The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Computer Science,
#12901
Carlos Dorrien
#80055
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Carlos Dorrien is an American sculptor of Mexican descent. Biography He studied at Montserrat School of Visual Art and at Massachusetts College of Art. He later joined the faculty of Wellesley College, where he has taught for many years.
Go to Profile#12902
Joseph R. Baczko
#99199
Overall Influence
Joseph R. Baczko was the dean of the Lubin School of Business of Pace University until July 2010. Baczko is former President/COO of Blockbuster Entertainment and founder/President of Toys "R" Us International. He is German-born of Hungarian descent and raised in France; during the 1950s Baczko immigrated to the United States with his family, eventually earning a BSFS from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard University. Baczko also served in Vietnam as an officer in the US Marine Corps.
Go to Profile#12903
Nikolaos Oikonomides
#88494
Overall Influence
1934 - 2000 (66 years)
Nikolaos or Nikos Oikonomides was a Greek Byzantinist, and one of the leading experts in the field of Byzantine administration. Biography Oikonomides was born in Athens. He studied in the University of Athens from 1951 to 1956, under the tutelage of Byzantinist Dionysios Zakythinos. After obtaining his degree, in 1958 he went to Paris to pursue doctoral studies under Paul Lemerle. His studies in Paris also introduced him to sigillography, and led to the discovery of the so-called Escorial Taktikon or Taktikon Oikonomides. The outcome of his work on Escorial Taktikon and the other Taktika was...
Go to Profile#12904
Birgitte I McDonald
#190523
Overall Influence
#12905
Unoma Ndili Okorafor
#182385
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Unoma Ndili Okorafor is a Nigerian computer scientist and entrepreneur. Okorafor founded Working to Advance African Women, a non-profit that supports the education of African women in science, technology, engineering, and math in 2007. She is the chief executive officer at Herbal Goodness and Fairview Data Technologies. She is the fifth child of Frank Nwachukwu Ndili, the first Nigerian nuclear physicist and the 7th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Go to Profile#12906
Franklin Einspruch
#83505
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Franklin Einspruch is an American artist and writer based in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Biography Franklin Einspruch was born in Dallas, Texas. Einspruch completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Miami, where he studied with Walter Darby Bannard. Einspruch is a member of the United States chapter of the International Association of Art Critics.
Go to Profile#12907
Michael D. Hurley
#133930
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Michael D. Hurley is Professor of Literature and Theology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and Director of Studies in English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was educated at the universities of Cambridge and St Andrews, and at Stonyhurst College. Hurley has published books and articles on literary form and style, and on the interrelations of literature, philosophy and theology. Concurrent with his academic position at Cambridge, he has been awarded visiting positions at Harvard and All Souls College, Oxford. Hurley is co-editor of The Hopkins Quarterly, a journal of critical, scholarly and appreciative responses to the lives and works of Gerard Manley Hopkins and his circle.
Go to Profile#12908
Rita Donagh
#44759
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Rita Donagh is a British artist, known for her realistic paintings and painstaking draughtsmanship. Early life and education Rita Donagh began taking classes in life drawing at Bilston College of Further Education in 1954. She studied fine arts at the University of Durham. Donagh taught at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where she met Richard Hamilton, whom she later married. She also taught at the University of Reading, the Slade School of Art, and Goldsmiths, University of London.
Go to Profile#12909
Peter John
#169203
Overall Influence
Peter David John is a British academic and educator, currently the Vice Chancellor of the University of West London. He previously served as the Pro-Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Plymouth.
Go to Profile#12910
Jane Greer
#71065
Overall Influence
1924 - 2001 (77 years)
Jane Greer was an American film and television actress best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past. In 2009, The Guardian named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
Go to Profile#12911
Michael H. Prosser
#120953
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Michael H. Prosser, Professor Emeritus of the University of Virginia , was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Swaziland , at which he initiated the communication major and experienced a military invasion on November 14, 1990, where 2-4 students were killed and more than 300-400 were injured. President of SIETAR International , he later chaired six Rochester Intercultural Conferences , and was series editor for 17 books in Civic Discourse for the Third Millennium for Ablex, Praeger and Greenwood Publishing Group . A founder of the academic field of intercultural communication, he ha...
Go to Profile#12912
Helen Dannetun
#34243
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Helen Dannetun is a Swedish professor of physics and rector of Linköping University. In 1980 Helen Dannetun received a Master of Science in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at Linköping University, Sweden, and in 1987 a doctoral degree in applied physics. In 1996, she became an associate professor and in 1994 a senior lecturer. In 2002, she was appointed as a professor of physics at Linköping University.
Go to Profile#12913
Francisco H. Vázquez
#63729
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Francisco H. Vázquez is a Mexican-American scholar and public intellectual. Before retirement, Vázquez was a tenured professor of the history of ideas and director of the Hutchins Institute for Public Policy Studies and Community Action at the nationally known Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University. He co-authored the prominent book Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society, with University of California Irvine professor Rodolfo D. Torres in 2003. A second edition by Vázquez alone was issued in December 2008.
Go to Profile#12914
Iain Matthews
#190543
Overall Influence
#12915
Peter Robinson
#171664
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Peter Robinson is a New Zealand artist of Māori descent. He is an associate professor at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Biography Robinson studied sculpture at the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury between 1985 and 1989.
Go to Profile#12916
Petra Vinšová
#189719
Overall Influence
1991 - Present (35 years)
Petra Vinšová is a Czech curler. At the national level, she is a three-time Czech mixed champion . Personal life As of 2020, she is a PhD candidate in polar science. Teams Women's Mixed Mixed doubles
Go to Profile#12917
Senjuti Saha
#80489
Overall Influence
Senjuti Saha is a Bangladeshi scientist at the Child Health Research Foundation , and board member of the Polio Transition Independent Monitoring Board of the World Health Organization . She is known for her lead on decoding the genome of SARS-CoV2 in Bangladesh.
Go to Profile#12918
David W. Andrews
#83698
Overall Influence
David W. Andrews is an American academic, who served as the President of National University from 2016-2021, and serves as the chancellor of University of Massachusetts Global . Education David Andrews earned his associate degree at Pensacola Junior College in 1976. Then in 1977, he completed his bachelor's degree in Psychology from Auburn University. In 1980 Andrews received his M.S. in Child Development from Kansas State University. Finally, he graduated with his Ph.D. in Child Development from Florida State University.
Go to Profile#12919
Chris Evans
#190557
Overall Influence
#12920
Kiril Tenekedjiev
#117696
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Kiril Ivanov Tenekedjiev is a professor in quantitative decision analysis and subjective statistics. His research achievements are in statistical pattern recognition, as well as his work on fuzzy-rational quantitative decision analysis and ribbon-risk analysis.
Go to Profile#12921
Arun Bose
#190562
Overall Influence
Arun Bose is an Indian film director, screenwriter, editor and producer predominantly working in Malayalam Movies. He made his directorial debut with the Malayalam feature film 'Luca ' starring Tovino Thomas and Ahaana Krishna in 2019. He has also produced, scripted, photographed and directed an experimental Tamil feature film titled ‘Alaiyin Thisai’. His second Malayalam feature film Mindiyum Paranjum produced by Salim Ahamed has Unni Mukundan and Aparna Balamurali in the lead. Arun Bose is also a visiting faculty at various film and media schools like L.V. Prasad College of Media Studies, M...
Go to Profile#12922
Alexey Okulov
#186690
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Alexey Okulov is a Soviet and Russian physicist, the author of pioneering works in laser physics and theoretical physics. Biography Joined Lebedev Physical Institute Moscow in October 1979. Graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1980, PhD from Lebedev Physical Institute, thesis "Periodicity and Chaos in Structured Light" in 1994.
Go to Profile#12923
Roberto Markarian
#115725
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Roberto Markarian Abrahamian is a Uruguayan mathematician of Armenian descent, expert in dynamical systems and chaos theory. Biography He started studying at the University of the Republic in the 1960s. During the civic-military dictatorship he was arrested due to political reasons. Later he went to Brazil, where he graduated from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Later on, his degree was validated in Uruguay.
Go to Profile#12924
Gunnar Karlsson
#67477
Overall Influence
1939 - 2019 (80 years)
Gunnar Karlsson was an Icelandic historian. Gunnar shaped methodological teaching at the University of Iceland when he started working there in the seventies and wrote a number of textbooks in history for all school levels as well as other publications.
Go to Profile#12925
Carla Restrepo
#176266
Overall Influence
Carla Restrepo is a professor in the biology department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. Her research focuses on the study of tropical landscapes, including the processes underlying their large-scale dynamics.
Go to Profile#12926
Alfonso Caycedo
#4548
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Alfonso Caycedo is the Founder of Sophrology, a form of self-development. Caycedo also founded Sofrocay, the International Caycedian Sophrology Academy based in Andorra, where his Caycedian methods are practiced.
Go to Profile#12927
Eleanore Mikus
#89740
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Eleanore Mikus was an American artist who began painting in the late 1950s in the Abstract Expressionist mode. By the early 1960s, she was creating monochromatic paintings with geometric patterns that according to Luis Camnitzer, “could be seen as conforming to the Minimalist aesthetic of the era while emphatically contradicting that style’s emotional distance and coldness.” In 1969, she began painting simple, cartoon-like images in bold, colorful strokes that anticipated Neo-Expressionism of the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, Mikus resumed creating her abstract works. Since 1961, she has a...
Go to Profile#12928
Rosalie Favell
#170870
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Rosalie Favell is a Métis artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba currently based in Ottawa, Ontario, working with photography and digital collage techniques. Favell creates self-portraits, sometimes featuring her own image and other times featuring imagery that represents her, often making use of archival photos of family members and images from pop culture.
Go to Profile#12929
Lawrence Kaelter Rosinger
#179417
Overall Influence
1915 - 1994 (79 years)
Lawrence Kaelter Rosinger was an American specialist on modern East Asia, focusing on China and India. Biography Rosinger was born in New York City and received his bachelor's degree in history from the City College of New York before completing a master's degree in Far Eastern Studies from Columbia University in 1936. After teaching history in New York City high schools for four years, he took a job working for the Foreign Policy Association this led to visiting lectureships at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley during World War II.
Go to Profile#12930
Grace Nickel
#136777
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Grace Nickel is a Canadian ceramic artist and art instructor in post-secondary education. Early life Grace Nickel was born in 1956 in Altona, Manitoba, Canada. She earned her BFA in Ceramics from the University of Manitoba in 1980; Museology Studies certificate, University of Winnipeg in 1981 and; MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2008. In the summer of 1999, she was invited to the 9th National Ceramic Conference in Perth, Australia. There she demonstrated her work in paper clay as well as presenting work of Manitoba's ceramic community.
Go to Profile#12931
Marc A. Franklin
#74662
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Marc A. Franklin was an American lawyer and pioneer in the field of mass media law and regulation, and he was the Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School. He was author of a case book on mass media law and the lead co-author of one on torts.
Go to Profile#12932
Betül Kaçar
#57960
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Betül Kacar is a Turkish-American astrobiologist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin. She directs a NASA Astrobiology Research Center exploring the essential attributes of life, its origins and how they should shape our notions of habitability and the search for life on other worlds.
Go to Profile#12933
Michael P. Taylor
#47599
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Michael Paul Taylor is a British computer programmer with a Ph.D. in palaeontology. To date, he has published 18 paleontological papers and is co-credited with naming three genera of dinosaur . Along with paleontologists Darren Naish and Matt Wedel, he founded the paleontology blog Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week, where he blogs as Mike Taylor.
Go to Profile#12934
Catherine Abbo
#58392
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Catherine Abbo is a Ugandan researcher, medical doctor and academic. She is currently serving as a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences at Makerere University.
Go to Profile#12935
Kim Anderson
#139144
Overall Influence
Kim Anderson was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. Her paternal grandmother, Catherine Anne Sanderson was the granddaughter of the Métis voyageur, Thomas Sanderson. Her paternal grandfather, James E. Anderson , came from a long line of marriages among Indigenous peoples spanning over five generations. Kim Anderson's work in educational tourism, community-based education, and cross cultural education afforded her many travels in her youth. But, when she became a mother in 1995, she began to research and write about motherhood and culture-based understandings of Indigenous womanhood.
Go to Profile#12936
Larry Harris
#189522
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Larry R. Harris is an American researcher and businessperson. He is best known for his work in artificial intelligence, and is founder of the companies AICorp and EasyAsk, originally known as Linguistic Technology Corporation.
Go to Profile#12937
Leonard DeLonga
#117476
Overall Influence
1925 - 1991 (66 years)
Leonard DeLonga was an American sculptor, painter, and professor at Mount Holyoke College. He was "best known as a metal sculptor, specializing in welded steel and bronze." Background Delonga was originally from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He grew up working in steel mills around Pittsburgh and received his B.A. from the University of Miami in 1950. He then studied under Lamar Dodd at the University of Georgia, graduating in 1952. DeLonga taught at Georgia where he, "became a noteworthy metal sculptor." He also became known for his work in "alabaster, steel and bronze sculptures, oil paintings ...
Go to Profile#12938
Nebojša Radunović
#86885
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Nebojsa V. Radunovic is a university professor of obstetrics and gynecology at University of Belgrade's School of Medicine * Reference 1, Chair of Human reproduction department at Institute for Obstetrics and Gynecology, Clinical Center of Serbia and a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was born in 1954 in Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo, then SFRY.
Go to Profile#12939
David Sewart
#127400
Overall Influence
David Sewart is a former Director of Student Services and Professor in Distance Education for the British Open University , where he was employed from 1971 until retirement in 2004. He also worked part-time as a tutor and completed the OU's MBA programme as a student.
Go to Profile#12940
Richa Rathore
#153450
Overall Influence
Richa Rathore is an Indian actress who works in Hindi language TV shows. She is currently playing the role of Gazal Haider Akhtar in Zee TV's serial Rabb Se Hai Dua which has had a successful run of more than 300 episodes already. She is known for her work as Nandini in Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha. She has played the role of Neha Mehra in Kumkum Bhagya. She also appeared in a small role in the movie Tamasha.
Go to Profile#12941
Nicholas Marsicano
#91880
Overall Influence
1908 - 1991 (83 years)
Nicholas Marsicano was an American painter and teacher of the New York School. His work was primarily based on the female figure. Life Marsicano was born October 1, 1908, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and later was accepted at the nearby Barnes Foundation, along with Ralston Crawford. During his years at the Barnes, Marsicano traveled to Europe and North Africa, Mexico, and United States.
Go to Profile#12942
Wilbur Cornelius Rich
#190599
Overall Influence
Wilbur C. Rich is an author of many published works and a professor of political science (emeritus) at Wellesley College. Before that he directed the Master of Public Administration Program and was a professor at Wayne State University. Alma Maters: Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. from Tuskegee University. Academic Website
Go to Profile#12943
Michael Dickinson
#69025
Overall Influence
1950 - 2020 (70 years)
Michael Dickinson was an English artist, writer and playwright, who was best known for his satirical political collages. He was a member of the Stuckist international art movement. In 2008, Dickinson was arrested and prosecuted in Istanbul for a collage featuring the then Turkish prime minister Erdoğan, but was later acquitted.
Go to Profile#12944
Tom Holland
#93733
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Tom Holland is an American visual artist. Holland is known for creating a style of art that may use fiberglass , aluminum , epoxy paint, plywood, beads, oil paint, palette knives, marble, copper, paper, and clay. For clay he uses watercolor, acrylic urethane, and ceramic glazes.
Go to Profile#12945
Bradford Graves
#145785
Overall Influence
1939 - 1998 (59 years)
Bradford Graves was a sculptor, musician, and teacher. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1939, Graves was graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1957 and attended Texas A&M University. He went to New York in 1958 and received a BA and MA from Goddard College. With Manhattan as his base, he pursued an extraordinary range of interests.
Go to Profile#12946
Jan Vondrák
#66912
Overall Influence
Jan Vondrák is a Czech applied mathematician and theoretical computer scientist. He is a professor of mathematics at Stanford University since 2015. He was a research staff member in the theory group at the IBM Almaden Research Center from 2009 to 2015.
Go to Profile#12947
Jaco Beyers
#190613
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#12948
Michael Proctor
#38294
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael Richard Edward Proctor is a British physicist, mathematician, and academic. He is Professor of Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics at the University of Cambridge and, since his election in 2013, the Provost of King's College, Cambridge and school governor at Eton College.
Go to Profile#12949
Jack W. Meek
#119600
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jack Wayne Meek is a University of La Verne Academy Professor and Professor of Public Administration at the College of Business and Public Management at the University of La Verne., where he also serves as Director of Center Research.
Go to Profile#12950
Lakshmana Reddy Nagappagari
#190629
Overall Influence
