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 …
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List of the most influential people in Computer Science,
#13551
Judith Eisler
#119608
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Judith Eisler is an artist based in Vienna, Austria and Warren, CT. Eisler received her BFA from Cornell University in 1984. She gathers source imagery for her paintings from watching films and photographing stills from the footage. Her works typically have glossy surfaces and feature blurred imagery and light defined as substance. Descended from Pop art and Photorealism, her fluid paint-handling incorporates elements of James Rosenquist’s billboard fuzziness and Marilyn Minter’s bracing aggressiveness. Since 2009, Eisler has been a professor of painting at the University of Applied Arts Vie...
Go to Profile#13552
Martin Odler
#192049
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Martin Odler is a researcher at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. His interest lies in the social context of crafts in Ancient Egypt, especially metallurgy of copper and bronze... He has been taking part in the missions of the Czech Institute of Egyptology in Abusir since 2009, working mostly as a field archaeologist and a surveyor. Source
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Pavel Romanov
#45717
Overall Influence
1964 - 2014 (50 years)
Pavel Romanov was a Russian sociologist, Doctor of Social Sciences, the professor of the HSE department of socio-economic systems and social politics; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Policy Studies; the director of the . He was one of the most authoritative Russian researchers whose topics include Sociology of organizations, social politics, sociology of professions and Ethnographic method in Sociology.
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Emily Mason
#72374
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Emily Mason was an American abstract painter and printmaker. Mason developed her individual approach to the Abstract Expressionist and color field painting traditions with her veils of color and spontaneous gestural mark. Mason was born and raised in New York City, where she lived and worked until her death.
Go to Profile#13555
Ursula Rothe
#188475
Overall Influence
Ursula Rothe is an Australian archaeologist specialising in Roman dress. Career Ursula Rothe gained her doctorate from the University of Manchester in 2007 and then worked at the University of Edinburgh, first as a teaching associate, then as a Leverhulme postdoctoral research fellow with a project titled 'Dress and identity in the Danube provinces: ideal vs reality'. After working at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Germany, in 2012 she moved to the Open University as the Baron Thyssen lecturer. Rothe has been a co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Archaeological Textiles Review since 2014. Sh...
Go to Profile#13556
Deane Keller
#104269
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Deane Keller BEM was an American artist, academic, soldier, art restorer, and preservationist. He taught for forty years at Yale University's School of Fine Arts and during World War II was an officer with the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program.
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Deryck J. van Rensburg
#180807
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Deryck J. van Rensburg is a South African, British and U.S. business executive and academic. He is the dean of the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University. Early life Van Rensburg was born circa 1960 in South Africa. He graduated from Rhodes University and the University of South Africa, where he earned bachelor's degrees. He earned a master of business administration from the University of Bath followed by a doctor of business administration from the University of Manchester.
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Alyson P Black
#192056
Overall Influence
#13559
Theodore Odza
#187896
Overall Influence
1915 - 1998 (83 years)
Theodore "Ted" Odza was an American artist, curator, and educator, known for his sculptures and abstract paintings. He taught art classes at University of California, Berkeley, and later served as the chair of the art department of Laney College. Additionally, he curated multiple national touring art exhibitions of Central European artists.
Go to Profile#13560
Melbourne S. Cummings
#192059
Overall Influence
Melbourne S. Cummings Melbourne S. Cummings is Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, Howard University, Washington, D.C. She has written on issues of rhetoric and honoring the voices of ordained black women ministers, and Afrocentricity as it is manifested in rap music. She retired in 2014. Scholar Website “The retirement celebration of Melbourne C Cummings during the 100th annual convention of the National Communication Association”
Go to Profile#13561
Christopher Pexa
#192060
Overall Influence
Christopher Pexa specializes in 19th and 20th century Native American and U.S. literatures, Native American studies, and settler colonial studies, with an emphasis on questions of indigenous ethics, sovereignty, and nationalism. He completed his latest book with University of Minnesota Press, entitled Translated Nation: Rewriting the Dakota Oyate, that explores the ambivalent ways in which allotment-era Dakota authors played to white regimes of legibility while at the same time honoring tribal common sense and producing a contemporary Dakota nationhood. Pexa’s essays have appeared or are forthcoming in PMLA, Wíčazo Ša Review, SAIL, and MELUS.
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Denys Campion Potts
#128053
Overall Influence
1923 - 2016 (93 years)
Denys Campion Potts was a scholar and authority on French literature. His obituary in The Daily Telegraph stated that he ‘shared with the authors he studied their belief in reason as well as their penchant for irony’.
Go to Profile#13563
Garth Youngberg
#64456
Overall Influence
Ivan Garth Youngberg was the founder and director of the Institute for Alternative Agriculture. Life and work He graduated from the University of Illinois with a PhD in Political Science in 1971. He taught at Southwest Missouri State University, where he was chairman of the Political Science department until 1981. He was a member of the United States Department of Agriculture Study Team for Organic Farming, and Organic Resources Coordinator, for the USDA. He lost his job during the Ronald Reagan administration transition. He was a specialist with the Maryland Environmental Service. He support...
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Robert Ikoja-Odongo
#176799
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Professor Robert Ikoja-Odongo, also Robert Ikoja Odongo or simply Robert Ikoja , is a Ugandan academic and academic administrator. He is the current Vice Chancellor of Soroti University, a public University in Uganda.
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Andrea Ochoa
#192064
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#13566
Dele Jegede
#125325
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Dele Jegede is a Nigerian-American painter, art historian, cartoonist, curator, art critic, art administrator, and teacher. Jegede was a Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, . He taught at Spelman College, Atlanta as Visiting Fulbright Scholar , when he curated the exhibition, Art By Metamorphosis. Listed in Kelly and Stanley's "Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who & Bibliography," Jegede was Professor and Chair of the Department of Art, Indiana State University, Terre Haute and Professor of Art at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, . He retired as Professor Emeritus in May 2015.
Go to Profile#13567
Mesbahuddin Ahmad
#101740
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Mesbahuddin Ahmad is a Bangladeshi academic. He has been a fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences since 1997 and was the president of the academy during 2012–2015. He was the vice-chancellor of Gono University from 2008 to 2016.
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Maria Paz Bertoglia
#170846
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Maria Paz Bertoglia is a Chilean epidemiologist who works in public health research, teaching, and science communication in social media. Early life and career Maria Paz Bertoglia Arredondo, the daughter of a paediatrician mother and an otorhinolaryngologist father, grew up in the Chilean cities of Copiapó and Valparaiso
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Kimberly Yvette Huggins-hoyt
#192070
Overall Influence
Kimberly Y. Huggins-Hoyt is an instructor in the School of Social Work at Georgia State University. She also manages a federal court monitoring project of foster care agencies in Georgia. Alma Maters: Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, B.S.W. and M.S.W. from Georgia State University, and B.S. from Kennesaw State University.
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Bob McMath
#119257
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Robert C. "Bob" McMath Jr. is a historian and former Dean of the Honors College of the University of Arkansas. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972. From then until his appointment at the University of Arkansas in 2005, he taught history and held a series of administrative posts at Georgia Tech, except for 1996 when he was a Fulbright Lecturer in Italy. In August 2014, he retired from the University of Arkansas and is now Professor Emeritus of History and Dean Emeritus.
Go to Profile#13571
Dylan Miner
#68219
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Dylan Miner is an American artist and assistant professor at Michigan State University. Art As an artist, Miner has exhibited at the Institute of American Indian Arts, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, National Museum of Mexican Art, Native American Rights Fund, La Galería de la Raza, and Nokomis Center. His working-class comics are included in Studs Terkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaptation and Wobblies: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World. In 2005, as part of the centennial celebrations of the founding of the IWW, Miner’s two-person exhibition with Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl traveled throughout North America and the world.
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David Dolan
#189732
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
David Dolan is a concert pianist, researcher and educator. He devotes an important part of his career to the revival of the art of classical improvisation. Professor of classical improvisation and its application on creativity in performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he is Head of the Centre for Creative Performance and Classical Improvisation. He also teaches at the Yehudi Menuhin School following Lord Menuhin's invitation in 1989.
Go to Profile#13573
Krzysztof Pawlikowski
#192074
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#13574
Jack Himelblau
#42106
Overall Influence
Jack J. Himelblau is an author and a professor of Spanish literature at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He received his doctorate in 1965 from the University of Michigan with a thesis on "The aesthetic ideas of Alejandro O. Deustua".
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R. J. Parish
#172682
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Richard John Parish was a scholar of French literature. He was Professor of French at the University of Oxford between 1996 and 2015. Career Born in 1948, Parish was educated at Newcastle University, graduating with a BA in 1970. He then completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford; his DPhil was awarded in 1974 for his thesis "The abbé de Choisy : a historical and critical study".
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Tonny Stone Luggya
#189471
Overall Influence
Anthony Fredrick Luggya, also known as Tonny Stone Luggya, is a Ugandan researcher, physician, anesthesiologist, academic, academic administrator, sports administrator and former rugby player. He is currently serving as the head of the Department of Anesthesia and Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine in the College of Health Sciences of Makerere University. He also concurrently serves as a staff anesthesiologist at the Mulago National Referral Hospital accident and emergency unit. He was an active player in the sport of rugby between 1997 and 2018. In December 2021, he was elected and ...
Go to Profile#13577
Daniel Cere
#90079
Overall Influence
Daniel Mark Cere is a professor of Religious Studies at McGill University and researcher on religion, law, and ethics. In 2015 he was appointed Interim-Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies of McGill University. He also serves as the director of the Institute for the Study of Marriage Law and Culture and Vice President of the Newman Institute of Catholic Studies. He served as director of Montreal's Newman Centre from 2000-2006. Cere has been a consultant for government and religious institutions on issues of religious freedom, reasonable accommodation, and family law in both Canada and t...
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Josephat Obi Oguejiofor
#35154
Overall Influence
Josephat Obi Oguejiofor is a professor of Philosophy and Director of the School of General Studies, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. His areas of interest include African philosophy, medieval philosophy, modern philosophy, metaphysics, analytic philosophy, philosophy of time, and philosophy and governance in Africa. He is an ordained Catholic priest.
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Baskın Oran
#14518
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Baskın Oran is a Turkish academic, politician and human rights activist. Currently, he is a teacher in Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University. Biography Baskın Oran finished his high school in Turkey. He attended high school Saint-Joseph, which explains his Francophonie then Izmir Atatürk High School. He then entered Ankara University and studied for Political Science. He graduated in 1968. Later in 1969, he started his academic career as a teaching assistant in the Department of International Relations.
Go to Profile#13580
Milo Lompar
#62314
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Milo Lompar is a Serbian literary historian, professor at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, writer, president of the Miloš Crnjanski Endowment and former director general of Politika.
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Robert Gordon
#122793
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Robert Samuel Clive Gordon, FBA is a scholar of Italian studies and an academic. Since 2012, he has been Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Cambridge. Career Born on 13 March 1966, Robert Samuel Clive Gordon completed his undergraduate studies at Pembroke College, Oxford. He joined St John's College, Cambridge, to complete a doctorate; his PhD was awarded in 1993 for his thesis "Pier Paolo Pasolini and the work of subjectivity". He was elected a lecturer and fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1990, and left in 1998 to become a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a Fe...
Go to Profile#13582
Ioannis Golias
#56694
Overall Influence
Ioannis Golias is a Greek academic and civil engineer who was the former Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy in the Caretaker Cabinet of Vassiliki Thanou-Christophilou. He was also the Rector of the National Technical University of Athens.
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Henry Mavrodin
#138326
Overall Influence
1937 - 2022 (85 years)
Henry Mavrodin was a Romanian painter, designer, essayist, and university teacher. He was born in Bucharest, Romania, on 31 July 1937, and died on 18 May 2022, at the age of 84. Formation 1953–1957 Secondary School of Fine Arts – Bucharest, Romania1957–1963 attends the courses of the Bucharest National University of Arts, in the class of master Corneliu Baba
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Stefanie Jacomet
#169936
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Stefanie Jacomet is professor of archaeobotany at Basel University. Her research focuses on investigating wetland sites in Central Europe and developing archaeobotanical methodologies. Biography Jacomet was born in 1952. She studied botany at Basel, receiving a PhD in 1979 on the subject of plant remains from Neolithic lake shore settlements in Zurich.
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Ruth Fine
#125162
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Ruth Fine is a professor of Spanish and Latin-American literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Ruth Fine chairs the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She served as Director of the European Forum and of the Institute of Western Cultures at the same academic institution. Fine also was founder and first president of the Association of Hispanists in Israel. She is presently the President of the International Association of Hispanists and vice-president of the International Association of Cervantistas. She was awarded with the Orden del Mérito Civil by Spain.
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Audwin B. Fletcher
#192091
Overall Influence
A 30-year employee of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Professor of nursing at UMMC for 24 years. Fletcher previously served as the School of Nursing’s Director for Multicultural Affairs. In 2020, Fletcher received the Presidential Award of Honor from 100 Black Men of Jackson, Mississippi, an organization that he was involved in for more than 15 years. Fletcher has published extensively, in journals such as Nursing Clinics of North America and the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.
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Joseph Green
#164678
Overall Influence
1934 - 2017 (83 years)
Joseph Green was the founding chair of the Department of Theatre and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University, Toronto. He also worked as a producer for a number of theatre, film and television projects.
Go to Profile#13588
Azila Talit Reisenberger
#122456
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Dr. Azila Talit Reisenberger is Le Professeur Distinqué; and a distinguished author, the Head of the Hebrew Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, a champion of Women's Rights and Gender Equality, and an acting Rabba.
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Hans Breder
#55945
Overall Influence
1935 - 2017 (82 years)
Hans Dieter Breder was a German-American interdisciplinary artist. He lived and worked in Iowa. Early life Breder studied painting under Willem Grimm at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes to study art in New York City in 1964. Once in the U.S. he worked as assistant to the sculptor George Rickey.
Go to Profile#13590
Michael Klein
#114447
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Michael Klein is an artist’s agent and freelance consultant and curator for individuals, institutions and arts organizations, writer, curator, and program director currently operating Michael Klein Arts in New York City.
Go to Profile#13591
Trina L. Gipson-Jones
#192097
Overall Influence
Gipson-Jones is an Assistant Professor of Health Science at Stockton University. Her areas of expertise include family nursing, community health, and health disparities research. She received a PhD from Hampton University. Gipson-Jones has published in multiple journals including Ethnicity & Health, the The Journal of School Nursing, and the Journal of Transcultural Nursing, among others.
Go to Profile#13592
Svein Mønnesland
#87731
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Svein Karl Mønnesland is a Norwegian Slavist. He was born in Skien. Since 1979 he teaches as a professor of Slavic languages at the University of Oslo. He is considered an expert in Serbo-Croatian , and has written numerous books and articles on Serbo-Croatian, Slavic linguistics, literature and cultural history. However, his approach to the South Slavic languages has been met with criticism. He has held a variety of positions, including that of the Nordic representative of the International Committee for Eastern Europe Research and on the Board of the Institute for Comparative Cultural Research.
Go to Profile#13593
Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer
#66817
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer , is Professor of Jewish studies at the University of Freiburg. Biography After her education Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer worked as Teacher at the comprehensive school Kallern, at several junior high schools and at the Kantonsschule Rämibühl Zürich.
Go to Profile#13594
Brian J. Frederick
#97378
Overall Influence
Brian J. Frederick is a cultural and queer criminologist. They currently serve as an assistant professor of criminal justice at SUNY Empire State College in Brooklyn. Education and Research Interests In 2016, Frederick completed an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Global and Cultural Criminology program at the School of Social Policy, Sociology & Social Research at the University of Kent and the Institute für Kriminologische Sozialforschung at University of Hamburg .
Go to Profile#13595
Sandra Sider
#139336
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Sandra Sider is an American quilt artist, author, and curator. She holds a PhD in comparative literature from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, specializing in Renaissance studies. She also holds an M.A. in art history from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.
Go to Profile#13596
Heather MacDonald
#192100
Overall Influence
#13597
Barbara Hillyer
#124127
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Barbara Hillyer or Hillyer-Davis was the founding director of the Women's Studies courses at the University of Oklahoma. Her 1993 book, Feminism and Disability was the 1994 Emily Toth Award winner for the best feminist publication of the year and was also named as Outstanding Academic Book by the Association of College and Research Libraries's Choice Magazine. Her work explored the response of the disability and feminist rights movements to aging, chronic illness, disability, and mental health.
Go to Profile#13598
Khalid Al-Jaber
#169613
Overall Influence
Khalid J. Al-Jaber is an assistant professor of political communication at the Gulf Studies Program in Qatar University. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Peninsula newspaper published by Dar Al-Sharq Press, and works as principal at Global Media Consultants Organization in Atlanta, Georgia.
Go to Profile#13599
Ivana Vostrovská
#192105
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
#13600
Việt Lê
#180541
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Việt Lê is a Vietnamese-born American artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an associate professor at the California College of the Arts. He has been published in positions: Asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; and the anthologies Writing from the Perfume River; Strange Cargo; The Spaces Between Us; Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art; among others.
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