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 Law,
#3501
Viktor Medvedchuk
#182254
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Viktor Volodymyrovych Medvedchuk is a former Ukrainian lawyer, business oligarch, and politician who has lived in exile in Russia since September 2022 after being handed over to Russia in a prisoner exchange. Medvedchuk is a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician and a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Go to Profile#3502
Lennart Möller
#115551
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Lennart Möller was a professor of environmental medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received a doctorate in Medical sciences from the Karolinska Institute in 1988, with a thesis "2-nitrofluorene, in vivo metabolism and assessment of cancer risk of an air pollutant." He was the editor and author of several books in popular sciences and theology covering urban air quality, cancer, environmental medicine, ethics, and photography. He was the deputy chairman of the board for the Lennart Nilsson Award, an international prize in scientific photography.
Go to Profile#3503
James W. B. Douglas
#109218
Overall Influence
1914 - 1992 (78 years)
James William Bruce Douglas was a British social researcher. Douglas was responsible for the National Survey of Health & Development that in turn led to other national birth cohort studies, such as the National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study and the Millennium Cohort Study.
Go to Profile#3504
Kathryn Stowell
#171168
Overall Influence
Kathryn Mary Stowell is a New Zealand academic. In November 2022 she was appointed professor emerita, having been a full professor from 2016 at the Massey University. Academic career Stowell joined Massey University in 1976, after a 1990 PhD titled 'Cloning and expression of the cDNA for human lactoferrin,' she rose to full professor in 2015.
Go to Profile#3505
Julia Baird
#49859
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Julia Woodlands Baird is an Australian journalist, broadcaster and author. She contributes to The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald and is a regular host of The Drum, a television news review program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Her non-fiction work includes a bestselling memoir, a biography on Queen Victoria and a meditation on the experience of grace during a time of dark politics.
Go to Profile#3506
Fred Hilmer
#179989
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Frederick George Hilmer AO is an Australian academic and business figure. He was the president and eighth vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales, an appointment he held from June 2006 till January 2015. He has also served as a director and deputy-chairman of the Westfield Group between 1991 and 2013.
Go to Profile#3507
Berardino Libonati
#190606
Overall Influence
1934 - 2010 (76 years)
Berardino Libonati was an Italian academic, businessman, jurist and lawyer. He was the president of Alitalia. He was born in Rome, Italy on March 8, 1934 and died in Rome on November 30, 2010. He graduated from La Sapienza University in Rome and was a professor of commercial law at the Faculty of Law at La Sapienza University. He was president of TIM and Telecom Italia and vice-president of Unicredit. On February 9, 2007 Italian Minister of Economy Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa recommended that Libonati take over as president of Alitalia.
Go to Profile#3508
Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr.
#173156
Overall Influence
1916 - 1998 (82 years)
Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr. was an American government official and college president and administrator. After graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1936 as a member of Sigma Chi and Pershing Rifles, he attended Merton College at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. He served as lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II. He returned to the University of Kentucky and became a professor and then dean of the College of Law, before becoming president of West Virginia University. He served as the United States Secretary of the Army between 1961 and 1962 and served as president of Indiana University from 1962 to 1968.
Go to Profile#3509
César Landa
#189454
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
César Rodrigo Landa Arroyo is a Peruvian professor and politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Relations of Peru intermittently from February to December 2022 under the presidency of Pedro Castillo. He also served as president of the Constitutional Court of Peru between 2006 and 2008, and vice minister of Justice in 2004.
Go to Profile#3510
John F. Sutton Jr.
#135226
Overall Influence
1918 - 2013 (95 years)
John F. Sutton Jr. was an American lawyer and academic. He served as the A. W. Walker Centennial Chair Emeritus and Dean at the University of Texas School of Law. He was a fellow of the American Bar Association and a member of the State Bar of Texas.
Go to Profile#3511
Ngosa Simbyakula
#186830
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Robert Ngosa Simbyakula is a Zambian diplomat, the current and 17th Permanent Representative of the Republic of Zambia to the United Nations and a former ambassador to the United States of America in Washington DC, he succeeded Palan Mulonda, who served starting in 2013.
Go to Profile#3512
Jaakko Jonkka
#116202
Overall Influence
1953 - 2022 (69 years)
Jaakko Ilari Jonkka was a Finnish jurist and the Chancellor of Justice of Finland from 2007 to 2017. He was preceded by Paavo Nikula and succeeded by Tuomas Pöysti. Jonkka was an attorney, and worked previously at the University of Helsinki. He died on 4 January 2022, at the age of 68.
Go to Profile#3513
Beverly Moran
#190048
Overall Influence
Beverly I. Moran is an American law professor. She is Professor Emerita of Law at Vanderbilt University. Moran was also a professor at the University of Wisconsin and served as director of the Wisconsin Center on Law and Africa. She has testified and written about tax havens.
Go to Profile#3514
Angus King
#184159
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Angus Stanley King Jr. is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Maine since 2013. A political independent, he served as the 72nd governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003.
Go to Profile#3515
Apryl A. Alexander
#171669
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (40 years)
Apryl A. Alexander is an American clinical and forensic psychologist who is an associate professor at the University of Denver. Alexander directs students at the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service and Training , and engages in clinical psychology practice. She is co-founder of the University of Denver's Prison Arts Initiative where incarcerated individuals engage in a therapeutic, educational arts curricula.
Go to Profile#3516
Belinda Cowling
#74738
Overall Influence
Belinda S. Cowling is a French medical researcher and cofounder and scientific advisor of the biotech firm Dynacure, which was founded in 2016. She became Head of Research in 2018, responsible for the company’s R&D strategy, and leading Dynacure’s research programs in centronuclear myopathy and other disease domains. As Dynacure's Chief Scientific Officer, her focus is on translational research and drug-candidate development. In 2019, she was awarded the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize in the category: Women, Research and Enterprise.
Go to Profile#3517
Jonathan Anderson
#66212
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (40 years)
Jonathan Anderson is a Northern Irish fashion designer and the founder of JW Anderson. Anderson is known for his eponymous label and having served as the creative director of Spanish luxury house LOEWE.
Go to Profile#3518
Penny Collenette
#115456
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Penny Collenette is a Canadian lawyer, professor and political figure of the Liberal Party of Canada. The wife of former Liberal Member of Parliament and cabinet minister David Collenette, she sought, and won, the 2008 Liberal nomination over community activist and businessman Scott Bradley for the riding of Ottawa Centre, which was held by Paul Dewar of the New Democratic Party. She came in second to Dewar in the election.
Go to Profile#3519
Rajani A. Bhisey
#84680
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Rajani A. Bhisey is an Indian scientist. She specializes in the field of environmental carcinogenesis and molecular epidemiology of cancer, occupational hazards. Education Bhisey completed her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Bombay and joined the Indian Cancer Research Centre , Mumbai, as a research fellow to work for her Master of Science by research degree. She worked on skin carcinogenesis using electron microscope as the main tool, which led to her PhD degree from the University of Bombay in 1974.
Go to Profile#3520
Alexandra Bech Gjørv
#188788
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Alexandra Bech Gjørv is a Norwegian lawyer and businesswoman. She has been chief executive of SINTEF since 2016. Early and personal life Born on 13 September 1965, Gjørv is the daughter of journalist Toppen Bech. She is married to Espen Gjørv, and a daughter-in-law of politician Inger Lise Gjørv.
Go to Profile#3521
Oscar R. Gómez
#86882
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Oscar R. Gómez is an Argentine writer, psychoanalyst and academic researcher who became renown as an integrator of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism with Western formal sciences and who constituted the first religious organization in Argentina engaged in the Tantric Worship practice in children and adults.
Go to Profile#3522
Kate Martin
#188890
Overall Influence
Kate Martin is the director of the Center for National Security Studies. She is an expert in national security and civil liberties issues, including government secrecy, intelligence, terrorism, and enemy combatant detentions. She was formerly a lecturer at Georgetown University Law School, and has also worked in the position of general counsel to the National Security Archive, a research library located at George Washington University. She is currently a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.
Go to Profile#3523
Jonathan Harris
#179896
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Jonathan Harris, is a British barrister and legal scholar. He works as a barrister at Serle Court Chambers. He specialises in cross-border, commercial and chancery matters . He has appeared in the Supreme Court and the Privy Council in a number of cases. He has also drafted legislation for a number of jurisdictions.
Go to Profile#3524
Pedro M. Domingos
#190907
Overall Influence
#3525
Clifford Alexander Jr.
#186859
Overall Influence
1933 - 2022 (89 years)
Clifford Leopold Alexander Jr. was an American lawyer, businessman and public servant from New York City. He first served on the National Security Council during the Kennedy administration, before becoming chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1967. He was appointed Secretary of the Army a decade later, becoming the first African American to hold the position. He served in that role until 1981.
Go to Profile#3526
Mathieu Laine
#182668
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Mathieu Laine is a French entrepreneur and intellectual. He is the founder and head of Altermind, a boutique consultancy firm based in Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin. He is an affiliate professor at Sciences Po Paris. He is the author of many essays on liberalism and works as an editorialist for the French weekly political magazines Le Point and Le Figaro. He is a member of the team of the programme L'Esprit public on France Culture and author of a dozen essays and a musical tale. He chairs the Coppet Institute, a think-tank defending the French liberal heritage. He became a columnist Le...
Go to Profile#3527
Vivian Curran
#191044
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Vivian Curran is an American lawyer currently Distinguished Professor at University of Pittsburgh and is President of American Society of Comparative Law. Education JD, Columbia Law SchoolPhD, Columbia UniversityMPhil, Columbia UniversityMA, Columbia UniversityBA, University of Pennsylvania
Go to Profile#3528
Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez
#191073
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
#3529
David Roussève
#153123
Overall Influence
David Roussève is an American choreographer, writer, director and filmmaker. He founded his company, David Roussève/REALITY in 1988 and has since choreographed, written and directed 14 evening-length works for the group. His latest work for REALITY, Halfway to Dawn premiered in October 2018 at REDCAT in Los Angeles before touring nationally and internationally. His work addresses issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Go to Profile#3530
Robert Porter
#177103
Overall Influence
1923 - 2014 (91 years)
Sir Robert Wilson Porter, PC , QC was a Northern Irish politician, barrister and judge. He served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was later an officer in the Territorial Army.
Go to Profile#3531
Wendy Pepper
#48867
Overall Influence
1964 - 2017 (53 years)
Anne Eustis Pepper Stewart , known as Wendy Pepper, was a fashion designer who appeared on the first season of the reality television show Project Runway, which aired on Bravo from December 2004 through February 2005. She was also a contestant on the second season of Project Runway All Stars.
Go to Profile#3532
Espen Rostrup Nakstad
#90973
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Espen Rostrup Nakstad is a Norwegian physician, lawyer and author from Skjetten who is the current assistant director of the Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs. Medical career Nakstad earned a Doctorate in medicine from the University of Oslo and is specialized in respiratory disease and internal medicine. In 2018 he issued a book on disaster preparedness together with Bjørn Bjelland, Beredskap, kriseledelse og praktisk skadestedsarbeid. He leads the CBRNE Centre at Ullevål Hospital/Oslo University Hospital. Among others, he led Ullevål Hospital's response when a Norwegian ci...
Go to Profile#3533
Stephen Snoddy
#125263
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Stephen Snoddy is a British artist and gallery director. Career Snoddy trained as a painter at Belfast College of Art where he graduated in 1983 with an MA in Fine Art. Snoddy moved to Manchester in 1986 and graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Art Gallery & Museum Studies from the University of Manchester in 1987 and then moved to Bristol to become Exhibitions Organiser at Arnolfini Gallery.
Go to Profile#3534
Robert Huntley
#190839
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
Robert E. R. Huntley was an American attorney, businessman, retired law professor, and former president of Washington and Lee University. He graduated from Washington and Lee in 1950 and its law school in 1957. He obtained a master's degree in law from Harvard University in 1962. He joined the law faculty of Washington and Lee in 1958, and served as its dean from 1967 to 1968. In 1968 he was named president of the university, a post he held for 15 years.
Go to Profile#3535
René Simard
#44668
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
René Simard, is a Canadian physician, cancer researcher and university administrator. Early life and education Born in Montreal, Quebec, he received a Bachelor of Arts from College Saint-Laurent in 1956 and a Doctor of Medicine from the Université de Montréal in 1962. He did his residency in pathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and he received a Doctor of Science from the University of Paris in 1968.
Go to Profile#3536
David MacKenzie
#149036
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
David MacKenzie is an Australian Academic researcher. He is known for his research and development in policy contributions to homelessness, with a particular interest in young people. He is the founder of Youth Development Australia Limited, an NGO.
Go to Profile#3537
Gianfranco Ferré
#131604
Overall Influence
1944 - 2007 (63 years)
Gianfranco Ferré was an Italian fashion designer also known as "the architect of fashion" for his background and his original attitude toward creating fashion design. Early life and education Ferré was born on 15 August 1944 in Legnano, near Milan in Lombardy, in northern Italy, the first child of Luigi Ferré and Andrea Morosi. He attended the liceo scientifico of Legnano, and then, from 1963, studied architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan in central Milan, where he graduated in 1969.
Go to Profile#3538
Stacey Abrams
#185957
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Stacey Yvonne Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden narrowly won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 regularly scheduled and special U.S. Senate elections, which gave Democrats contro...
Go to Profile#3539
Ina Rama
#174234
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Ina Rama was the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Albania from 2007 to 2012. She was appointed in 2007 to replace Theodhori Sollaku, who had been removed from office through a procedure later ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Albania. Nevertheless, Rama was not removed from office in order to restore Sollaku.
Go to Profile#3540
Victor Comella Ferreres
#191417
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Victor Comella Ferreres is a Spanish professor and author of Law, having been Visiting Professor at University of Texas at Austin and currently Senior Lecturer at Pompeu Fabra University, and also a published author of publications and books, being widely collected by libraries worldwide.
Go to Profile#3541
Lubna Tahtamouni
#126102
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Lubna Hamid Tawfiq Tahtamouni is a Jordanian biologist known for her work in developmental biology and cancer research. She is the head of the Department of Biology and Biotechnology at Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan. She has won multiple awards for her work on breast cancer, and is known as an advocate for allowing young women in the Arab world to choose a career in science. In 2016, she was named one of BBC's 100 Women.
Go to Profile#3542
Joseph R. Biden
#191426
Overall Influence
#3543
Vincenzo Cerundolo
#139158
Overall Influence
1959 - 2020 (61 years)
Vincenzo Cerundolo was the Director of the Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit at the University of Oxford, at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a Professor of Immunology at the University of Oxford. He was also a Supernumerary Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. He was known for his discoveries in processing and presentation of cancer and viral peptides to T cells and lipids to invariant NKT cells. Cerundolo died of lung cancer on 7 January 2020.
Go to Profile#3544
Craig Mullaney
#72792
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Craig Michael Mullaney is a United States Army veteran and author of The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education . He was Senior Vice President of Content, Strategy and Operations at Ustream from 2011 to 2013. He also served as Senior Policy Advisor working for the United States Agency for International Development. He currently works on Strategic Partner Development at Facebook.
Go to Profile#3545
Jim Matkin
#190728
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
James G. Matkin, QC is a former British Columbia, Canada deputy minister of labour and of intergovernmental relations, former President and CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia, and a former British Columbia Law Society secretary and executive director. He led drafting of the Labour Code Of B.C. in 1973, and legislation for the first human rights code of BC, floated the Non Obstante clause compromise that was adopted in the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights in 1981, and is credited with "cleaning up" the Vancouver stock exchange through his one-man commission of enquiry. He studied law and economics at Harvard as a Frank Knox Fellow graduated with an LL.M.
Go to Profile#3546
Ralph Brubaker
#191535
Overall Influence
Ralph Brubaker is an American professor, specializing in bankruptcy, who is currently the Carl L. Vacketta Professor of Law at University of Illinois College of Law and formerly a member of the faculty at Emory University School of Law.
Go to Profile#3547
Charles "Chuck" Harrison
#186868
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Charles "Chuck" Harrison was an American industrial designer, speaker and educator. He was known for his pioneering role as one of the first African-American industrial designers of the era and the first to lead a design department at a major corporation. He was the first African-American executive to work at Sears, Roebuck and Company, starting in 1961 as a designer and eventually becoming manager of the company's entire design group. He was involved in the design of over 750 consumer products, including the portable hair dryer, toasters, stereos, lawn mowers, sewing machines, Craftsman powe...
Go to Profile#3548
William Eckhardt
#187232
Overall Influence
William G. Eckhardt is a lawyer, a professor of law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and formerly a military officer, where his most notable case was the prosecution of Captain Ernest Medina, for the My Lai Massacre.
Go to Profile#3549
Okechukwu Ibeanu
#181958
Overall Influence
Okechukwu Ibeanu is a Professor of Political Science and was also Dean, Faculty of the Social Sciences at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was also special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the adverse effects of illicit movement and dumping of toxic waste on human rights.
Go to Profile#3550
Joy Ezeilo
#173251
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Joy Ngozi Ezeilo is a Nigerian professor of public law and a six-year United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking persons in Africa. She is a former Commissioner for Gender and Social Development, Enugu State, a senior advocate of Nigeria and an activist. She was a former Dean and HOD of faculty of law University of Nigeria Nsukka and the founder of the Women Aid Collective . She is a receipent of Officer of the Order of Niger and one of the 2022 BBC 100 Women
Go to Profile