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,
#3251
Upendra
#99587
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Upendra is an Indian actor, filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and politician who worked primarily in Kannada films. He has also worked in a few Telugu films. Upendra was known for his thematic representation of Indian politics and society in his films. In 2017, He joined the political party Karnataka Pragnyavanta Janata Paksha, before quitting the party in 2018 due to internal differences and formed another party named Uttama Prajaakeeya Party , which was based on the principles of Prajakiya . He received an Honorary Doctorate from Angkor University in 2015.
Go to Profile#3252
Helen Haines
#104224
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Helen Mary Haines is an Australian politician who has served as the independent MP for the Victorian seat of Indi since the 2019 federal election. Early life and education Haines grew up on a dairy farm in Colac in southwestern Victoria with four brothers, and attended a public school in Eurack. She trained as a registered nurse at St Vincent's Hospital and later as a midwife at Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne. In 1986, she moved to northeastern Victoria and began working as a midwife at Wangaratta Base Hospital before being appointed matron and Director of Nursing at the Chiltern Bush Nursing Hospital.
Go to Profile#3253
Don Beaven
#86513
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
Sir Donald Ward Beaven was a New Zealand medical researcher in the area of diabetes treatment and prevention. He commenced full-time teaching and research at the Christchurch School of Medicine in 1960, and was appointed Foundation Professor in 1971. The Beaven Lecture Theatre in the School bears his name.
Go to Profile#3254
Kevin Werbach
#176775
Overall Influence
Kevin Werbach is an American academic, businessman and author. In 2002, he founded the Supernova Group, a technology analysis and consulting firm. Since 2004, Werbach is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He writes about business, policy, and social implications of emerging Internet and communications technologies.
Go to Profile#3255
William T. Beaver
#99288
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
William Thomas Beaver was an American medical researcher and educator who was a professor at Georgetown University. He is best known for his role in drafting the first versions of the rules governing clinical studies in the United States, and for his research into medical usage of painkilling drugs.
Go to Profile#3256
David C. Hardesty Jr.
#175634
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
David Carter Hardesty Jr. is an American lawyer and educator who was the 21st president of West Virginia University from 1995 to 2007. As an undergraduate student at West Virginia University, Hardesty was student body president, a member of Phi Kappa Psi, and a Rhodes Scholar. Hardesty earned a B.A. from Oxford University in 1969 which was redesignated an M.A. in 1983. He received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1973. and He was a partner with Bowles, Rice, McDavid, Graff & Love from 1973 to 1995, and served as the Tax Commissioner of West Virginia from 1977 to 1980. Hardesty then began his twelve-year tenure as president of WVU.
Go to Profile#3257
Nadine Taub
#177891
Overall Influence
1943 - 2020 (77 years)
Nadine Taub was an American lawyer who laid the essential groundwork for women's rights in the workplace, including defending and winning the first sexual harassment case in the US in 1977. Taub played a pivotal, but largely unrecognized, role in the development of sexual harassment law in the United States. As part of a group of young female lawyers in the 1970s, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Nancy Stearns and others, Taub made legal history by winning cases which argued that the Constitution protected women's rights.
Go to Profile#3258
Herbert C. Kodilinye
#90445
Overall Influence
Herbert C. Kodilinye was the fourth Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. One of his publications was on retinoblastoma and his area of specialization was Ophthalmology. He was inducted as a Foundation Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science in 1977.
Go to Profile#3259
Jaiprakashreddy Patil
#168972
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Prof. J.S. Patil is a Professor of Law and the former Vice-Chancellor of National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam. He was the Founder Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka State Law University, Hubli, 2009–12.
Go to Profile#3260
Tonio Mallia
#168685
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Tonio Mallia is a Maltese judge. He is a graduate of the University of Malta. He was a member of the Commission to revise the Maltese rent laws and of the Commission to revise the Land Registration Act.
Go to Profile#3261
Charles P. Kindregan Jr.
#183492
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Charles P. Kindregan Jr. was a professor of law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, with a speciality in assisted reproduction law. Kindregan received a BA and MA from La Salle University, a Juris Doctor from Chicago–Kent College of Law of the Illinois Institute of Technology and an LL.M from Northwestern University Law School. Kindregan taught at Virginia Military Institute from 1961 to 1962 and then became an assistant professor at Loyola Law School from 1963 to 1967. In 1967 he was appointed an assistant professor at Suffolk University Law School, serving in this position from 1967 to 1969.
Go to Profile#3262
Teresa Lagergård
#152216
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Teresa Lagergård was born 1946 in Sosnowiec, Poland. She is professor emerita at University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Biomedicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Go to Profile#3263
Rajat Kapoor
#76947
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Rajat Kapoor is an Indian actor, filmmaker and playwright who works in Hindi cinema. Early life and career Rajat Kapoor was born in Delhi, India and grew up in Old Delhi. He mainly focused on acting at first. In 1983 he joined the theatre group Chingari in Delhi, later in 1985 moving to Pune to attend the Film and Television Institute of India .
Go to Profile#3264
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe
#125253
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe is a Nigerian-Canadian author and academic. She is best known for her 2019 family saga novel The Son of the House which she won the Nigeria Prize for Literature awards for in 2021. She is also a Professor of Law at Babcock University, where she served formerly as an assistant professor. In 2019, she won the award for the best international fiction book at the Sharjah International Book Fair. In 2021, she won the SprinNG women authors prize. Her novel was also nominated for the Giller Prize in 2021.
Go to Profile#3265
Aleksei Yuryevich German
#78325
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
Aleksei Yuryevich German was a Russian film director and screenwriter. In a career spanning five decades of filmmaking, German completed six feature films, noted for his stark pessimism, long, serpentine sequence shots, black and white cinematography, overbearing sound design and acute observations of Stalinist Russia.
Go to Profile#3266
Coramae Richey Mann
#41146
Overall Influence
1931 - 2004 (73 years)
Coramae Richey Mann was a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She argued vehemently that the United States criminal justice system was racist. Mann criticized the argumentss of William Wilbanks , countering in her 1989 book Unequal Justice that Wilbanks' reliance on quantitative and statistical data hides the reality of racism.
Go to Profile#3267
Seth Abramson
#81795
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Seth Abramson is an American professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet. He is the editor of the Best American Experimental Writing series and wrote a bestselling trilogy of nonfiction works detailing the foreign policy agenda and political scandals of former president Donald Trump.
Go to Profile#3268
James T. Baldwin
#114580
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
James Tennant Baldwin , often known as Jay Baldwin or J. Baldwin, was an American industrial designer and writer. Baldwin was a student of Buckminster Fuller; Baldwin's work was inspired by Fuller's principles and, in the case of some of Baldwin's published writings, he popularized and interpreted Fuller's ideas and achievements. In his own right, Baldwin was a figure in American designers' efforts to incorporate solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. In his career, being a fabricator was as important as being a designer. Baldwin was noted as the inventor of the "Pillow Dome", a desi...
Go to Profile#3269
Tom Smith
#87655
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Tom Smith is an American playwright, theatre director, and professor of theatre arts. Originally trained as an improvisational comedian, Smith founded Walla Walla TheatreSports in 1988. Smith's published plays include Drinking Habits, Drinking Habits 2: Caught in the Act, The Odyssey, The Pathmaker, A Christmas Carol, Dangerous , Gray, and Marguerita's Secret Diary in addition to edited versions of Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love's Labours Lost. Additionally, he has many plays published by YouthPLAYS, including Johnny and Sally Ann: the true...
Go to Profile#3270
Jaquelyne Hughes
#101903
Overall Influence
Jaquelyne Hughes FRACP is a Torres Strait Islander woman and senior research fellow at Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University. She also works as a nephrologist at the Royal Darwin Hospital.
Go to Profile#3271
Barbara J. Meyer
#183886
Overall Influence
#3272
Sandra F. Simmons
#178019
Overall Influence
Sandra F. Simmons is an American clinical psychologist and gerontologist. She is the Joe C. Davis Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science at Vanderbilt University and the director of the Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging.
Go to Profile#3273
Sadulla Karjiker
#22627
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Sadulla Karjiker is a South African legal scholar and Professor & Anton Mostert Chair in Intellectual Property Law at Stellenbosch University. He is known for his works on corporate law and intellectual property.
Go to Profile#3274
Shuping Wang
#45752
Overall Influence
1959 - 2019 (60 years)
Shuping Wang was a Chinese-American medical researcher and public health whistleblower. She exposed the poor practices that led to the spread of hepatitis C and HIV in central China in the 1990s, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. In 2001, following harassment by Chinese officials, she moved to the United States, where she worked until her death.
Go to Profile#3275
Nani Jansen Reventlow
#166786
Overall Influence
Yakaré-Oulé Jansen Reventlow is a human rights lawyer who specialises in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the founding director of Systemic Justice, which works to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. She previously founded and built Digital Freedom Fund, which advances digital rights in Europe through strategic litigation.
Go to Profile#3276
Evert Alkema
#179231
Overall Influence
1939 - 2022 (83 years)
Evert Albert Alkema was a Dutch jurist and professor of international law at University of Leiden who served on the European Commission of Human Rights from 1996 to 1999. Further reading
Go to Profile#3277
Eric Freyfogle
#180471
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Eric T. Freyfogle is a research professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a well- known writer and lecturer on nature and culture, on environmental and natural-resource challenges, and on private property considered as a dynamic, socially constructed institution. He has long been active in state and national conservation causes, including service on the Boards of Directors of the National Wildlife Federation and the Illinois-based Prairie Rivers Network.
Go to Profile#3278
Rhonda Copelon
#148539
Overall Influence
1944 - 2010 (66 years)
Rhonda Copelon was an American human rights lawyer working for women's and human rights. She is known for her contributions to Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, a civil case that extended the jurisdiction of United States courts in some instances.
Go to Profile#3279
Maria Elvira Méndez Pinedo
#183715
Overall Influence
Maria Elvira Méndez Pinedo is a Spanish-Icelandic legal scholar, who specialises in European Union and European Economic Area law. She has been full tenured professor of European law at the University of Iceland since 2010. She has been working for the Faculty of Law since 2007 and was promoted to associate professor in 2009.
Go to Profile#3280
Katarina Svanberg
#125954
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Katarina Svanberg is a Swedish physician who is Professor and Chief Consultant of Oncology at the Skåne University Hospital. Her research considers the use of fluorescence-based tumour imaging and photodynamic therapy. She served as President of SPIE in 2011 and was awarded the SPIE Gold Medal in 2017.
Go to Profile#3281
Joseph Stamler
#100701
Overall Influence
1911 - 1998 (87 years)
Joseph Howard Stamler was an American lawyer and judge who served for seven years in New Jersey Superior Court, as well as a professor of law at Rutgers University. During his judicial career, Stamler was credited with having "handed down decisions of both statewide and national impact" on matters of significant public and social importance.
Go to Profile#3282
Alan Wilson
#137727
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Alan McCrory Wilson is an American lawyer, politician, and South Carolina National Guard serving as the 51st Attorney General of South Carolina since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. As Attorney General of South Carolina, Wilson has litigated to block same-sex marriage, invalidate the Affordable Care Act, challenge environmental regulations, defend anti-abortion laws, and prohibit masking and vaccine requirements. He has advocated against cannabis decriminalization and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Go to Profile#3283
Barbara Cosens
#177547
Overall Influence
Barbara Anne Cosens is an American Distinguished University professor at the University of Idaho College of Law. Early life and education Cosens was born and raised in Sierra Nevada, California, and earned her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis. She would later earn her Master's degree from the University of Washington and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law.
Go to Profile#3284
Ana Arzoumanian
#154489
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Ana Arzoumanian is an Argentine lawyer, writer, poet, and translator. Biography Ana Arzoumanian was born in Buenos Aires in 1962, a descendant of Armenian immigrants and the granddaughter of survivors of the Armenian genocide. She currently resides in Buenos Aires.
Go to Profile#3285
Kelsey Harrison
#52224
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Kelsey Atangamuerimo Harrison is an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynaecology and former vice-chancellor of University of Port Harcourt, who contributed immensely to studies of maternal health, especially during pregnancy. As a researcher at the University of Ibadan, he mapped out the effects of severe anaemia on the mother and her baby, and established the safety of treating gross anaemia by packed cell transfusion combined with rapidly acting diuretic. He was also part of a group that discovered the dangerous threat posed by sickle cell disease to maternal and fetal lives among Africans.
Go to Profile#3286
Andrew C. Weber
#62123
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Andrew Charles Weber was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs, whose areas of responsibility are US nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs. Appointed by President Obama, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 18 May 2009 and served until 1 October 2014.
Go to Profile#3287
Naoto Fukasawa
#17110
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Naoto Fukasawa is a Japanese designer, author, and educator, working in the fields of product and furniture design. He is known for his product design work with the Japanese retail company Muji, as well as collaborations with companies such as Herman Miller, Alessi, B&B Italia, Emeco, Magis, and HAY.
Go to Profile#3288
Ronald M. Shapiro
#175428
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Ronald M. Shapiro is an American attorney and businessman. Biography Shapiro was born on March 29, 1943, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Mark and Lillian Shapiro. He grew up in neighboring Cheltenham Township and graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1960. Shapiro then attended Haverford College and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1967. From 1972 to 1974, Shapiro served as Maryland State Securities Commissioner. In 1972, he founded a Baltimore law firm now known as Shapiro Sher. Subsequently, in 1976, Shapiro founded Shapiro, Robinson & Associates, a sports management firm.
Go to Profile#3289
Dorothy Miner
#112436
Overall Influence
1936 - 2008 (72 years)
Dorothy Marie Miner was an American attorney. Miner was known for work as chief counsel for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Career Born in Manhattan, Miner earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Smith College in 1958. Her honors thesis was on the Tudor period and was titled "The Demands of the Tudor Rebels." She then continued on to receive a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 1961, and a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia, as well, in 1972.
Go to Profile#3290
Max Schanzenbach
#153245
Overall Influence
Max M. Schanzenbach is the Seigle Family Professor of Law at the Northwestern University School of Law. Education Schanzenbach received his JD from Yale Law School and his PhD in economics from Yale University.
Go to Profile#3291
Peter C. Bishop
#32864
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Peter C. Bishop is a professional futurist , a retired Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight, and the former Director of the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. Early career In 1968, Bishop received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from St. Louis University where he also studied mathematics and physics. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where he was a member of the Society of Jesus for seven years. From Michigan State University, he received an M.A. in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1974. Bishop started teaching at Georgia Southern College in 1973 where he speciali...
Go to Profile#3292
Abraham Abramovsky
#184376
Overall Influence
1946 - 2007 (61 years)
Abraham Abramovsky was an Israeli-born American jurist and attorney. Born in Israel, he was educated in New York state and became a Professor of Law at Fordham University. He was an expert on Jewish Law and organized crime in the United States and Israel. He published research about the illicit global trade of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy.
Go to Profile#3293
Richard Jordan
#98789
Overall Influence
1937 - 1993 (56 years)
Robert Anson Jordan Jr. was an American actor. A long-time member of the New York Shakespeare Festival, he performed in many Off Broadway and Broadway plays. His films include Logan's Run, Les Misérables, Old Boyfriends, Raise the Titanic, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Yakuza, Interiors, The Bunker, Dune, The Secret of My Success, Timebomb, The Hunt for Red October, Posse and Gettysburg.
Go to Profile#3294
Bert Eichhorn
#43240
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Bert Wolfgang Eichhorn is a German lawyer and university lecturer. Life Eichhorn was a lawyer from 1989 to 2010. He received his doctorate in Cologne in 1991. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the topic of state responsibility, reparations and restitution in Germany after the Second World War.
Go to Profile#3295
Steven Goode
#119181
Overall Influence
Steven Goode is an American lawyer, currently the W. James Kronzer Chair and Distinguished Teacher Professor at University of Texas School of Law, previously also the Fulbright & Jaworski Professor, G. Rollie White Teaching Excellence Chair and John Jeffers Research Chair.
Go to Profile#3296
George William Thompson
#93857
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
George William Thompson is an American international trade attorney, an adjunct professor at George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government and a published author on international trade. He currently has his own firm, Thompson and Associates, in Washington, DC.
Go to Profile#3297
Samuel D. Hodge Jr.
#170903
Overall Influence
Samuel D. Hodge, Jr. is an American professor, author, and public speaker with a specialty involving the intersection of law and medicine. He teaches law, anatomy, and forensics at Temple University and serves as a mediator and neutral arbitrator for the Dispute Resolution Institute.
Go to Profile#3298
Elizabeth Glidden
#118587
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Glidden is a lawyer, public policy professional, adjunct faculty at Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minnesota, and former member of the Minneapolis City Council. She is the Director of Public Policy and Strategic Initiatives for the Minnesota Housing Partnership, "working on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels."
Go to Profile#3299
David Eby
#88103
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
David Robert Patrick Eby is a Canadian politician and lawyer who has been serving as the 37th and current premier of British Columbia since November 18, 2022, and has been serving as the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party since October 21, 2022. A member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Eby has represented the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey since 2013. From 2017 to 2022, he served in the John Horgan cabinet as attorney general.
Go to Profile#3300
Annette Eddie-Callagain
#184845
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Annette M. Eddie-Callagain is the first African American attorney to practice law in Japan. She is a practitioner of international family law, notable for child support and child custody cases involving American servicemen and Japanese women.
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