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 Law,
#3001
Robert Black
#132515
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Robert Black is Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. He has been an Advocate in Scotland since 1972, was in practice at the Bar and became a QC in 1987. Academia Robert Black was educated at Lockerbie Academy and Dumfries Academy. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with First Class Honours in Law in 1968 and was awarded the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize as the most distinguished graduate in that year. Thereafter he studied at McGill University in Montreal on a Commonwealth Scholarship graduating LL.M. in 1970.
Go to Profile#3002
Franita Tolson
#128924
Overall Influence
Franita Tolson is an American lawyer and law professor. She is the George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Chair in Law at the USC Gould School of Law. Tolson was previously a faculty member at the Florida State University College of Law from 2009 to 2017.
Go to Profile#3003
Alexander Cunningham
#49239
Overall Influence
Alexander Cunningham was one of Robert Burns's closest friends from his time in Edinburgh. They stayed in contact, through at least 19 letters from the poet; and Cunningham was the ardent admirer who encouraged and joined others such as John Syme to raise funds for the poet's family after his death. Cunningham was one of the small group of associates whom Burns actively approached for constructive criticism of his work.
Go to Profile#3004
Greg Zerzan
#90880
Overall Influence
Greg Zerzan is an attorney and former acting assistant secretary of the U.S Treasury under President George W. Bush. He has held several prominent posts in government and is a frequent speaker on markets and public policy matters.
Go to Profile#3005
John F. Burke
#29116
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
John F. Burke was an American medical researcher at Harvard University widely known for his co-invention of synthetic skin in 1981, together with Dr. Ioannis V. Yannas. Burke was also widely noted for developing a system of infection control in hospitals and showing that antibiotics given before surgery lower risks of post-operative infections. Burke was head of the Shriners Burns Institute and chief of trauma services at Massachusetts General Hospital, a professor of surgery at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#3006
Reginald I. Vachon
#98206
Overall Influence
1937 - 2020 (83 years)
Reginald Irenee Vachon was an American mechanical engineer, business executive, lawyer and inventor, known as former president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Biography Youth, education and early career Vachon was born in Norfolk, Virginia, son of Rene Albert Vachon and Regina Radcliffe Vachon. After his high school graduation in 1954, he attended the United States Naval Academy in 1954-55. He continued his studies at Auburn University, where he obtained his BSc in mechanical engineering in 1958, and his MSc in nuclear science in 1960.
Go to Profile#3007
Jennie Connor
#89806
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jennie Lynne Connor is a New Zealand medical researcher and academic, and as of 2018 is a full professor and chair of preventive and social medicine at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 2001 PhD titled Estimating the contribution of driver sleepiness to car crash injuries : the Auckland car crash injury study at the University of Auckland, Connor moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor. Much of Connor's recent research focuses on the health effects of drinking.
Go to Profile#3008
Kristina Gjerde
#154930
Overall Influence
Kristina Maria Gjerde is a High Seas Policy Advisor for the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Marine and Polar Program. She works on the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative and won the 2018 Boat International Visionary Ocean Award. Gjerde currently lives in the greater Boston area.
Go to Profile#3009
Jerry Falwell Jr.
#84065
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Jerry Lamon Falwell Jr. is an American attorney, former academic administrator, and evangelical. Starting with his 2007 appointment upon the death of his father, televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell Sr., Falwell served as the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, until resigning in August 2020 amidst a sex scandal.
Go to Profile#3010
Iyiola Solanke
#91279
Overall Influence
Iyiola Solanke is an Academic Fellow in the Inner Temple and Chair in European Union law at the University of Leeds. She is interested in the European Union and racial integration, and founded the Black Female Professors Forum in 2017.
Go to Profile#3011
Jorge L. Contreras
#164881
Overall Influence
Jorge L. Contreras is an American legal scholar and attorney who is recognized as a leading global authority on intellectual property law, technical standardization and the law and policy of human genomics.
Go to Profile#3012
Alfred C. Aman Jr.
#119571
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Alfred C. Aman Jr. is a professor of administrative law, author and the former Dean of Indiana University School of Law – Bloomington and Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He stepped down as Dean of Suffolk in 2009 to return to Indiana University as the Roscoe C. O'Byrne Professor of Law.
Go to Profile#3013
Andriyko Olha Fedorivna
#156879
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Andriyko Olha Fedorivna is a Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Constitutional, Administrative and Financial Law of the Kyiv University of Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and Deputy Head of the Department of State and Legal Problems of Management of the V. M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Go to Profile#3014
Pieter verLoren van Themaat
#149735
Overall Influence
1916 - 2004 (88 years)
Pieter verLoren van Themaat was a Dutch law professor, civil service worker, and Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice. Biography VerLoren was born in Rotterdam in 1916. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Nijmegen, where his mother soon died while VerLoren was only four years old. The family, part Dutch VerLoren family then once again moved, this time to the newly constructed house Grandpré Molière in the nearby village of Berg en Dal. After finishing his secondary education at the gymnasium in Nijmegen verLoren wished to become an architect. The Great Depression however ...
Go to Profile#3015
Henry Frye
#142021
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Henry E. Frye is an American judge and politician who served as the first African-American chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Early life and education Henry Frye was born August 1, 1932, in Ellerbe, Richmond County, North Carolina. He was 8th of 12 children, born to Walter Atlas and Pearl Motley Frye. His parents were tobacco and cotton farmers. He went to the Ellerbe Colored High School, but by accident he obtained a diploma from Ellerbe High School, the white one. After graduating with honors from North Carolina A&T State University, Frye reached the rank of captain in the United States Air Force, serving in Korea and Japan.
Go to Profile#3016
Mkhululi Nyathi
#116834
Overall Influence
Mkhululi Nyathi is a Zimbabwean lawyer who was appointed to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in 2010 and resigned on the day of the 2013 general elections, citing electoral irregularities. Career history Nyathi received a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Zimbabwe in 1999 and a Masters of Laws from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2005. From 2002 to 2004, he was a lecturing Fellow in the Department of Public Law at the University of Zimbabwe. At the end of 2005, he joined the Faculty of Commerce, National University of Science and Technology, where he taught insurance law and commercial law.
Go to Profile#3017
Jan Degenhardt
#144330
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Jan Degenhardt is a German lawyer and folk-singer. His father is the political poetry and singer Franz Josef Degenhardt. Life and career Born in Saarbrücken, he studied jurisprudence in Hamburg from 1983 to 1990. After that he moved to Greifswald and worked as a docent at the Grone-school and the University of Greifswald until 1993. 1992 Degenhardt established as a lawyer in Greifswald.
Go to Profile#3018
Andrew Manuel Crespo
#169572
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Andrew Manuel Crespo is an American legal scholar. Early life and education Crespo is of Puerto Rican descent and was raised in Monroe, New York. He graduated from Harvard College in 2005, and earned his degree in law at Harvard Law School in 2008. During his time as a law student, Crespo served as the first Latino president of the Harvard Law Review.
Go to Profile#3019
Kimberly Yuracko
#152656
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Kimberly A. Yuracko is an American law professor and academic administrator. She is Judd and Mary Morris Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern University and Associate Provost for Academic Projects. She previously served as Dean of the Law School. She is an expert on gender and title IX.
Go to Profile#3020
Elizabeth Kronk Warner
#166246
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Kronk Warner is Dean and Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. She was previously a professor of law at the University of Kansas School of Law, where she was also an associate dean, and is a member of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians. She is known for her work on Native American law, including its relations to climate change and same-sex marriage in Native American jurisdictions.
Go to Profile#3021
Michael Young
#29413
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Michael Young is a British industrial designer and creative director based in Hong Kong. He works in the areas of product, furniture and interior design with studios in Hong Kong and Brussels. He is known for unconventional use of materials and manufacturing processes, and collaborations with brands such as Brionvega, Cappellini, KEF, La Manufacture, and MOKE International. He is interested in "how disruption in society always has a design response, because it usually creates a need for things that perform."
Go to Profile#3022
Will Amos
#170056
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
William Amos is a Canadian politician and lawyer who served as the Member of Parliament for the riding of Pontiac, Quebec from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, he was first elected in the 2015 federal election and was re-elected in the 2019 federal election. In December 2019, Amos was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
Go to Profile#3023
Enrico La Loggia
#110045
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Enrico La Loggia is an Italian politician, former Minister of Regional Affairs from 2001 to 2006. Biography Son of former President of Sicily Giuseppe La Loggia, Enrico graduated in Law at the Bocconi University in Milan and taught State Accounting at the University of Palermo. He practices the profession of a cassation lawyer and an official auditor.
Go to Profile#3024
Malik Sekou
#81479
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Malik Sekou is an academic from the United States Virgin Islands. He is a professor and chairman of the Department of history, social science and political science at the University of the Virgin Islands. Sekou was chosen by Independent gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Mapp as his running mate for Lieutenant Governor of the United States Virgin Islands in the 2010 gubernatorial election.
Go to Profile#3025
Cortney Lollar
#74556
Overall Influence
Cortney E. Lollar is the James and Mary Lassiter Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky. She focuses on criminal law and criminal procedure, with particular attention to the intersections of criminal law, remedies, race, gender, sexuality, and social science. She publishes on the mistreatment of impoverished women and women of color by the court systems.
Go to Profile#3026
Sarah Nouwen
#115342
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Sarah M.H. Nouwen is an academic in the areas of international law of peacemaking and justice. She is a professor of international law at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, in the Department of Law, on leave as a reader in international law and Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. She is also an editor-in-chief of the European Journal of International Law.
Go to Profile#3027
Horst Fischer
#157939
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Horst Fischer born 1950 in Duisburg, Germany, is Adjunct Professor at SIPA/Columbia University in New York and Professor emeritus at Leiden University, Netherlands. Biography After studying law Fischer, earned his PhD in 1984 from the University of Bochum with a thesis on international law and the use of nuclear weapons. From 1990, he served as member of several diplomatic delegations to international conferences and meetings that dealt with international humanitarian law and humanitarian affairs. He was adviser for the United Nations, the European Union, several national ministries and various organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross .
Go to Profile#3028
Pheona Wall
#136942
Overall Influence
Pheona Nabasa Gladys Wall, commonly known as Pheona Wall, is a Ugandan lawyer, Public Relation Officer and serves as the president of Uganda Law Society since September 2020. She served as a lecturer of Law at Kampala International University.
Go to Profile#3029
Neil Thomas Proto
#47925
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Neil Thomas Proto is an American lawyer, teacher, lecturer, and author. He chaired Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures as a law student. He served in the Appellate Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the U.S. Department of Justice. During the administration of President Jimmy Carter, he served as general counsel to the President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee. Proto was appointed a visiting lecturer at Yale University in 1988 and 1989. Since 1990, while in private practice in Washington, DC, he has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.
Go to Profile#3030
Chandra Lekha Sriram
#151886
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Chandra Lekha Sriram was Professor of Law at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies . She has written and lectured widely on conflict prevention, post-conflict peacebuilding, human rights, international criminal law, and transitional justice. Her most recent monograph, Peace as governance: Power-sharing, armed groups, and contemporary peace negotiations , offered a comparative critical examination of the use of power-sharing incentives in peace processes in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. Previous monographs on transitional justice and international criminal accou...
Go to Profile#3031
Ngaire Naffine
#146621
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ngaire May Naffine is an Australian feminist legal academic and Professor Emerita at the University of Adelaide. Life Born in 1954 Ngaire May Naffin, she changed her surname to Naffine in 1987. She graduated from the University of Adelaide with an LLB, followed by a PhD in 1983 on "Criminality, deviance and conformity in women".
Go to Profile#3032
Siegbert Rippe
#144886
Overall Influence
1936 - 2018 (82 years)
Siegbert Rippe is a Uruguayan lawyer and jurist. He specialized in commercial law. He has presided over the Uruguayan Court of Audit since July 2010. External links CV of Siegbert Rippe
Go to Profile#3033
Milton Handler
#145745
Overall Influence
1903 - 1998 (95 years)
Milton C. Handler was an American lawyer and professor of law. He was considered a "leading antitrust expert and drafter of some of the nation's best-known laws." Early life and education Born in the Bronx in 1903, he was the youngest of seven children. After his father died when he was 2, they moved to Brooklyn. He graduated from Columbia College in 1923, originally thinking of teaching literature. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1926 with top honors. He clerked for Justice Harlan Fiske Stone of the Supreme Court for one year.
Go to Profile#3034
Troy A. McKenzie
#138126
Overall Influence
Troy A. McKenzie is Dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. He assumed the position of dean on June 1, 2022, succeeding Trevor Morrison. Biography In 1997, McKenzie graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Princeton University. He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2000 after serving as an executive editor of the Law Review. He is a member of the Order of the Coif.
Go to Profile#3035
Gonzalo Himiob
#105549
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Gonzalo Himiob Santomé is a Venezuelan lawyer, writer and activist. He is a founding member of the non-governmental organization Foro Penal and is currently its vice-president. Biography Gonzalo was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He graduated as a lawyer from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in 1992, specializing in criminal science at the UCAB in 1996 and at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 2011. He was a university professor at the UCAB from 1996 to 2016 and has been a professor at the UCV since 2000. Himiob was also founder of the legal office Himiob, Romero y Asociados, being c...
Go to Profile#3036
Peter Williams
#110823
Overall Influence
1934 - 2015 (81 years)
Sir Peter Alderidge Williams was a New Zealand barrister and penal reform advocate. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1987. Biography Williams was born in 1934 and educated at Feilding High School. He graduated from the University of New Zealand at Auckland in 1960. A noted defence lawyer, Williams represented high-profile clients including Terry Clark, Ronald Jorgensen, Arapeta Awatere and Winston Peters, and was involved in having the conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas for the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe overturned. During his 60-year career, he appeared in over 100 murder tri...
Go to Profile#3037
Julie Cassidy
#163040
Overall Influence
Julie Ann Cassidy was an Australian law academic. She was a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career Julie Ann Cassidy was born on 17 June 1965. After undergraduate and honours studies at the University of Adelaide, she taught law at Adelaide before being a foundation staffer at Bond University, where she earned her PhD with a thesis titled Customary international law's protection of aboriginal rights in post colonial states . Subsequently, she worked at Deakin University, Auckland University of Technology and finally the University of Auckland. She also had an adjunct re...
Go to Profile#3038
Nathalie Des Rosiers
#143483
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Nathalie Des Rosiers is a lawyer, academic and former politician in Ontario, Canada. She is the 6th and current Principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto. She was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the riding of Ottawa—Vanier from 2016 to 2019. During her tenure as a Member of Provincial Parliament, Des Rosiers served in the cabinet of Kathleen Wynne as Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.
Go to Profile#3039
Roland W. Scholz
#68628
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Roland Werner Scholz is a German mathematician, psychologist, and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich. He famously coined the terms transdisciplinarity and societal didactics.
Go to Profile#3040
Leigh Sprague
#110775
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Leigh Sprague is an American former attorney, who specialized in representing Russian oligarchs in their international activities. He stole money while being employed by UC Rusal, a company run by one of the richest oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska.
Go to Profile#3041
William Brandon
#68883
Overall Influence
1914 - 2002 (88 years)
William Edward Brandon was an American writer and historian best known for his work about Native Americans and the American West. Early life Brandon was born in Kokomo, Indiana, but spent his childhood in various locales, including the Yucatán and New Mexico. He held a brief job in a steel mill, before he began working as a professional writer in 1938, although this was interrupted by his service as a photographer for the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Go to Profile#3042
Wolfgang Joop
#6415
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Wolfgang Joop is a German fashion designer. He is the founder of the fashion and cosmetics company JOOP! as well as the fashion brand Wunderkind. Early life Joop was born in Potsdam to editor and author and his wife Charlotte. He grew up on his grandparents' farm in Bornstedt until 1954, when his family moved to Braunschweig, where his father had been hired as chief-editor of cultural magazine Westermanns Monatshefte. During the GDR period, Ulla Ebert, the sister of Joop's mother, lived in the property and was financially supported for its preservation by the family from the West. After the ...
Go to Profile#3043
Martin Campbell
#46786
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Martin Campbell is a New Zealand film and television director based in the United Kingdom. He is known for having directed The Mask of Zorro as well as the James Bond films GoldenEye and Casino Royale. He won a BAFTA for his direction of the 1985 television serial Edge of Darkness.
Go to Profile#3044
Stan Herman
#39540
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (96 years)
Stan M. Herman is an American fashion designer. He was President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America , a position he held until 2006 at which time Diane von Fürstenberg took over the position. He is also known worldwide for his leading edge corporate uniforms.
Go to Profile#3045
Bill Cornish
#138579
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
William Rodolph Cornish was an Australian legal scholar and academic who was based in the United Kingdom. He was Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Cambridge from 1995 to 2004.
Go to Profile#3046
Rudy Giuliani
#102404
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
Go to Profile#3047
Roy L. Austin
#109807
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Roy Leslie Austin is a former United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago from December 2001 to December 2009. Biography Born in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he moved to the United States to study and later became a U.S. citizen. He attended Yale University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. While there he befriended future U.S. President George W. Bush and both were inducted to the secret society Skull and Bones. He earned a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.
Go to Profile#3048
Silvio Almeida
#147671
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Silvio Luiz de Almeida is a Brazilian lawyer, philosopher, university professor, and the current Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship. Recognized as one of greatest Brazilian specialist on racial issues, Almeida is chair of Luiz Gama Institute and is author of book Racismo Estrutural, Sartre: Direito e Política and O Direito no Jovem Lukács: A Filosofia do Direito em História e Consciência.
Go to Profile#3049
Khandker Nurul Habib
#175052
Overall Influence
Khandker Nurul Habib is a Bangladeshi-Canadian engineer and academic. He was born in Narayanganj, Bangladesh, and later moved to Canada. He is the 5th of 6 children of Abdur Razzaque Khandker and Salma Khandker. Currently, he is a tenured Full Professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering. He was also the endowed 'Percy Edward Hart Professor':2019-2022 at the University of Toronto. Professor Khandker Nurul Habib completed his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto . After finishing his Ph.D., he joined the University of Alberta as an assistant professor in civil engineering.
Go to Profile#3050
Melvin H. Smith
#133868
Overall Influence
1934 - 2001 (67 years)
Melvin H. Smith, Q.C. spent 31 years in the public service of British Columbia. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1934, Mel Smith graduated from UBC with Commerce and Law degrees. In 1960, Smith was called to the Bar of British Columbia. He became a B.C. public servant and served for 31 years. He was the ranking official on constitutional law and reform issues for four successive provincial administrations from 1967 to 1987. A key player in the patriation of the Constitution in 1981, Smith was also a leader in the "NO" campaign on the Charlottetown Accord.
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