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).
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List of the most influential female people in Mathematics,
#1951
Melinda Tan
#51092
Overall Influence
Melinda Tan is an academic who is currently rector of the University of Central Lancashire campus in the UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus. Career Melinda Tan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English language and literature in 1991 from the National University of Singapore and a post graduate diploma in education from the same institution in 1992. She was awarded a Master of Arts degree in English language teaching and applied linguistics from the University of Nottingham in 1997. Tan remained with the university to study for a doctor of philosophy degree, lecturing there during this time. She received her doctorate in applied linguistics in 2000.
Go to Profile#1952
Christine Lang
#47562
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Christine Lang is a German microbiologist and entrepreneur. Life and work Lang was raised in Bochum, West Germany, with her brother Joachim Lang. She studied biology from 1976 to 1981 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the University of Sussex. In 1985, she obtained a Dr. rer. nat. in Biology in Bochum on the molecular genetics of fungi, with her thesis entitled "Extrachromosomal in vitro genetics in fungi: chondriome vectors in yeasts." She then worked in industrial research at the Hüls Chemie research center . In 1993 she moved to the Technical University of Berlin and habilitated in the field of microbiology and molecular genetics under the supervision of Ulf Stahl.
Go to Profile#1953
Ursula Wertheim
#132280
Overall Influence
1919 - 2006 (87 years)
Ursula Wertheim was a German literary scholar and university teacher at Jena in East Germany. The primary focus of her writing and teaching was on Germany's eighteenth and nineteenth century classical literature.
Go to Profile#1954
Tracy Mackenna
#169737
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Tracy Mackenna is a British sculptor and artist, creating works with her partner Edwin Janssen. She was Course Director at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Education Tracy Mackenna studied at the Glasgow School of Art between 1981 and 1986. She is a Royal Scottish Academy's Academician.
Go to Profile#1955
Ruby Keeler
#147798
Overall Influence
1909 - 1993 (84 years)
Ethel Ruby Keeler was an American actress, dancer, and singer who was paired on-screen with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Bros., particularly 42nd Street . From 1928 to 1940, she was married to actor and singer Al Jolson. She retired from show business in the 1940s, but made a widely publicized comeback on Broadway in 1971.
Go to Profile#1956
Bogumiła Lisocka-Jaegermann
#91970
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Bogumiła Lisocka-Jaegermann is a Polish social scientist and writer, specialising in the fields of history and development of the Third World and developing countries. Most of her works focus on Latin American history, social and economic development. She is currently working for the Institute of Regional and Global Studies of the Warsaw University and Collegium Civitas. In the past she also collaborated with the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#1957
Petra Vinšová
#189719
Overall Influence
1991 - Present (34 years)
Petra Vinšová is a Czech curler. At the national level, she is a three-time Czech mixed champion . Personal life As of 2020, she is a PhD candidate in polar science. Teams Women's Mixed Mixed doubles
Go to Profile#1958
Jill Thompson
#80424
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Jill Thompson is an American illustrator and writer who has worked for stage, film, and television. Well known for her work on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman characters and her own Scary Godmother series, she has worked on The Invisibles, Swamp Thing, and Wonder Woman as well.
Go to Profile#1959
Debbie Reynolds
#188441
Overall Influence
1932 - 2016 (84 years)
Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer with her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain . Her other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis , Susan Slept Here , Bundle of Joy , The Catered Affair , and Tammy and the Bachelor , in which her performance of the song "Tammy" topped the Billboard music charts. In 1959, she starred in The M...
Go to Profile#1960
Michele Perkins
#96160
Overall Influence
Michele D. Perkins is an American university administrator, who served as the 15th president of New England College. Education She completed a bachelor's degree in theatre and performance studies from Northwestern University. She then earned a master's degree in communication from Emerson College. Perkins completed a doctorate in education in higher education management from University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#1961
Sabrina Raaf
#162181
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (53 years)
Sabrina Raaf is an American, Chicago-based, mechanized sculpture artist, and photographer. Career Sabrina Raaf attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. receiving her Bachelors in the School of Foreign Service. After graduating in 1994, she attended Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C.. At Corcoran she befriended David Adamson while attending his computer-art class, and in 1995, Raaf became gallery intern at the David Adamson Gallery. As a photographer and aspiring curator, Raaf organized a show of women photographers including herself.
Go to Profile#1962
Anna Jaquez
#58942
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Anna Jaquez is an American artist, art professor and metalsmith. She lives and works in El Paso, Texas. Jaquez is an art professor at the University of Texas at El Paso . She has work in the permanent collection of the El Paso Museum of Art.
Go to Profile#1963
Nanette Fabray
#153185
Overall Influence
1920 - 2018 (98 years)
Nanette Fabray was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role in High Button Shoes and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, and appeared with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV series One Day at a Time.
Go to Profile#1964
Florence Eliza Allen
1876 - 1960 (84 years)
Florence Eliza Allen was an American mathematician and women's suffrage activist. In 1907 she became the second woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the fourth Ph.D. overall from that department.
Go to Profile#1965
Sophie Piccard
1904 - 1990 (86 years)
Sophie Piccard was a Russian-Swiss mathematician who became the first female full professor in Switzerland. Her research concerned set theory, group theory, linear algebra, and the history of mathematics.
Go to Profile#1966
Marguerite Lehr
1898 - 1987 (89 years)
Marguerite Lehr was an American mathematician who studied algebraic geometry, humanism in mathematics, and mathematics education. Early life and education Born on October 22, 1898, to Margaret Kreuter and George Lehr in Baltimore, Marguerite Lehr attended Goucher College for her undergraduate education and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1919. After her undergraduate education, Lehr moved to Rome to study at the University of Rome for the 1923–1924 academic year, funded by the American Association of University Women and the M. Carey Thomas University Fellowship. In 1925, Lehr earned her Ph.D.
Go to Profile#1967
Marie Litzinger
1899 - 1952 (53 years)
Marie Litzinger was an American mathematician known for her research in number theory, homogeneous polynomials, and modular arithmetic. Early life and education Marie Litzinger was born in Bedford, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Rush Litzinger and Katherine O'Connell Litzinger. Her father owned a marble works, and was an accountant for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Go to Profile#1968
Mary Shore Walker
1882 - 1952 (70 years)
Mary Shore Walker was the first woman faculty member at the University of Missouri, and taught in the department of Mathematics. She was born in 1882. She earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Missouri in 1903 and 1904, respectively. The thesis she wrote for her M.A. was titled, "On finite groups with special reference to Klein’s ikosaeder.” While at the University of Missouri, she studied with Earle Hedrick, Oliver Dimon Kellogg, and W. D. A. Westfall.
Go to Profile#1969
Mary Martin
1907 - 1969 (62 years)
Mary Adela Martin was a British artist best known for geometric abstract painting and for her collaborations with her husband Kenneth Martin. Biography Martin née Balmford was born on 16 November 1907 in Folkestone, United Kingdom. She studied at Goldsmiths' College, London from 1925 to 1929 and at the Royal College of Art from 1929 to 1932 where she met and married Kenneth Martin in 1930. She exhibited at the A.I.A. from 1934, mainly as a still-life and landscape painter, using her maiden name. During the war Mary taught drawing, design and weaving at Chelmsford School of Art from 1941 to 1...
Go to Profile#1970
Dorothy Brady
1903 - 1977 (74 years)
Dorothy Elizabeth Stahl Brady was an American mathematician and economist. She was a professor of economics at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1958 to 1970. Early life Born in Elk River, Minnesota, she grew up in Portland, Oregon, attending Lincoln High School and later Reed College studying mathematics and physics. She was married to fellow Reed student Robert A. Brady from 1924 to 1936, they had a son in 1933.
Go to Profile#1971
Geneviève Guitel
1895 - 1982 (87 years)
Geneviève Guitel was a French mathematician. She is mostly remembered for the introduction of the terms échelle longue and échelle courte to refer to two of the main numbering systems used around the world.
Go to Profile#1972
Florence Marie Mears
1896 - 1995 (99 years)
Florence Marie Mears was a professor of Mathematics at The George Washington University. Background and education Mears was born in Baltimore, Maryland and attended Baltimore public schools. She received her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Goucher College, earning a Phi Beta Kappa Key. She received a master's degree from Cornell University in 1924 after completing her thesis on "A Special Function of One Variable." She then went on to achieve her doctorate from Cornell in 1927, completing her thesis on the "Riesz Summability for Double Series" with thesis advisor Wallie Abraham Hurwi...
Go to Profile#1973
Elizabeth Stephansen
1872 - 1961 (89 years)
Elizabeth Stephansen was a Norwegian mathematician and educator. She was one of the first Norwegian women to be awarded a doctorate degree. Biography Stephansen was born in Bergen, Norway. She was the eldest daughter of Anton Stephan Stephansen and Gerche Reimers Jahn . Her father was a merchant and owner of a textile shop. He later established the textile factory, Espelandfos Spinderi & Tricotagefabrik, in Arna. She was educated at the Bergen Cathedral School graduating in 1891. She was fluent in the German language and traveled to Switzerland to continue her education. She attended Eidgenössische Polytechnikum in Zurich and graduated in 1896.
Go to Profile#1974
Rachel Blodgett Adams
1894 - 1982 (88 years)
Rachel Blodgett Adams was a pioneering American mathematician and one of the first women to earn a doctorate in mathematics at Radcliffe College in 1921. Biography Rachel Blodgett was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the oldest of three children of Mabel Edith Owen and William Edward Blodgett ; neither of whom attended college.
Go to Profile#1975
Nadeschda Gernet
1877 - 1943 (66 years)
Nadeschda Gernet, also Nadezhda, Russian: Надежда Николаевна Гернет, , was a Russian mathematician. Gernet was the second woman in Russia to earn a doctorate. She extended the calculus of variations to further functions on the basis developed by her instructor, David Hilbert, and was one of the first to include inequalities in the calculus of variations.
Go to Profile#1976
Mary Domitilla Thuener
1880 - 1977 (97 years)
Mary Domitilla Thuener was a nun and mathematician who served as the first head of Villa Madonna College. Early life and education Thuener was born on October 25, 1880. Her father was an immigrant from Germany who married an American; they had seven children but only three survived. Eleanor, the oldest, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She completed her studies at St. Mary’s Academy in Monroe, Michigan in 1905, took orders as a Benedictine nun, and entered the St. Waldburg convent in Covington, Kentucky, taking the name Mary Domitilla. There she came to work as a teacher in two local Cat...
Go to Profile#1977
Lois Wilfred Griffiths
1899 - 1981 (82 years)
Lois Wilfred Griffiths was an American mathematician and teacher. She served as a researcher, mathematician, and professor for 37 years at Northwestern University before retiring in 1964. She is best known for her work in polygonal numbers. She published multiple papers and wrote a textbook, Introduction to the Theory of Equations, published in 1945.
Go to Profile#1978
Elizabeth Buchanan Cowley
1874 - 1945 (71 years)
Elizabeth Buchanan Cowley was an American mathematician. Life Cowley was born on May 22, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She had four siblings, but they and her father all died by 1900. Cowley's mother, Mary Junkin Buchanan Cowley, later became a member of the Board of Public Education of Pittsburgh, and was the namesake of the Mary J. Cowley School in Pittsburgh. Cowley's grandfather was James Galloway Buchanan, a surgeon in the Union Army.
Go to Profile#1979
Florence Lewis
1877 - 1964 (87 years)
Florence Parthenia Lewis was an American mathematician and astronomer. Early life and education Born in Fort Scott, Kansas, Lewis attended the University of Texas for her undergraduate degree, which she received in 1897, and Radcliffe College for a master's degree, which she received in 1906. She earned her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in astronomy and mathematics.
Go to Profile#1980
Jessie Forbes Cameron
1883 - 1968 (85 years)
Jessie Forbes Cameron was a British mathematician who in 1912 became the first woman to complete her doctorate in mathematics at the University of Marburg in Germany. Life and work Jessie Cameron was born on 8 January 1883 in Stanley, Scotland, one of eight children whose parents were James Cameron, a school principal at a village school in Perthshire, and his wife Jessie Forbes.
Go to Profile#1981
Gillie Larew
1882 - 1977 (95 years)
Gillie Aldah Larew was an American mathematician, the first alumna of Randolph–Macon Woman's College to become a full professor there, and eventually the dean of the college. Early life and education Larew was the daughter of farmer and lawyer Captain I. H. Larew, and was born on July 28, 1882, in Pulaski County, Virginia. Her father had eleven children, three of whom died before Larew was born and five of whom were from a second wife after Larew's mother died in 1887. She was privately schooled before attending Randolph–Macon Woman's College from 1899 to 1903.
Go to Profile#1982
Sheila Scott Macintyre
1910 - 1960 (50 years)
Sheila Scott Macintyre FRSE was a Scottish mathematician best known for her work on the Whittaker constant. Macintyre is also known for co-authoring a German-English mathematics dictionary with Edith Witte.
Go to Profile#1983
Mary de Lellis Gough
1892 - 1983 (91 years)
Sister Mary de Lellis Gough was an Irish nun who spent most of her life in the USA. She is notable for being the earliest known Irish woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. Life She was born in Kilmore, County Wexford, Ireland. Her parents were Ellen Dunne and Walter Gough. She attended the local St John of God's primary school. She emigrated to Texas in 1909 with a group of young Irish women, and joined the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, taking vows as Mary de Lellis in 1911.
Go to Profile#1984
Annie Leuch-Reineck
1880 - 1978 (98 years)
Annie Leuch-Reineck was a Swiss mathematician and women's rights activist. She was one of the most influential participants in the Swiss women's movement during the 1920s and 1930s. Life Provenance and early years Annie Reineck was born in Kannawurf, a village in the countryside between Erfurt and Magdeburg in Germany. Erhard Reineck , her father, was a protestant church minister and superintentant originally from Magdeburg. Her mother, born Marie Godet , was from Neuchâtel in francophone western Switzerland. Annie grew up in Kannawurf and then in nearby Heldrungen. She received her early education at the home of her elder sister, Theodora .
Go to Profile#1985
Mary Cordia Karl
1893 - 1984 (91 years)
Elizabeth Karl was an American mathematician who contributed significantly to the theory of orthopoles in geometry. This was the subject of her PhD thesis at Johns Hopkins University in 1931. She was Head of the Mathematics department at College Notre Dame of Maryland until 1965, when she retired with the title of Professor Emeritus.
Go to Profile#1986
Mary Cleophas Garvin
1899 - 1990 (91 years)
Sister Mary Cleophas, born Linetta Anna Garvin, was an American mathematician. Early life Linetta Garvin was born in Vickery, Ohio, one of six children of Odelia Margaret and automobile and meat salesman Austin Edward Garwin.
Go to Profile#1987
Frieda Nugel
1884 - 1966 (82 years)
Frieda Nugel was a German mathematician and civil rights activist, one of the first German women to earn a doctorate in mathematics. She earned her PhD at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1912, under the supervision of August Gutzmer.
Go to Profile#1988
Eugenie Maria Morenus
1881 - 1966 (85 years)
Eugenie Maria Morenus was an American mathematician and college professor. She taught Latin and mathematics at Sweet Briar College from 1909 to 1946. Early life and education Morenus was born in Cleveland, New York, the daughter of Eugene Morenus and Maria Euphemia Van Blarcom Morenus. Her father managed a glassworks. She graduated from Monogahela High School in 1898. She earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1904, and a master's degree from the same school in 1905. She completed doctoral studies in mathematics at Columbia University in 1922. Her dissertation under Edward Kasner w...
Go to Profile#1989
Käthe Kollwitz
1867 - 1945 (78 years)
Käthe Kollwitz was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts but also to receive honorary professor status.
Go to Profile#1990
Mary Gertrude Haseman
1889 - 1979 (90 years)
Mary Gertrude Haseman was an American mathematician known for her work in knot theory. Biography Mary Gertrude Haseman was born in or near the small town of Linton, Indiana, the seventh of nine children, to Elizabeth Christine and John Dieterich Haseman. Despite being raised on a farm, she and her siblings all pursued higher education; they all attended college, five had master's degrees, and five, including Mary, earned PhDs.
Go to Profile#1991
Eleanor Pairman
1896 - 1973 (77 years)
Eleanor "Nora" Pairman, also known as Nora Brown, was a Scottish mathematician and only the third woman to receive a doctorate in math from Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. Later in life she developed novel methods to teach mathematics to blind students.
Go to Profile#1992
Clara Eliza Smith
1865 - 1943 (78 years)
Clara Eliza Smith was an American mathematician specializing in complex analysis who became the Helen Day Gould Professor of Mathematics at Wellesley College. Smith was the daughter of Georgiana and Edward Smith, of Northford, Connecticut. She studied at Mount Holyoke College, then a seminary, while also studying art at Yale University. Her studies in the seminary program included geometry and trigonometry, but the college did not offer degrees at that time. She completed the program in 1885. After working as an art teacher at the Bloomsburg State Normal School in Pennsylvania from 1889 until...
Go to Profile#1993
Josephine Burns Glasgow
1887 - 1969 (82 years)
Josephine Elizabeth Burns Glasgow was an American mathematician whose Ph.D. thesis, "The abstract definitions of the groups of degree 8" was published in the American Journal of Mathematics. She was the second woman to receive a PhD from the University of Illinois.
Go to Profile#1994
Mary Landers
1905 - 1990 (85 years)
Mary Kenny Landers was an American mathematician who taught for many years at Hunter College. She was also known as "an early advocate of academic collective bargaining". Early life and education Mary Kenny was born on February 5, 1905, in Fall River, Massachusetts, one of six children of an Anglo-Irish mailman. After attending public school in Fall River, she became a student at Brown University in 1922. Beyond mathematics, her interests at Brown included violin and debate. After graduating in 1926, she became an Anne Crosby Emery fellow at Brown and earned a master's degree in mathematics t...
Go to Profile#1995
Louise Nevelson
1899 - 1988 (89 years)
Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire , she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke Yiddish at home.
Go to Profile#1996
Gertrude Jekyll
1843 - 1932 (89 years)
Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1000 articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by British and American gardening enthusiasts.
Go to Profile#1997
Hildegard Rothe-Ille
1899 - 1942 (43 years)
Hildegard Rothe-Ille, born Hildegard Ille, , was a German mathematician. Career She was one of Issai Schur’s doctoral students. According to Alexander Soifer, “Van der Waerden walked away from Ramseyan prehistory. Issai Schur, on the other hand, continued to produce Ramseyan mathematics, and moreover directed and inspired his PhD students Richard Rado, Hildegard Ille and Alfred Brauer to do the same.”
Go to Profile#1998
Anna Irwin Young
1873 - 1920 (47 years)
Anna Irwin Young was an American professor of mathematics, physics and astronomy and in 1916 was a charter member of the Mathematical Association of America. Biography Young was born in what is now Chicago Heights, Illinois on November 25, 1873. Her father was Rev. Samuel Young of Ireland, and her mother was Eliza Caskey Young.
Go to Profile#1999
Lili Bleeker
1897 - 1985 (88 years)
Caroline Emilie "Lili" Bleeker was a Dutch entrepreneur and physicist from Middelburg known for her designs and the manufacturing of optical instruments. In the era she grew up, it was the norm for women to become housewives whose chief roles were to perform domestic duties, but Bleeker did not want to conform to these standards. She wanted to pursue an education, and never married her life-long partner, Gerard Willemse, which was quite anomalous at the time. She would later emerge as one of the first women in the Netherlands to become a doctor in physics and mathematics. After earning her Ph...
Go to Profile#2000
Maikki Friberg
1861 - 1927 (66 years)
Maria Elisabeth Friberg was a Finnish educator, journal editor, suffragist and peace activist. She is remembered for her involvement in the Finnish women's movement, especially as chair of the Finnish women's rights organisation Suomen Naisyhdistys and as the founder and editor of the women's journal Naisten Ääni . She travelled widely, promoting understanding of Finland abroad while participating in international conferences and contributing to the foreign press.
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