
29	Geoffrey W. Coates	A+	C	88.7
30	Marc A. Hillmyer	A+	C	88.5
31	Rint P. Sijbesma	A+	C	88.3
32	Robert M. Waymouth	A+	X	88.1
33	Eugenia Kumacheva	A	X	87.9
34	Eugene Y.-X. Chen	A	C	87.7
35	Charlotte K. Williams	A	C	87.5
36	Rachel K. O’Reilly	A	C	87.3
37	Christopher N. Bowman	A	X	87.1
38	William R. Dichtel	A	X	86.9
39	Jean-François Lutz	A	C	86.7
40	Richard D. McCullough	A	C	86.5
41	John R. Reynolds	A	C	86.3
42	Iain McCulloch	A	C	86.1
43	Jian Ping Gong	A	X	85.9
44	Akira Harada	A	X	85.7
45	Ezio Rizzardo	A	C	85.6
46	Mitsuo Sawamoto	A	C	85.5
47	Graeme Moad	A	C	85.3
48	Stuart J. Rowan	A	C	85.1
49	Stephen L. Craig	A−	C	84.9
50	Xi Zhang	A−	C	84.7
51	Takashi Kato	—	—	84.5
52	Yoshio Okamoto	—	—	84.3
53	Ken B. Wagener	—	—	84.1
54	Markus Antonietti	—	—	83.9
55	Paula T. Hammond	—	—	83.7
56	David M. Haddleton	—	—	83.5
57	Axel H. E. Müller	—	—	83.3
58	San H. Thang	—	—	83.2
59	Brent S. Sumerlin	—	—	83.0
60	Andrew P. Dove	—	—	82.8
61	Feihe Huang	—	—	82.6
62	Xuesi Chen	—	—	82.4
63	Athina Anastasaki	—	—	82.2

02 — ABOUT THE DATA

Reading the ranking

Scores

Entries are ordered by the composite scores supplied for this edition, from 99.6 to 82.2. Scores are reproduced without recalculation.

Tiers

The source assigns S0, S1, S2, A+, A, or A− to ranks 1–50. Ranks 51–63 arrived without tier labels and are shown as unclassified.

Type labels