Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in History,

#4651

James Mathias Fennelly

#55616

Overall Influence

1929 - 2000 (71 years)

James M. Fennelly was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Professor of History of Religions at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. For several years prior to his death, Fennelly was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Maywood, New Jersey.

#4652

Andrew Porter

#131066

Overall Influence

1945 - 2021 (76 years)

Andrew Neil Porter was Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London from 1993 to 2008. Between 1979 and 1990, he edited the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and St John's College, Cambridge .

#4653

Maurice Samuels

#80975

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (57 years)

Maurice Samuels is the Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University. He graduated with a BA in 1990 from Harvard University, where he also earned his MA and PhD . Before moving to Yale in 2006, Samuels taught at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the literature and culture of nineteenth-century France and in Jewish Studies, and is the author of books and articles on these and other topics. He is the inaugural director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism.

#4654

Thomas Habinek

#70920

Overall Influence

1953 - 2019 (66 years)

Thomas Habinek was an American classical scholar. He specialized in Latin literature and Roman cultural history. Life and career Habinek received his AB in classics from Princeton University in 1975, and later completed his PhD in classical philology from Harvard University in 1981.

#4655

Briton C. Busch

#122908

Overall Influence

1936 - 2004 (68 years)

Briton Cooper Busch was a specialist in nineteenth century British diplomatic history, military history, and American maritime history at Colgate University. Early life and education The son of Niven Busch and his wife, Phyllis Cooper Busch, Briton—familiarily known as "Tony" Busch—attended Stanford University, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1958. From Stanford, he went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his Master of Arts degree in 1960 with a thesis on "Muscat and Oman: Anglo-French conflict, 1894-1914' and his Ph.D. in 1965 with a dissertation on "British policy in the Persian Gulf, 1894-1914." He married Deborah B.

#4656

Franz Brendle

#137717

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (61 years)

Franz Brendle is a German historian and scholar teacher. Life Born in Ellwangen, Brendle attended the from 1974 to 1983, which he completed with the Abitur in 1983. From 1984 to 1991 he studied history and German literature at the University of Tübingen. From 1993 to 1995 Brendle received a doctoral scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and was at the same time research fellow, from 1997 to 1998 as scientific assistant, at the History Department of the University of Tübingen. In 1997, he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the subject of Dynasty, Empire and Reformation. The Dukes of Württemberg Ulrich and Christoph, the Habsburgs and France.

#4657

María del Pilar León-Castro Alonso

#117699

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (79 years)

María del Pilar León-Castro Alonso is a Spanish archaeologist and historian, as well as an academician of the Real Academia de la Historia. In 1969, León-Castro Alonso graduated in arts from the University of Seville with honors and received her doctorate there in 1974. She studied under Antonio Blanco Freijeiro, and extended her studies in Bonn by a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She also spent two years conducting research at the Institute of Archaeology Rodrigo Caro Spanish National Research Council. Her research has included Roman Córdoba. Previously a professor at the ...

#4658

Colin Roderick

#74653

Overall Influence

1911 - 2000 (89 years)

Colin Arthur Roderick was an Australian writer, editor, academic and educator. Early life and education Colin Roderick was born in Mount Morgan, Queensland on 27 July 1911. He attended Bundaberg State School and then, while working as a school teacher, studied through the external studies programme at the University of Queensland, graduating in 1936 with a B.A. He later graduated from the same university with a B.Ed., an M.A., an M.Ed., and finally, in 1954, with a Ph.D. for which he wrote a thesis on Australian novelist Rosa Praed. For part of this period he belonged to the Australian Army.

#4659

Krzysztof Komorowski

#112991

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (78 years)

Krzysztof Komorowski is a Polish historian specializing in the Polish military history, as well as a officer of the Polish Army with the rank of colonel. A lecturer at the Military University of Technology and National Defence University of Warsaw.

#4660

Jan Drabina

#64745

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Jan Drabina is Polish historian, professor at the Jagiellonian University. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University in 1964 and gained a Ph.D. from the University of Silesia in 1969. In 1993 Drabina gained the title of professor. He is an honorary citizen of Bytom.

#4661

Lorenz Weinrich

Lorenz Weinrich

#96191

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (96 years)

Lorenz Hubert Weinrich is a German historian. Life Weinrich was born in Salzwedel, Altmark. He started studying history and classical philology at Freie Universität Berlin in 1948, and he earned his doctoral degree in 1954 with a study on Wala of Corbie. Afterwards, he worked as a teacher at different schools in Berlin and, starting in 1957, also at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 1967/1968 he was a visiting scholar for Medieval Latin at University of Chicago. He habilitated in 1971 at Freie Universität Berlin in history. In 1973 and 1974 he taught Gregorian chant and liturgy chant at the Episcopal University for Church Music Berlin.

#4662

Iain McCalman

#150552

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (78 years)

Iain Duncan McCalman AO FRHS FASSA FAHA is an Australian historian, social scientist, academic and former Research Professor at the University of Sydney, as well as a prominent multidisciplinary environmental researcher. McCalman was born and raised in Nyasaland before moving to Australia to complete his university degrees in History. He is a specialist in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth British and European cultural history.

#4663

Alan McPherson

#107215

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Alan L. McPherson is a historian specializing in US-Latin American relations. He is the Thomas J. Freaney, Jr., Professor of History at Temple University, where he is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy .

#4664

Christopher Howgego

#120998

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

Professor Christopher Howgego is a British numismatist and academic, who is the current keeper of the Heberden coin room at the Ashmolean Museum. He is also a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and Professor of Greek and Roman Numismatics at the University of Oxford.

#4665

Mary Rambaran-Olm

#68343

Overall Influence

Mary Rambaran-Olm is a literary scholar specializing in early medieval England from the fifth to eleventh centuries. Early life and education Rambaran-Olm was born and raised in Canada, and is of Afro-Indo-Caribbean descent. In an interview with The Washington Post she credits her father as inspiring her interest in early medieval England. When she was in college she became fascinated with Old English upon reading Beowulf. In 2012, Rambaran-Olm was awarded a PhD from the Department of English at the University of Glasgow for a thesis, entitled 'John's Prayer: An edition, literary analysis and commentary', examining a poem in the Exeter Book.

#4666

Jack T. Kirby

#78819

Overall Influence

1938 - 2009 (71 years)

Jack Temple Kirby was an American historian who wrote about the Southern United States and the persistent stereotyping of Southerners. He was awarded the Bancroft Prize for his 2006 book Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South.

#4667

Mary Helen Wright Greuter

Mary Helen Wright Greuter

#63298

Overall Influence

1914 - 1997 (83 years)

Mary Helen Wright Greuter was an American astronomer and historian, who wrote and edited on the history and methodology of sciences, including anthropology, archeology, mathematics, and physics. Early years Born in Washington, D.C., she was the daughter of the geophysicist Frederick Eugene Wright and Kathleen Ethel Finley. She was known professionally by her family name of Wright. Her siblings included, William F. Wright and Kenneth A. Wright. Wright was educated at Madeira School. She was a Bennett Junior College graduate , and Vassar College graduate .

#4668

Dan Cohen

#109474

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (57 years)

Daniel J. Cohen is an American historian. As of 1 June 2017 he is serving as dean of libraries and vice provost for information collaboration at Northeastern University. He was the Founding Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America . He was the director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media for 12 years, until leaving his position for the DPLA in 2013. His research work has focused around digital history and abstract mathematics being used in Victorian society to explain spirituality. In 2012 he was named one of the Chronicle for Higher Educations Tech Innov...

#4669

Nobuo Kanda

#130518

Overall Influence

1921 - 2003 (82 years)

Professor Nobuo Kanda was a Japanese historian who specialized in early Manchu history. Biography He was born in Kyoto. He spent his early life in Taipei until he entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1941. He was appointed to an assistant professor in 1949 at Meiji University and taught there until 1992. He led various academies. In 1964 he participated in launching the annual "Nojiriko Khuriltai", a conference of Altaist scholars.

#4670

Trevor Lummis

#72070

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Trevor Lummis was an English writer and historian. He was Honorary Treasurer of the Oral History Society and held an Honorary Fellowship in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex. Early occupation and education He spent ten years as an Able Seaman in the Merchant Navy, before resuming studies as a mature student at the New Battle Abbey College. He subsequently graduated from the University of Edinburgh, University of London and University of Essex. He specialised in 19th and 20th century social and oral history.

#4671

María Ugarte

#48689

Overall Influence

1914 - 2011 (97 years)

María de la Purificación Ugarte España was a Spanish-Dominican journalist, writer, academician, historian and palaeographer. Ugarte was the first woman who worked as a journalist in the Dominican Republic, and also the first woman to become a member of the Dominican Academy of History.

#4672

Georgy Chistyakov

#108563

Overall Influence

1953 - 2007 (54 years)

Father George Chistyakov was a Russian Orthodox priest and historian. George Chistyakov is considered as a disciple and follower of Alexander Men and served as a priest in the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Shubino .

#4673

Peter Gray

#74710

Overall Influence

Air Commodore Peter W Gray FRAeS is a retired senior Royal Air Force commander and an air power studies academic. Peter Gray began his career in the Royal Air Force as a navigator on F-4 Phantom IIs. He went on to command 101 Squadron. Gray worked for three years in the Cabinet Office and in the Ministry of Defence. Gray was then appointed Director of Defence Studies for the RAF. He retired from the Royal Air Force in June 2008. He has been a senior research fellow in Air Power Studies at the Centre for War Studies at Birmingham University since 1 September 2008. He graduated from Birmingham University with a PhD.

#4674

Gerd Althoff

#101625

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Gerd Althoff is a German historian of the Early and High Middle Ages. He presents himself as a researcher into the "political rules of the game" in the Middle Ages. He has held professorships at Münster , Gießen and Bonn .

#4675

Marcel Bénabou

#79628

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Marcel Bénabou is a French writer and historian. Biography Emeritus professor of Roman history at the Paris Diderot University, Marcel Bénabou's work focuses on ancient Rome, in particular North Africa during Antiquity and acculturation and romanisation processes at work in these provinces.

#4676

Emily Skidmore

#109128

Overall Influence

Emily Skidmore is an associate professor, a researcher and the author of True Sex. She is currently a history professor at Texas Tech University where she is also the director of graduate studies. Biography For her award-winning book True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Skidmore gathered historical evidence of trans men in the United States from the 1876 to 1936 using newspapers and census and court documents. Some of the trans men documented included Joseph Lobdell and Ralph Kerwineo. Rorotoko featured Skidmore and her book in a cover interview discussing her discovery of historical records of trans men in rural areas.

#4677

Peter Borsay

#164390

Overall Influence

1950 - 2021 (71 years)

Peter N. Borsay was a professor of history at Aberystwyth University. He was a specialist in the social, urban and cultural history of Britain. Selected publications The English urban renaissance: Culture and society in the provincial town 1660-1770. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. Provincial towns in early modern England and Ireland: Change, convergence and divergence. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. A history of leisure: The British experience since 1500. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Resorts and ports: European seaside towns since 1700. Channel View Publications, 2011. Leisure cultures in urban Europe c.

#4678

Ritu Birla

#86570

Overall Influence

Ritu Birla is an historian of modern South Asia. She is an associate Professor of History and is formerly the Richard Charles Lee Director of the Asian Institute and former Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

#4679

T. A. M. Bishop

#144101

Overall Influence

1907 - 1994 (87 years)

Terence Alan Martyn Bishop, , known as Alan Bishop and T. A. M. Bishop, was a British palaeographer, historian, and academic, specialising in the Middle Ages. From 1947 to 1973, he was Reader in Palaeography and Diplomatic at the University of Cambridge.

#4680

Peter Wild

#48018

Overall Influence

1940 - 2009 (69 years)

Peter T. Wild was a poet, historian, and professor of English at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, he grew up in and graduated from high school in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Wild worked as a rancher and firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, and served as a lieutenant with the U.S. Army in Germany. Wild earned his M.F.A. in 1969 from the University of California, Irvine. He then began teaching for nearly 40 years and wrote over 2,000 poems; also, he edited or wrote some 80 fiction and non-fiction books, largely dealing with the American West....

#4681

Aida Yūji

#169396

Overall Influence

1916 - 1997 (81 years)

was a Japanese historian specialising in the Renaissance. He was active as a conservative thinker, commentator and major exponent of the Nihonjinron. He was born in Kyōto on 5 March 1916. He graduated from Kyoto University in 1940 and had his master's degree in history interrupted in 1943, when he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. He participated in the Burma campaign of 1944 as an infantryman. He surrendered to the British Army at the war's end and was detained at a prisoner-of-war camp in the British colony of Burma. His experiences in the camp are described in his best-selling memoir, Aaron Shūyōjo .

#4682

Bernard Cottret

#80562

Overall Influence

1951 - 2020 (69 years)

Bernard Cottret was a French historian and literary scholar. Biography Stemming from a family of artists and musicians, Bernard Cottret is the son of Bernard Cottret and Geneviève Aurel , classical singers and soloists. His only son Yann is also a musician. He studied at the lycée Descartes in Rabat and at the lycée Chaptal in Paris, where he met his wife, Monique Cottret, née Astruc, also a historian, before graduating from the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines. Serving as a linguist at the Centre de Langues et Etudes Etrangères Militaires in 1977–78, he left the army a...

#4683

Reynaldo Ileto

#90888

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (79 years)

Reynaldo "Rey" Clemeña Ileto is a Filipino historian known for his seminal work Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 first published in 1979. Ileto specializes in Asian history, religion and society, postcolonial studies, and the government and politics of Asia and the Pacific. He is known for his interdisciplinary approach combining history, literature, anthropology, cultural studies, and politics.

#4684

Heinrich von Staden

#65915

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Heinrich von Staden is a South African historian and classical scholar who has written several books and hundreds of articles and encyclopedia entries on ancient medicine, ancient philosophy, the history of science, and comparative literature. He is one of the world's foremost authorities on ancient science and medicine and has contributed to the transformation of the history of the subject in the period from the fifth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. His monumental book Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria is considered the standard in the field.

#4685

Chung Hyun-back

#102152

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Chung Hyun-back is a South Korean emeritus professor of history at Sungkyunkwan University previously served as President Moon Jae-in's first Minister of Gender Equality and Family. Before entering politics in 2017, she had dedicated her career in academia and civil societies.

#4686

Lorelle D. Semley

#123845

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (56 years)

Lorelle Denise Semley is an American historian of Africa specialized in modern West Africa, French imperialism, gender, and the Atlantic World. She is a professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross.

#4687

John A. Nagy

#85626

Overall Influence

1946 - 2016 (70 years)

John Allan Nagy was a nonfiction writer on the American Revolution with an expertise in the field of espionage and mutinies. Nagy was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and graduated from Perth Amboy High School in 1964. In 1968 he graduated from Saint Francis University, Loretto, Pennsylvania. He later attended Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, and graduated in 1979 with a master's degree in Management Science. He lived in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Nagy died at his home in New Jersey on April 1, 2016.

#4688

Tiya Miles

#60103

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Tiya Alicia Miles is an American historian. She is Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is a public historian, academic historian, and creative writer whose work explores the intersections of African American, Native American and women's histories. Her research includes African American and Native American interrelated and comparative histories ; Black, Native, and U.S. women's histories; and African American and Native American women's literature. She was a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.

#4689

Jozef Lewandowski

#138877

Overall Influence

1923 - 2007 (84 years)

Józef Lewandowski was a Polish-born Swedish historian. In his youth he fought in World War II. After the war he studied at Warsaw University, with his doctoral thesis completed in 1961. He specialised in East-European history and national issues.

#4690

Sarah E. Igo

#149090

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (56 years)

Sarah Elizabeth Igo is an American historian and author. She is the Andrew Jackson Chair in American History at Vanderbilt University. Early life and education Igo was born in 1969. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies from Harvard University and her PhD in history from Princeton University. During her post-secondary school education at Harvard and Princeton, Igo was the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and Whiting Foundation in the Humanities Dissertation Fellowship.

#4691

David E. Potter

#43004

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

David Edwin Potter is the founder and chairman of the microcomputer systems company Psion PLC., and Psion Teklogix after Psion's acquisition of Teklogix in the year 2000. Early life Potter was born in East London, South Africa, in 1943 and brought up in Cape Town. In 1963 he took up a Beit scholarship to read natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1966 he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study for a doctorate in mathematical physics at Imperial College London, where he was subsequently appointed to the staff. As an academic during the 1970s, he taught at the Universit...

#4692

Yrjö Blomstedt

#99113

Overall Influence

1926 - 1994 (68 years)

Yrjö Reinhold Emanuel Blomstedt, was a Finnish historian. He was the son of architects Pauli E. Blomstedt and Märta Blomstedt . He studied history at the University of Helsinki receiving his PhD in 1958. Between 1960 and 1964 he was a docent in Finnish history at Helsinki University and in 1964 was appointed professor in legal history and Roman law.

#4693

Bogumił Grott

#92952

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Bogumił Andrzej Grott is a Polish historian, lecturer and professor at the Institute of Religious Studies of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He specializes in the history of Polish political thought, especially nationalism and its connection with Catholicism, right-wing National Democracy political camp, and Polish-Ukrainian relations.

#4694

Ruth Edmonds Hill

Ruth Edmonds Hill

#117859

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Ruth Edmonds Hill was an American scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate. Her oral history office is part of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is an iconic figure among oral storytellers, particularly in the United States but also abroad, and has advised storytellers' organizations. Her spouse is Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill who is also known as Brother Blue. Ruth Edmonds Hill is sometimes known as Sister Ruth. Ruth Edmonds Hill is the daughter of Florence Edmonds of western Massachusetts, whose life story is chronicled and has been critically analyzed as part of African-American oral history.

#4695

Trudier Harris

#86855

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (77 years)

Trudier Harris is an American literary scholar, author, consultor and language educator. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Alabama. She was also the J. Carlyle Sitterson Distinguished Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

#4696

James Wright

#48827

Overall Influence

1939 - 2022 (83 years)

James Wright was an American writer and academic administrator who was the President of Dartmouth College and the Eleazar Wheelock Professor of History at Dartmouth. The 16th President in the Wheelock Succession, he served as Dartmouth president from 1998 until 2009. He joined the Dartmouth History Department in 1969 and served as dean of faculty from 1989 to 1997 and as provost from 1997 to 1998. Wright received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Platteville and a masters and doctoral degree in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He died at his home in Hanover...

#4697

Gerald Danzer

#82174

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (87 years)

Gerald A. Danzer is professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a specialist in historical geography, world history, and the use of old maps as historical sources. Early life Gerald Danzer was born on 9 November 1938. He received his Ph.D from Northwestern University in 1967 for a dissertation on the subject of "America's Roots in the Past: Historical Publication in America to 1860".

#4698

Jean Barman

#120301

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Jean Barman is a historian of British Columbia. Born in Stephen, Minnesota, United States, Barman arrived in British Columbia in 1971. Her work The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia has been described as the "standard text on the subject [of British Columbia history]." She has received the Lieutenant Governor's Medal for historical writing, and the 2006 City of Vancouver Book Award . She is a professor emerita at the University of British Columbia, as is her husband, the historian of Brazil Roderick Barman.

#4699

Carol Reardon

#125375

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (74 years)

Carol Reardon is an American military historian with a concentration in Civil War and Vietnam eras. She was a George Winfree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University. She now currently teaches at Gettysburg College.

#4700

Léon Pressouyre

#104039

Overall Influence

1935 - 2009 (74 years)

Léon Pressouyre was a French historian of medieval art. An agrégé of history, he was a member of the École française de Rome . Attached then maître de recherches at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, he was professor of art history and archaeology of the Middle Ages at the University Paris I from 1980 to 1997.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions