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 Education,
#801
Ian D. L. Clark
#140987
Overall Influence
#802
Pasi Sahlberg
#89561
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Pasi Sahlberg is a Finnish education expert, author and professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Previously, Sahlberg has worked as a professor of practice at Harvard University at the World Bank, and as the director of the Centre for International Mobility in Finland. His work Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? won the Grawemeyer Award in 2013.
Go to Profile#803
Horst Bredekamp
#15295
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Horst Bredekamp is a German art historian and visual historian. Life and work Bredekamp studied art history, archaeology, philosophy and sociology in Kiel, Munich, Berlin and Marburg. In 1974 he received his doctorate at the Philipps-Universität Marburg with a thesis on art as a medium of social conflicts, especially the "Bilderkämpfe" of late antiquity to the Hussite revolution. He worked first as a volunteer at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt am Main, from 1976 as assistant in the division of Art History at the University of Hamburg.
Go to Profile#804
Gloria Bonilla-Santiago
#92232
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Gloria Bonilla-Santiago is a Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Public Policy and Administration and Director of the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership at Rutgers University–Camden. She is also the founder of Leadership, Education, and Partnership Academy University Charter School located in Camden, New Jersey. Created in 1997, LEAP is one of the 17 inaugural public charter schools in New Jersey. As the founder of LEAP, Bonilla-Santiago created a merit pay/pay-for-performance program designed to reward excellence in teaching and improve stud...
Go to Profile#805
Michael J. Hannafin
#141482
Overall Influence
#806
Barbara Knowles Debs
#76936
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Barbara Knowles Debs is an American art historian who was the president of Manhattanville College from 1975 to 1985. She was the president of the New-York Historical Society from 1989 to 1992. She serves on the board of directors of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Foreign Policy Association and the Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge Foundation.
Go to Profile#807
Charles L. Dolph
#88507
Overall Influence
1918 - 1994 (76 years)
Charles Laurie Dolph was an American mathematician known for his research in applied mathematics and engineering. Biography Dolph graduated from the University of Michigan with A.B. in 1939 and from Princeton University with M.A. in 1941 and Ph.D. in 1944. His thesis advisor was Salomon Bochner. Dolph was from 1943 to 1944 a physicist in the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and from 1944 to 1945 an ensign in the U.S. Navy.
Go to Profile#808
Alejandro Armellini
#136089
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Alejandro Armellini is the Dean of Digital and Distributed Learning at the University of Portsmouth. Previously, he was the Dean of Learning and Teaching and Director of the Institute of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Northampton, England. His research focuses on learning innovation, online and blended pedagogy, course design in online environments, institutional capacity building and open practices.
Go to Profile#809
Peter J. Fos
#46302
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Peter John Fos was first president and sixth chief executive of the University of New Orleans from 2012 to 2016. Prior to accepting the presidency of UNO, Fos was provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas at Tyler.
Go to Profile#810
David Wilson
#80652
Overall Influence
David K. Wilson is an American university administrator who has been president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland since July 1, 2010. Early life and education Wilson grew up with 10 siblings on a sharecropper farm in McKinley, Alabama. His father farmed cotton and okra. His early years were spent in a shanty with no electricity or plumbing. He recalls that he learned to read from perusing the pages of Look and Life Magazines that his mom had plastered against the wall of the house to keep the cold wind out in the winter. As a sharecropper's child, Wilson rarely attended school ...
Go to Profile#811
Emil F. Pai
#142065
Overall Influence
#812
Agnes Mongan
#40015
Overall Influence
1905 - 1996 (91 years)
Agnes Mongan was an American art historian, who served as a curator and director for the Harvard Art Museums. Career Mongan received her B.A. in 1927 from Bryn Mawr College with a degree art history and English literature. She subsequently attended Smith College, where she studied Italian art and received her A.M. in 1929. Following a short internship at the Fogg Art Museum in 1928, she was hired as a research assistant for associate director Paul J. Sachs, where she remained until 1937. From 1937 to 1947, she was promoted to new a position titled "Keeper of Drawings," since women were not allowed to be named curators.
Go to Profile#813
George Heard Hamilton
#62821
Overall Influence
1910 - 2004 (94 years)
George Heard Hamilton was an American art historian, educator, and curator. Hamilton taught art history at Yale University and Williams College, and was the acting director of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Clark Art Institute.
Go to Profile#814
Clyde Freeman Herreid
#142320
Overall Influence
#815
Samella Lewis
#59184
Overall Influence
1924 - 2022 (98 years)
Samella Sanders Lewis was an American visual artist and art historian. She worked primarily as a printmaker and painter. She has been called the "Godmother of African American Art". She received Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association in 2021.
Go to Profile#816
Vidya Dehejia
#36123
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Vidya Dehejia is a retired academic and the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor Emerita of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University. She has published 24 books and numerous academic papers on the art of South Asia, and has curated many exhibitions on the same theme.
Go to Profile#817
John Rothenstein
#42823
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Sir John Knewstub Maurice Rothenstein was a British arts administrator and art historian. Biography John Rothenstein was born in London in 1901, the son of Sir William Rothenstein. The family was connected to the Bloomsbury Set. John Rothenstein attended Bedales School, studied at Worcester College, Oxford, and became friends with T. E. Lawrence. He shared rooms with novelist William Gerhardie.
Go to Profile#818
Claire Renkin
#114767
Overall Influence
Claire Renkin is an Australian art historian and academic who has had a distinguished career as a scholar specialising in the areas of art history and spirituality. Education Renkin studied English and a little art history at university, before working as a teacher in Melbourne. She later moved to the United States where she completed a Masters in Art History at the University of Massachusetts. In 1998, Renkin went on to complete her PhD in Art History at the University of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#819
Jeremy D. Finn
#142618
Overall Influence
#820
William H. Gerdts
#52875
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
William Henry Gerdts Jr. was an American art historian and professor of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Gerdts was the author of over twenty-five books on American art. An expert in American Impressionism, he was also well known for his work on nineteenth-century American still life painting.
Go to Profile#821
Randy L. Bott
#79535
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Randy L. Bott is a former American professor of religion at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, United States. He taught classes on missionary preparation and the Doctrine and Covenants, and wrote doctrinal and motivational literature about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .
Go to Profile#822
Donald Kirkpatrick
#50950
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Donald L. Kirkpatrick was Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin in the United States and a past president of the American Society for Training and Development . He is best known for creating a highly influential 'four level' model for training course evaluation, which served as the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation in 1954. Kirkpatrick's ideas were published to a broader audience in 1959 in a series of articles in the US Training and Development Journal, but they are better known from a book he published in 1994 entitled Evaluating Training Programs. Other books that he has writte...
Go to Profile#823
Esther Pasztory
#52036
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Esther Pasztory is a professor emerita of Pre-Columbian art history at Columbia University. From 1997 to her retirement in 2013 she held the Lisa and Bernard Selz Chair in Art History and Archaeology. Among her many publications are the first art historical manuscripts on Teotihuacan and the Aztecs. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a senior fellow of the board of Dumbarton Oaks.
Go to Profile#824
Tisa Mason
#74329
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Tisa A. Mason is an American educator and the current president of Fort Hays State University. Prior to her presidency at Fort Hays State, Mason served as Valley City State University's president from December 15, 2014 to December 15, 2017. Mason served as Fort Hays State's vice president of student affairs July 2008 to December 2014.
Go to Profile#825
Judy L. Bonner
#93910
Overall Influence
Judy L. Bonner is an American academic who served as president of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama from 2012 to 2015. Early life and education Judy L. Bonner was born in Wilcox County, Alabama. She graduated from the University of Alabama, where she received bachelor's and master's degrees. She received a PhD in Nutrition from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Go to Profile#826
Karen L. Gould
#62051
Overall Influence
1948 - 2012 (64 years)
Karen L. Gould is a scholar of French-Canadian literature, and an academic administrator who has been a dean at Old Dominion University and the University of Cincinnati, provost and senior vice president at California State University, Long Beach, and the ninth president of Brooklyn College, the first woman to hold that position.
Go to Profile#827
Robert Michael Franklin Jr.
#38711
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Robert Michael Franklin Jr. is an American author, theologian, ordained minister, and academic administrator who served as the tenth president of Morehouse College from 2007 to 2012. Franklin is a visiting scholar in residence at Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. In January 2014, he became director of the religion program at the Chautauqua Institution.
Go to Profile#828
Felicia F. Campbell
#51921
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Felicia Florine Campbell, Ph.D. was an American academic. She was Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In 2012, she became the longest serving faculty member in the university's history. Campbell was president of the Popular Culture Association.
Go to Profile#829
Gilah Leder
#93240
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Gilah Chaja Leder is an adjunct professor at Monash University and a professor emerita at La Trobe University. Her research interests are in mathematics education, gender, affect, and exceptionality. Leder was the 2009 recipient of the Felix Klein Medal.
Go to Profile#830
Olubayi Olubayi
#82691
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Prof. Olubayi Olubayi Prof. Olubayi is the chairman of the University Council at Cavendish University Uganda. He is a Member of the University Council of KCA University, Kenya. He worked as a consultant for the Ethnic and Race Relations Policy of National Cohesion and Integration Commission of Kenya in 2012 and 2013. He is a widely cited intellectual voice on “the emerging national culture of unity in Kenya” since 2007. He is also a chairman of board of management for St. Thomas Amagoro Girls High School, Busia County, Kenya.
Go to Profile#831
Diane Ghirardo
#85743
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Diane Ghirardo is a professor of architecture at the University of Southern California. She is also the author of several books and essays on architectural history and theory. Her translation of The Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi into English was first published in 1982.
Go to Profile#832
M. Christopher Brown II
#95418
Overall Influence
M. Christopher Brown II is the former president of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky. Career Brown previously served as president of the nation's first historically black land-grant institution, Alcorn State University, and was the inaugural Executive Vice President and Provost of the Southern University System and Southern University campus. He held the same position at Fisk University, where he was also a professor. Prior to this appointment, he served as dean of the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, vice president for Programs and Administration at ...
Go to Profile#833
James T. Harris III
#35460
Overall Influence
James T. Harris III is the fourth president of the University of San Diego. Previously, he served as president of Widener University and Defiance College , where he was named one of the top 50 character-building presidents in the United States by the John Templeton Foundation.
Go to Profile#834
Helen May
#121145
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Helen May is a New Zealand education pioneer. She has been an eloquent activist and academic in education, with a strong feminist focus on early childhood education. Her advocacy has been characterised by its focus on the rights and needs of children and teachers, expressed by an active and collaborative engagement with educational institutions, trade unions, the Ministry of Education and other government agencies.
Go to Profile#835
Nagarjuna G.
#79183
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Nagarjuna G. works in the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India. His major research interests include Science Education, Cognitive Science, History and Philosophy of Science and Structure and Dynamics of Knowledge. As an activist he focuses on promoting free knowledge and free software and serves as the chairperson of Free Software Foundation of India.
Go to Profile#836
Jürgen Baumert
#143957
Overall Influence
#837
Jerry Agada
#83860
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Professor Jerry Agada was a Nigerian educationist, scholar, author, Chairman Benue State Civil Service Commission, former president of the Association of Nigerian Authors , the first Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, in Central Nigeria, the vice-chairman of Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko and former minister of state for Education of the Federal republic of Nigeria. He is known for writings with the publication of his first book, The Magic year – poetry in prose and rhymes in 1996 and has since followed that book up with another one in 1998, The Secret Deal, which is a collection o...
Go to Profile#838
Jessica Rawson
#33172
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Dame Jessica Mary Rawson, is an English art historian, curator and sinologist. She is also an academic administrator, specialising in Chinese art. After many years at the British Museum, she was Warden of Merton College, Oxford, from 1994 until her retirement in 2010. She served as pro-vice-chancellor at University of Oxford from 2006 for a term of five years.
Go to Profile#839
Mark Daniel Reckase
#144366
Overall Influence
#840
Ralph Bakshi
#20838
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Ralph Bakshi is an American animator, film-maker and painter. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, predominantly urban dramass and fantasy films, five of which he wrote. He has also been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.
Go to Profile#841
Sally Rogow
#65909
Overall Influence
1930 - 2012 (82 years)
Sally Rogow was an American educator who developed programs to assist other teachers in schooling the visually impaired. After completing her education with a bachelor's and two master's degrees in the United States, as well as a teaching stint at the Michigan School for the Blind, Rogow moved to Canada where she earned a doctorate in special education. She was hired by the University of British Columbia to develop a normal school program for educators of those with multiple handicaps or visual impairment. Launching the program in 1971, Rogow directed it until 1995, publishing numerous works ...
Go to Profile#842
Mary Godfrey
#50853
Overall Influence
1913 - 2007 (94 years)
Mary Emmeline Godfrey was an artist and art educator who became the first full-time African-American faculty member at Penn State University. She was hired in 1957 and served as an assistant professor of art education until her retirement in 1979.
Go to Profile#843
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
#32889
Overall Influence
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve is a writer, interviewer, artist, and teacher active in the field of contemporary art and culture. Biography Goodeve was born in Middlebury, Connecticut, where she lived until her family moved to Windham, Vermont. Her brother is actor Grant Goodeve. Her maternal great-great-grandfather was the Vermont politician and Union Army Colonel William T. Nichols, while her paternal great-great-grandfather was Orvil Grant, a younger brother of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. She attended the Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut and Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#844
Bob Hodge
#12099
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Robert Hodge is an Australian academic, author, theorist and critic. While best known as a semiotician and critical linguist, his work encompasses a wide, interdisciplinary range of fields including cultural theory, media studies, chaos theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-colonialism, post-modernism and many other topics both within the humanities as well as science. He is currently a professor at the University of Western Sydney.
Go to Profile#845
Jenny Odell
#40612
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (38 years)
Jenny Odell is an American multidisciplinary artist, writer, and educator based in Oakland, California. She taught Internet art and digital/physical design at Stanford University from 2013 to 2021. She wrote The New York Times best-selling book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy .
Go to Profile#846
Charles Saumarez Smith
#31752
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Sir Charles Robert Saumarez Smith is a British cultural historian specialising in the history of art, design and architecture. He was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2007 until he stepped down in 2018. He was replaced by Axel Rϋger, who took up the position in 2019.
Go to Profile#847
Val Williams
#55782
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Val Williams is a British curator and author who has become an authority on British photography. She is the Professor of the History and Culture of Photography at the London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London, and was formerly the Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at the Hasselblad Center.
Go to Profile#848
Pinchas Tamir
#145621
Overall Influence
#849
Maryanne Confoy
#115664
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Maryanne P. Confoy RSC is an Australian religious Sister of Charity who has also been a teacher and scholar, working primarily in the areas of ministry and spirituality. Early life and education Maryanne Confoy was born on 15 April 1944. She joined the Sisters of Charity in Australia, an order established by Mary Aikenhead and whose members have been working in education, health and community care since they first arrived in Australia in 1838. Confoy completed a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne and went on to further postgraduate studies at Boston College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Go to Profile#850
David Freedberg
#22132
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
David Freedberg is Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. He was also Director of the Warburg Institute at the University of London from July 2015 to April 2017.
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