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 Education,
#451
Nicholas Mirzoeff
#29091
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Nicholas Mirzoeff is a visual culture theorist and professor in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He is best known for his work developing the field of visual culture and for his many books and his widely used textbook on the subject. He was also Deputy Director of the International Association for Visual Culture from 2012-2016 and organized its first conference in 2012. Mirzoeff holds a BA degree from Oxford University and studied for his PhD at the University of Warwick.
Go to Profile#452
Michael Kimmelman
#10542
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic for The New York Times and has written about public housing and homelessness, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has reported from more than 40 countries and twice been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, most recently in 2018 for his series on climate change and global cities. In March 2014, he was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize for his "insightful candor and continuous scrutiny of New York's architectural environment" that is "journalism at its finest."
Go to Profile#453
Barry Bergdoll
#26780
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of art history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and from 2007 to 2019 a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where from 2007 to 2013 he served as Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. He serves, since 2018, as President of the Board of the Center for Architecture in New York City and a member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury since 2019.
Go to Profile#454
Eli Lancman
#56474
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Eli Lancman is an Israeli historian of Japanese and East Asian art. Developer and director of the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art in Haifa from 1966 to 1992, and one of the founders of the Israel-Japan Friendship Society.
Go to Profile#455
James N. Britton
#64435
Overall Influence
1908 - 1994 (86 years)
James Nimmo Britton was a British educator at the UCL Institute of Education whose theory of language and learning helped guide research in school writing, while shaping the progressive teaching of language, writing, and literature in both England and the United States after the Dartmouth Conference of Anglo-American English educators.
Go to Profile#456
Gayle Conelly Manchin
#38913
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Gayle Conelly Manchin is an American educator and government official who was the First Lady of West Virginia from 2005 to 2010 and is the current Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. Manchin previously served as the president of the West Virginia Board of Education from 2013 to 2014 and West Virginia Secretary of Education and the Arts from 2017 until her termination in March 2018. She is the wife of former governor and current U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Go to Profile#457
Carol Geary Schneider
#68419
Overall Influence
Carol Geary Schneider was president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities from 1998 to 2016. Schneider received her B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude in 1967. She received her Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Chicago State University and Boston University.
Go to Profile#458
Keith Stephen. Taber
#109077
Overall Influence
#459
Ramón H. Dovalina
#54364
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Ramón Humberto Dovalina , is the retired fifth president of Laredo Community College, a two-year institution with the main campus on the grounds of historic Fort McIntosh on the Rio Grande in his native Laredo in Webb County in South Texas. With service from July 5, 1995, until August 31, 2007, Dovalina left the position with two years remaining in his contract. Under Dovalina, the physical appearance of the college was upgraded, the scholarship endowment fund increased from $100,000 in 1995 to more than $1 million in 2007, the institution advanced a 10-year master plan for new technology, and...
Go to Profile#460
Leroy Little Bear
#64344
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Leroy Little Bear is a Blackfoot researcher, professor emeritus at the University of Lethbridge, founding member of Canada's first Native American Studies Department, and recognized leader and advocate for First Nations education, rights, self-governance, language and culture. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including the Officer Order of Canada, and the Alberta Order of Excellence.
Go to Profile#461
Monique Boekaerts
#75121
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Monique Boekaerts is a Belgian educationalist. She was a professor of pedagogy at the Radboud University Nijmegen and Leiden University . Career Boekaerts was born in 1946 in Belgium. She studied psychology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, obtaining a degree in 1974. She obtained her PhD at Tilburg University in 1978, with a thesis titled: "Towards a theory of learning based on individual differences".
Go to Profile#462
Antwan Wilson
#64201
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Antwan Wilson is an American teacher and school administrator. He was appointed the Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, in 2014, and resigned effective February 2017. On December 20, 2016, he was confirmed as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools in Washington, D.C. He began his new position on February 1, 2017.
Go to Profile#463
Sherrod Brown
#32379
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Sherrod Campbell Brown is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Ohio, a seat which he has held since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for from 1993 to 2007 and the 47th secretary of state of Ohio from 1983 to 1991. He started his political career in 1975 as an Ohio state representative.
Go to Profile#464
Cathy Bao Bean
#52201
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Cathy Bao Bean is a Chinese-American writer and educator, and is the author of The Chopsticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual . She lives in Frelinghuysen Township, New Jersey, with her husband, artist Bennett Bean.
Go to Profile#465
Jaak Kangilaski
#79004
Overall Influence
1939 - 2022 (83 years)
Jaak Kangilaski was an Estonian art historian. In 1971, Kangilaski began working as a lecturer at the Estonian SSR State Art Institute . From 1978 until 1987, he was the Head of the Department of Art History. From 1987 until 1989, he was the vice rector of the university, and from 1989 until 1995, he was the rector of the university. In 1995, Jaak Kangilaski was elected Professor of Art History at the University of Tartu. He worked in this position until 2005. In 2006 he was appointed Professor Emeritus of the University of Tartu. In 2014, Jaak Kangilaski was elected Professor Emeritus of the...
Go to Profile#466
George A. Romero
#14067
Overall Influence
1940 - 2017 (77 years)
George Andrew Romero was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer, editor and actor. His Night of the Living Dead series of films about an imagined zombie apocalypse began with the original Night of the Living Dead and is considered a major contributor to the image of the zombie in modern culture. Other films in the series include Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead . He later revived his attachment to the sub-genre with Land of the Dead , Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead , his final film. Aside from this series, his works include The Crazies , Martin , Knightriders , Creepshow , Monkey Shines , The Dark Half , and Bruiser .
Go to Profile#467
Elliot Morris Soloway
#109938
Overall Influence
#468
Ulf Riebesell
#110126
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
#469
Mose Durst
#34403
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Mose Durst is an author, educator, and the former president of the Unification Church of the United States. Durst was born in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, to immigrant parents from Russia. He received a Master's degree and Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Oregon. He taught at Laney College in Oakland, California. In 1972 he converted from Judaism and joined the Unification Church in Oakland, then became a lecturer and a church leader in California. In 1974, he married Korean missionary Yon Soo Lim, and they led the Northern California church to...
Go to Profile#470
Nancy L. Zimpher
#35131
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Nancy L. Zimpher is an American educator, state university leader, and former Chancellor of the State University of New York . Prior to her service at SUNY, Zimpher was a dean and professor of education at Ohio State University ; then Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee between 1998 and 2003; and President of the University of Cincinnati from 2003 through May 2009. Zimpher was the first woman to serve as Chancellor of SUNY, UWM's first woman chancellor, and UC's first female president. Zimpher is a native of the village of Gallipolis in southern Ohio.
Go to Profile#471
Martin Kemp
#16650
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Martin John Kemp is a British art historian and exhibition curator who is one of the world's leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci. The author of many books on Leonardo, Kemp has also written about visualisation in art and science, particularly anatomy, natural sciences and optics. Instrumental in the controversial authentication of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo, Kemp has been vocal on attributions to Leonardo, including support of La Bella Principessa and opposition of the Isleworth Mona Lisa.
Go to Profile#472
Frank M. Gresham
#110562
Overall Influence
#473
Joan Targ
#51007
Overall Influence
1937 - 1998 (61 years)
Joan Fischer Targ was an American educator who was an early proponent of computer literacy and initiated peer tutoring programs for students of all ages. As a child, she bought her younger brother, Bobby Fischer, his first chess set and taught him how to play the game.
Go to Profile#474
Stanley Elkin
#19382
Overall Influence
1930 - 1995 (65 years)
Stanley Lawrence Elkin was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships.
Go to Profile#475
Frank Newman
#54892
Overall Influence
1927 - 2004 (77 years)
Frank James Newman, Jr. was a US education reformer and administrator who produced the Newman Reports, two ground-breaking reports on higher education in the United States that were published in 1971 and 1974. He served as the eighth President of the University of Rhode Island .
Go to Profile#476
Axel Didriksson
#53784
Overall Influence
Axel Didriksson Takayanagui is a writer, a professor at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and member of the board of the UNESCO Chair on Regional Integration and University at the Autonomous University. He is also the coordinator between the Instituto Internacional para la Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe and the UNESCO Chair, as well as the director of the Center of Studies at the University .
Go to Profile#477
Jóhanna Einarsdóttir
#61943
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Jóhanna Einarsdóttir is a professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Iceland. Education and recognitions Jóhanna received a teacher's certificate from the Teachers College of Iceland in 1973 and a matriculation examination from the same school a year later. She then completed a BS in Pedagogy from the University of Illinois in 1976 and a master's degree in Education Science from the same school in 1977. She completed a PhD in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois in 2000. Jóhanna has participated for years in shaping the Icelandic education system as a dir...
Go to Profile#478
David Steiner
#59469
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
David Milton Steiner is executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and professor of education at Johns Hopkins University. His previous appointments include New York State Commissioner of Education in the New York State Education Department; director of arts education at the National Endowment for the Arts; founding director of the City University of New York Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House and the Klara and Larry Silverstein Dean at the Hunter College School of Education; and member of the Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland Commission for Innovation and Excellence in Education.
Go to Profile#479
Cristóbal Cobo
#77121
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Cristóbal Cobo is a senior education and technology specialist at the World Bank. Previously he was professor and researcher in new and educational technologies, who worked on projects in South America, North America and Europe. He currently is a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and associate at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, part of the University of Oxford, England. His main theoretical contribution is the concept of “invisible learning,” promoting the idea that learning should be a result of action and interaction, rather than through instruction.
Go to Profile#480
Gráinne Conole
#103952
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Gráinne Conole is an Irish-born professor and educational researcher, based in England. She was Professor of Learning Innovation and Director of the Institute of Learning Innovation, University of Leicester. Prior to this, she was Professor of eLearning at the Institute of Educational Technology in the UK's Open University. Previously she had a chair in education at the University of Southampton and was also previously director of the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol. Professor Conole was named an EDEN Fellow in 2013 and was awarded a National Teachi...
Go to Profile#481
Jerry Saltz
#16595
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Jerry Saltz is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2006. Saltz served as a visiting critic at School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York Studio Residency Program, and was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney Biennial.
Go to Profile#482
Carol D. Lee
#77240
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Dr. Carol Diane Lee is an American professor, educational researcher, school director and author. Now retired, Lee was the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy, Professor of Learning Sciences, and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. Her scholarly interests focus on the influences of culture and literacy on education, particularly among students in the African-American community. She chairs the Board of Director of the Betty Shabbazz International Charter School, an institution she helped found.
Go to Profile#483
Barbara Uehling
#25699
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Barbara Uehling Charlton was an American educator and university administrator. She served as the 3rd chancellor and 17th chief executive officer of the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri. She was the first woman in the United States to lead a land-grant university. Before coming to Missouri, Uehling served as provost for the University of Oklahoma. After leaving the University of Missouri, she served as a senior visiting fellow on the American Council of Education in Washington D.C., and later served as chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Uehling and Rosemary S.
Go to Profile#484
Rosalind E. Krauss
#7306
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Rosalind Epstein Krauss is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a critic and theorist she has published steadily since 1965 in Artforum, Art International and Art in America. She was associate editor of Artforum from 1971 to 1974 and has been editor of October, a journal of contemporary arts criticism and theory that she co-founded in 1976.
Go to Profile#485
Shawn Ginwright
#46233
Overall Influence
Shawn A. Ginwright is Professor of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University and author. His research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools. Ginwright has also been noted for his studies in hip hop academics.
Go to Profile#486
Humayun Chaudhry
#22312
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Humayun Javaid Chaudhry, D.O., MACP, FRCP , FRCP is an American physician and medical educator who is president and chief executive officer of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States, a national non-profit organization founded in 1912 that represents the 70 state medical boards of the United States and its territories and which co-sponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination . From 2007 to 2009, he served as Commissioner of Health Services for Suffolk County, New York, the state's most populous county outside New York City. In 2016, he was listed by Modern He...
Go to Profile#487
William George Carr
#73100
Overall Influence
1901 - 1996 (95 years)
William George Carr was an educator and author who is most known for being the Executive Secretary of the National Education Association from 1952 to 1967. He was the teaching consultant for the U.S. delegation to the charter meetings for the United Nations and UNESCO in 1945 and 1946. He also served as General Secretary and President of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession from 1946 to 1972.
Go to Profile#488
Martin Bean
#92159
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Martin George Bean is an Australian education administrator. He served as the Vice-Chancellor of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology , from 2015 to 2021. He was Vice-Chancellor of Open University from 2009 to 2015.
Go to Profile#489
Carol Harter
#25586
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Carol Clancey Harter was an American academic administrator who was the 7th president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas . She is the longest-serving president in UNLV history, at 11 years. From New York, she held B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Binghamton University as well as three honorary doctorates. She was succeeded as president of UNLV by David B. Ashley on July 1, 2006. Prior to her tenure at UNLV, Harter was the 11th president of SUNY Geneseo, where she was succeeded by Christopher Dahl. She served as a faculty member and in two vice presidential roles at Ohio University and is the author of numerous articles and co-author of two books.
Go to Profile#490
Alan Peshkin
#85326
Overall Influence
1931 - 2000 (69 years)
Alan "Buddy" Peshkin was Professor of Education at Stanford University. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973. See also God's Choice
Go to Profile#491
Robert Sylwester
#70479
Overall Influence
1927 - 2016 (89 years)
Robert Alfred Sylwester was an Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Oregon in the United States. Philosophy Throughout his academic career and other works, Sylwester has focused on improving educators' personal understanding of brain systems and processes, and on providing them with simple explanations and metaphors that can be utilized to increase their students' understanding. Sylwester believes that teachers understand their curriculum best when they can effectively teach it, so encouraging an effective curriculum about brain organization can enhance both the teachers' and students' understanding of our brain.
Go to Profile#492
Michael Schwartz
#50133
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Michael Schwartz is an American academic administrator who served as president of Kent State University and later in the same position at Cleveland State University . While at CSU he phased out open admissions for college undergraduates.
Go to Profile#493
Eric Klopfer
#69235
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Eric Klopfer is a professor and director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and the education arcade at MIT. Klopfer's research explores how educational technology, games, and computer simulations can be tools for teaching complex systems and developing cognitive and computational thinking skills. Klopfer and his research group developed StarLogo and App Inventor for Android and other visual programming language platforms that build on the work of Seymour Papert and constructionism in education. He is also the principal investigator in the research and development of award-winning gam...
Go to Profile#494
Barbara Doherty
#60842
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Barbara Doherty was an educator and theologian. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She was president of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana from 1984 to 1998. Other posts have been as director of the Institute of Religious Formation at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, president of the Indiana Conference of Higher Education, and on national boards of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Women's College Coalition.
Go to Profile#495
Chika Okeke-Agulu
#32236
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Chika Okeke-Agulu is a Nigerian artist, art historian, art curator, and blogger specializing in African and African diaspora art history. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Biography Chika Okeke-Agulu was born in Umuahia in Nigeria in 1966. He studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka , University of South Florida , and Emory University .
Go to Profile#496
Gwendolyn Cartledge
#101198
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Gwendolyn Cartledge is professor in the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services at the Ohio State University , specializing in methods for teaching social skills to children with and without disabilities
Go to Profile#497
Lionel Elvin
#69624
Overall Influence
1905 - 2005 (100 years)
Herbert Lionel Elvin was an educationist. Elvin was the son of Herbert Henry Elvin, General Secretary of the National Union of Clerks, and brother of George, who became General Secretary of the Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians.
Go to Profile#498
Thomas B. Greenfield
#86419
Overall Influence
1930 - 1992 (62 years)
Thomas Barr Greenfield was a Canadian scholar whose ideas have been influential in the study of educational administration. Greenfield argued against the positivist orientation of the so-called Theory Movement in educational administration and proposed a subjectivist approach to the study of educational administration. In his view, educational organizations have no existence beyond the actions, perceptions and values of the members of the organization. Thomas Greenfield's work has been studied and commented by numerous authors. The Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration instituted the Thomas B.
Go to Profile#499
Gunn Imsen
#112877
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Gunn Imsen is a Norwegian educationalist. She took her undergraduate education at the University of Oslo. She has been a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology since 1993. Notable publications include Elevenes verden. Innføring i pedagogisk psykologi and Lærerens verden. Innføring i generell didaktikk .
Go to Profile#500
Dottie Lamm
#43631
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Dorothy Louise Vennard Lamm is an American feminist, women's rights activist, educator, author, and speaker. She was First Lady of Colorado during her husband Richard Lamm's three terms as Governor of Colorado , and unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate as the Colorado Democratic candidate in 1998. She wrote a weekly column for The Denver Post from 1979 to 1996 and later published three books. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.
Go to Profile