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,
#301
Richard Courtney
#81687
Overall Influence
1927 - 1997 (70 years)
Richard Courtney, drama teacher, theatre scholar, and international expert in children's drama, was born in Newmarket, England on June 4, 1927 and was educated at Culford School and the University of Leeds.
Go to Profile#302
Martin Nystrand
#23766
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Martin Nystrand is an American composition and education theorist. He is Louise Durham Mead Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Professor Emeritus of Education at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Go to Profile#303
Martin Haberman
#44843
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
Martin Haberman was an educator who developed interviewing techniques for identifying teachers and principals who will be successful in working with poor children. The most widely known of his programs was Teacher Corps, which was based on his intern program in Milwaukee. He was an advisor to alternative certification programs around the United States and developed ways of bringing more minorities into teaching. His developmental efforts were focused on helping to resolve the crises in urban schools serving fifteen million at-risk students by helping these school districts "grow their own" teachers and principals.
Go to Profile#304
Ingrid Moses
#31991
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Ingrid Moses , an Australian academic and former university administrator, is an emeritus professor at the University of Canberra. After a long academic career in Australia, Moses served as the Chancellor of the University of Canberra between 2006 and 2011.
Go to Profile#305
Jim Rex
#57469
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Jim Rex was the 16th South Carolina Superintendent of Education. He ran for the position in 2006 as a Democrat, against Karen Floyd, a Republican. Rex defeated Floyd by only 455 votes, the closest margin of victory in a statewide election in South Carolina's history. He was sworn in as superintendent on January 10, 2007, replacing fellow Democrat Inez Tenenbaum. In 2014, Rex co-founded a new political party – the American Party of South Carolina.
Go to Profile#306
Astrid S. Tuminez
#37960
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Mary Astrid Segovia Tuminez is the seventh president of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, and its first female president. Early life and education Astrid Tuminez was born in a small island village in Iloilo province, the Philippines. Though raised in extreme poverty as the sixth of seven children, she received a scholarship at the age of five to attend a private school run by Catholic nuns, along with her older siblings. She credits much of her success and accomplishments to this pivotal moment in her life, and is passionate in her belief that education enables individuals to fulfill the...
Go to Profile#307
Anita Brookner
#13567
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Anita Brookner was an English novelist and art historian. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Booker–McConnell Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac.
Go to Profile#308
Douglas Crimp
#15205
Overall Influence
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
John Douglas Crimp was an American art historian, critic, curator, and AIDS activist. He was known for his scholarly contributions to the fields of postmodern theories and art, institutional critique, dance, film, queer theory, and feminist theory. His writings are marked by a conviction to merge the often disjunctive worlds of politics, art, and academia. From 1977 to 1990, he was the managing editor of the journal October. Before his death, Crimp was Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History and professor of Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#309
Ted Wragg
#38218
Overall Influence
1938 - 2005 (67 years)
Professor Edward Conrad Wragg known as Ted Wragg, was a British educationalist and academic known for his advocacy of the cause of education and opposition to political interference in the field. He was Professor of Education at the University of Exeter from 1978 to 2003, serving as Emeritus Professor of Education from 2003 till his death, and a regular columnist in the Times Educational Supplement and The Guardian.
Go to Profile#310
Laura Bush
#22646
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Laura Lane Bush is the wife of George W. Bush and served as the first lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009. Bush previously served as the first lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000. She is also the daughter-in-law of former president George H. W. Bush.
Go to Profile#311
John D. O'Bryant
#47618
Overall Influence
1931 - 1992 (61 years)
John Donaldson O'Bryant was the first African American to be elected to Boston's School Committee in 1977. He spent most of his adult life working in the school systems, first as a school teacher and ending with work at Northeastern University until his death in 1992. O'Bryant was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He also served in the United States Army before he began his teaching career.
Go to Profile#312
Robert Altman
#7590
Overall Influence
1925 - 2006 (81 years)
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era. His most famous directorial achievements include M*A*S*H , McCabe & Mrs. Miller , The Long Goodbye , Nashville , 3 Women , The Player , Short Cuts , and Gosford Park .
Go to Profile#313
Tracy L. Cross
#34431
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Tracy L. Cross is an educational psychologist and developmental scientist. Since 2009 he has held the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Psychology and Gifted Education endowed chair at The College of William & Mary, has been the executive director for William & Mary's Center for Gifted Education , and founded the Institute for Research on the Suicide of Gifted Students in 2012. Previously he served as the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Gifted Studies Ball State University , the founder and executive director of both the Center for Gifted Studies and Talen...
Go to Profile#314
Wilhelm Aarek
#59644
Overall Influence
1907 - 1999 (92 years)
Wilhelm Aarek was a Norwegian philologist and educationalist. He was a cand.philol. by education, and was appointed as a lecturer in English language at Kristiansand Teacher's College in 1938. He had also applied for a job at Stavanger Cathedral School, but was rejected by the government. At Kristiansand Teacher's College he soon began writing books about pedagogy as well as his original field of philology. He served rector of the college from 1948 to 1976. He was decorated with the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, and died in 1999.
Go to Profile#315
Marshall S. Smith
#89434
Overall Influence
1937 - 2023 (86 years)
Marshall S. Smith was an American educator. He held academic positions at Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Stanford University, where he was Dean of the School of Education. He also held positions in the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama White House administrations.
Go to Profile#316
Diana Hess
#62386
Overall Influence
Diana Hess is the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Education. Career Hess earned her bachelor's degree from Western Illinois University, master's from the University of Illinois, and In 1998, a doctorate from the University of Washington College of Education. She taught high school social studies before becoming an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education in 1999. Her doctoral dissertation focused on teachers who excelled at facilitating classroom discussions of controversial issues She researches school civic education programs and their effect on civic engagement, particularly when discussing controversial political issues.
Go to Profile#317
Hanan Al Hroub
#73375
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Hanan Al Hroub is a Palestinian teacher who in 2016 was the second winner of the Global Teacher Prize, which specialises in supporting children traumatised by violence. Career She grew up in the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem, where she experienced and saw violent acts, and her own children were traumatized by a shooting incident in which her husband was shot in his car on an Israeli army checkpoint. She was studying English at university and wanted to become a translator. She decided to work in education after her 9-year-old twins, and her 6-year-old son were shot at by Israeli soldiers in October at the outset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Go to Profile#318
Yve-Alain Bois
#26786
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Yve-Alain Bois is a professor of Art History at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Education Bois received an M.A. from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 1973 for his work on El Lissitzky's typography, and a Ph.D. from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1977 for his work on Lissitzky's and Malevich's conceptions of space. Both of his degrees were supervised under Roland Barthes.
Go to Profile#319
Ernest R. House
#44514
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Ernest R. House is an American academic specializing in program evaluation and education policy. He has been a Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder since 2002. House was a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1985 to 2001. Before that, he was a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1969 to 1985. He has been a visiting scholar at UCLA, Harvard, University of New Mexico, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences , and also in England, Australia, Spain, Sweden, Austria, and Chile.
Go to Profile#320
A. N. Wilson
#4792
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist known for his critical biographies, novels and works of popular history. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and a former columnist for the London Evening Standard. He has been an occasional contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.
Go to Profile#321
Ellen Moir
#93708
Overall Influence
Ellen Moir is the founder and CEO of The New Teacher Center. Established in 1998, the Center is devoted to the development, induction, and mentoring of beginning teachers. Professional career Moir began her career as a bilingual teacher in Santa Paula, California in 1972. In 1978, she became supervisor of teacher education at UCSC, and a lecturer in the education department. From 1985 to 2000, Moir was Director of Teacher Education at UCSC.
Go to Profile#322
Gail Dinter-Gottlieb
#50808
Overall Influence
Gail Dinter-Gottlieb is an American university administrator who served as the 14th president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University until February 2008. A native of Port Chester, New York, Dinter-Gottlieb was educated at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Northeastern University, Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Go to Profile#323
Wes Anderson
#12277
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American filmmaker. His films are known for their eccentricity, unique visual and narrative styles, and frequent use of ensemble casts. They often contain themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Some critics cite Anderson as a modern-day example of an auteur. Three of his films have appeared in BBC Culture's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000.
Go to Profile#324
Muzoon Almellehan
#58799
Overall Influence
1999 - Present (25 years)
Muzoon Almellehan is a Syrian activist and refugee resettled in the United Kingdom. She is known for her work to keep Syrian girls in school, and has been referred to as the "Malala of Syria". In June 2017, she became the youngest GoodWill Ambassador of UNICEF.
Go to Profile#325
Mrunalini Devi Puar
#38092
Overall Influence
1931 - 2015 (84 years)
Mrunalini Devi Puar was an Indian educator and Chancellor of a recognized Indian university with more than 35,000 students. Biography Puar was an educator and Maharani of Dhar State. She was a member of the Gaekwad dynasty, the former ruling clan of Baroda State and also a member of the Puar dynasty of Dhar, both former Maratha princely states. She was married to Maharaja Anand Rao IV Puar, the Maharaja of Dhar State. She was chancellor of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She succeeded her brother Fatehsinghrao Gaekwad, Maharaja of Baroda, as chancellor when he died in 1988.
Go to Profile#326
Kevin G. Welner
#71505
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Kevin G. Welner is professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, where he chairs the Educational Foundations Policy and Practice program area. He co-founded and is Director of the National Education Policy Center. He has authored or edited 11 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters concerning education policy and law.
Go to Profile#327
Shirley R. Steinberg
#61510
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Shirley R. Steinberg is an educator, author, activist, filmmaker, and public speaker whose work focuses on critical pedagogy, transformative leadership, social justice, and cultural studies. She has written and edited numerous books and articles about equitable pedagogies and leadership, urban and youth culture, community studies, cultural studies, Islamophobia, and issues of inclusion, race, class, gender, and sexuality. Steinberg was the Research Chair of Critical Youth Studies at the University of Calgary for two terms, executive director of the Freire Project freireproject.org, and a visiting researcher at University of Barcelona and Murdoch University.
Go to Profile#328
Robert S. Gold
#19753
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Robert S. Gold is a researcher in the field of application of computer technology to health education and health promotion. He was the founding dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health and is the current chair of its Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Go to Profile#329
Emajuddin Ahamed
#41017
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
Emajuddin Ahamed was a Bangladeshi political scientist, author and educationist. He served as the 21st vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka during 1992–1996. He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 1992 by the Government of Bangladesh in the education category.
Go to Profile#330
Alison Fuller
#54394
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Alison Fuller is a British educational researcher and Professor of Vocational Education and Work at the Institute of Education of the University College London and, where she also serves as Pro-Director for Research and Development. She is a leading educational researcher in the UK, with her research centering on work transitions, apprenticeships, vocational education and training, and workplace learning.
Go to Profile#331
John Roskam
#31164
Overall Influence
John Roskam is the executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs , a libertarian think tank based in Melbourne, Australia. Career According to Roskam's byline on an opinion column in the Australian Financial Review, "during the 2001 federal election he worked on the Liberals' federal campaign".
Go to Profile#332
Wolfgang Kermer
#40878
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Wolfgang Kermer is a German art historian, artist, art educator, author, editor, curator of exhibitions, art collector and professor. From 1971 to 1984 he was repeatedly elected Rector of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and thus the first scientific and at the same time youngest teacher in this position in the history of the university. Under his rectorate, the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart was reformed in 1975 and 1978 on the base of two new university laws of the State of Baden-Württemberg and thus, for the first time in its history, authorized to set up diplomas for all courses.
Go to Profile#333
Lisa F. Smith
#84744
Overall Influence
Lisa F. Smith is a US-New Zealand education academic. She has been emeritus professor at the University of Otago since 2019. Academic career Smith attended Rutgers University in New Jersey for a 1993 Ed.D titled 'The effects of motivation and anxiety on test performance' before working in New Jersey and New York, both teaching and researching in museums with her partner Jeffrey K. Smith. The pair moved to the University of Otago in 2005, both rising to full professor. Notable students include Kimberly Arcand.
Go to Profile#334
David Reinking
#21109
Overall Influence
David Reinking is a researcher known for his work with formative and design experiments and how literacy is affected by technology. Currently Reinking is a Eugine T. Moore Professor of Teacher Education at Clemson University. He was inducted in the Reading Hall of Fame in 2008 and is a highly regarded in researcher in his field. Prior to his career in higher education, Reinking was an elementary teacher for eight years. After graduating from the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis with his PhD he worked at Rutgers University and later at the University of Georgia.
Go to Profile#335
Chin‐chung Tsai
#95965
Overall Influence
#336
David Clinefelter
#49430
Overall Influence
David Lee Clinefelter is an American teacher and academic administrator who served as president of Graceland University. He is dean of student affairs at the University of the People. Clinefelter was previously superintendent of Lamoni Community School District, provost of Kaplan University, and chief academic officer of Walden University.
Go to Profile#337
Donora Hillard
#47696
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (42 years)
Donora Shaw is an American writer and editor. She was first made notable in the fields of institutional critique and trauma studies, specifically for her first full-length collection of poetry published when she was 27 years old. Her projects have appeared on CNN, WBEZ Chicago, and MSNBC.
Go to Profile#338
Christine Sleeter
#79740
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Christine E. Sleeter is an American professor and educational reformer. She is known as the Professor Emerita in the School of Professional Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay. She has also served as the Vice President of Division K of the American Educational Research Association, and as president of the National Association for Multicultural Education. Her work primarily focuses on multicultural education, preparation of teachers for culturally diverse schools, and anti-racism. She has been honored for her work as the recipient of the American Educational Research Associatio...
Go to Profile#339
Per Jonas Nordhagen
#34511
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Per Jonas Nordhagen is a Norwegian art historian. He was born in Bergen as a son of professor Rolf Nordhagen and Elisabeth Marie Myhre . He was a grandson of Johan Nordhagen and nephew of Olaf Nordhagen. He has been married twice; first to art historian Signe Horn Fuglesang, a daughter of Rolf Jørgen Fuglesang.
Go to Profile#340
Quentin Bell
#14903
Overall Influence
1910 - 1996 (86 years)
Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell was an English art historian and author. Early life Bell was born in London, the second and younger son of the art critic and writer Clive Bell and the painter and interior designer Vanessa Bell . He was a nephew of Virginia Woolf . He was educated at the Quaker Leighton Park School and at Cambridge.
Go to Profile#341
Erika Christakis
#62758
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Erika Christakis is an American educator and writer, specializing in early childhood education. She is author of The Importance of Being Little. Education and early career Christakis graduated from Harvard College with a degree in social anthropology in 1986. She was one of the first undergraduate interns at Harvard's Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations and studied in Kenya in 1985. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Christakis worked on public health projects in Bangladesh and Ghana and served as a case manager for indigent adults with mental illness and addiction in Boston.
Go to Profile#342
Elizabeth Topham Kennan
#50829
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Elizabeth Topham Kennan is an American academic who served as the 15th president of Mount Holyoke College from 1978 to 1995. She also served as president of the Five Colleges consortium from 1985 to 1994.
Go to Profile#343
Michelle Asha Cooper
#92986
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Michelle Asha Cooper is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs and Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education. She previously served as president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy , a Washington, D.C.-based independent, non-profit organization.
Go to Profile#344
Salvatore Settis
#42389
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Salvatore Settis is an Italian archaeologist and art historian. From 1994 to 1999 he was director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles and from 1999 to 2010 of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.
Go to Profile#345
Yrjö Engeström
#97231
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
#346
George Dei
#60045
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
George Jerry Sefa Dei is a professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. He is known for his anti-racist research, particularly on anti-racist approaches to education. He is also known for his advocacy for African-focused schools in Canada. In 2007, he was installed as the chief of the town of Asokore, Ghana. He was elected as fellows of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017.
Go to Profile#347
Ivor Goodson
#81404
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Ivor Frederick Goodson is a British educationalist. He is a professor at Tallinn University. Education and career Goodson was born in 1943 in Woodley, a village near Reading, Berkshire. He went to a grammar school and was unsuccessful initially, leaving at age 15, but then returned and resumed his studies. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from University College, London, and his teachers certificate from the London School of Education. He then worked as a teacher at the progressive comprehensive school, Countesthorpe Community College.
Go to Profile#348
Shaun R. Harper
#76367
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Shaun R. Harper is an American scholar on racial equity in the United States. He is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education and the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
Go to Profile#349
Harold Marcuse
#21811
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Harold Marcuse is an American professor of modern and contemporary German history and public history. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the grandson of philosopher Herbert Marcuse.
Go to Profile#350
Martin Polaschek
#57908
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Martin F. Polaschek is an Austrian legal scholar and legal historian who has served as Federal Minister for Education, Science and Research in the Nehammer government since 6 December 2021. An Independent, he was nominated by the Austrian People's Party .
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