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 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 (69 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 (63 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 (70 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 (35 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 (60 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 (54 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 (73 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
Tatyana Ehrenfest
1905 - 1984 (79 years)
Tatyana Pavlovna Ehrenfest, later van Aardenne-Ehrenfest, was a Dutch mathematician. She was the daughter of Paul Ehrenfest and Tatyana Afanasyeva . Under her married name, Tanja van Aardenne-Ehrenfest, she is known for her contributions to De Bruijn sequences, low-discrepancy sequences, and the BEST theorem.
Go to Profile#1965
Ethel M. Elderton
1878 - 1954 (76 years)
Ethel Mary Elderton was a British eugenics researcher who worked with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Biography Elderton was born on 31 December 1878 in Fulham, London. Her father, William Alexander Elderton was a private tutor and her mother, Sarah Isabella, née Lapidge was school headmistress. The couple had eight children, of which Elderton was the third and the eldest girl. Her eldest brother was William Palin Elderton, a statistician who worked as an actuary and became head of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
Go to Profile#1966
Klara Löbenstein
1883 - 1968 (85 years)
Klara Löbenstein was a German mathematician. She was among the first women to obtain a doctorate in Germany. Her doctoral work was on the topology of algebraic curves. Life and work Löbenstein was born in Hildesheim, Prussia on 15 February 1883 to merchant Lehmann Löbenstein and his wife Sofie .
Go to Profile#1967
Klavdiya Latysheva
1897 - 1956 (59 years)
Klavdiya Yakovlevna Latysheva was a Soviet mathematician known for her contributions to the theory of differential equations, electrodynamics and probability. She was honoured with the Order of Lenin and the Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".
Go to Profile#1968
Mary P. Dolciani
1923 - 1985 (62 years)
Mary P. Dolciani was an American mathematician, known for her work with secondary-school mathematics teachers. Education and career Dolciani earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Hunter College in New York City, and she completed her doctor of philosophy at Cornell University in 1947 with B. W. Jones as thesis advisor. She taught briefly at Vassar College before returning to Hunter, where she spent the next forty years. Dolciani taught mathematics there, and at times, she also served as a Dean or the Provost.
Go to Profile#1969
Alice Lee
1858 - 1939 (81 years)
Alice Lee was a British mathematician, one of the first women to graduate from London University. She was awarded a PhD in 1901. She worked with Karl Pearson from 1892. She demonstrated that the correlation between cranial capacity and gender was not a sign of greater intelligence in men compared to women.
Go to Profile#1970
Virginia Ragsdale
1870 - 1945 (75 years)
Virginia Ragsdale was a teacher and mathematician specializing in algebraic curves. She is most known as the creator of the Ragsdale conjecture. Early life Ragsdale was born on a farm in Jamestown, North Carolina the third child of John Sinclair Ragsdale and Emily Jane Idol. John was an officer in the Civil War, a teacher in the Flint Hill School, and later a state legislator.
Go to Profile#1971
Mary Frances Winston Newson
1869 - 1959 (90 years)
Mary Frances Winston Newson was an American mathematician. She became the first female American to receive a PhD in mathematics from a European university, namely the University of Göttingen in Germany. She was also the first person to translate Hilbert's problems into English.
Go to Profile#1972
Winifred Edgerton Merrill
1862 - 1951 (89 years)
Winifred Edgerton was born in Ripon, Wisconsin. She was the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia University and the first American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics. She was awarded a PhD with high honors from Columbia University in 1886, by a unanimous vote of the board of trustees, after being rejected once.
Go to Profile#1973
Isabel Maddison
1869 - 1950 (81 years)
Ada Isabel Maddison was a British mathematician best known for her work on differential equations. Education Isabel Maddison entered University College in Cardiff in 1885. She was awarded a Clothworker's Guild Scholarship to study at Girton College, Cambridge, where she matriculated in 1889. A fellow student who matriculated at Girton at the same time as Maddison was Grace Chisholm . Maddison attended lectures at Cambridge by Cayley, Whitehead and Young. In 1892 Maddison passed the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos Exam earning a First Class degree, equal to the twenty-seventh Wrangler, but she w...
Go to Profile#1974
Stanisława Nikodym
1897 - 1988 (91 years)
Stanisława Nikodym was a Polish mathematician and artist. She is known for her results in continuum theory, especially on Jordanian continuums. Life Stanisława Dorota Liliental was born in Warsaw to Regina Lilientalowa, an ethnographer, and Nathan Liliental. Stanisława had a younger brother, Antoni . She attended Helena Skłodowska-Szalay's primary school, and went to Warsaw's private school for women for 7 years. She joined the Warsaw University in 1916, reading mathematics under Stefan Mazurkiewicz, Zygmunt Janiszewski, and Wacław Sierpiński
Go to Profile#1975
Wealthy Babcock
1895 - 1990 (95 years)
Wealthy Consuelo Babcock was an American mathematician. She was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and had a long teaching career at that institution. Early life and education Wealthy Consuelo Babcock was born in Washington County, Kansas, the second child of Ella Babcock and Cassius Lincoln Babcock. She graduated in 1913 from Washington County High School and taught for two years in one-room country schools in Washington County. The following year, she matriculated at the University of Kansas where she was a member of the women's basketball team. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in 1919, she taught for a year at Neodesha High School in southeastern Kansas.
Go to Profile#1976
Emily Kathryn Wyant
1897 - 1942 (45 years)
Emily Kathryn Wyant was an American mathematician known as the founder of Kappa Mu Epsilon, a mathematical honor society focusing on undergraduate education. Early life and education Wyant was born on January 16, 1897, in Ipava, Illinois. Her father was a student in Illinois and later a shopkeeper in Bolivar, Missouri, where she graduated from high school in 1914. She attended the University of Missouri on a part time and summer basis while supporting herself as a school teacher, finally completing a bachelor's degree in education in 1921.
Go to Profile#1977
Georgia Caldwell Smith
1909 - 1961 (52 years)
Georgia Caldwell Smith was one of the first African-American women to gain a bachelor's degree in mathematics. When she was 51, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics, one of the earliest by an African-American woman, awarded posthumously in 1961. Smith was the head of the Department of Mathematics at Spelman College.
Go to Profile#1978
Frances Hardcastle
1866 - 1941 (75 years)
Frances Hardcastle was an English mathematician, in 1894 one of the founding members of the American Mathematical Society. Her work included contributions to the theory of point groups. Biography Born in Writtle, just outside Chelmsford, Essex, Hardcastle was a daughter of Henry Hardcastle, a barrister, by his marriage in 1865 to Maria Sophia Herschel, daughter of the astronomer, mathematician, and chemist Sir John Herschel.
Go to Profile#1979
Mary Emily Sinclair
1878 - 1955 (77 years)
Mary Emily Sinclair was an American mathematician whose research concerned algebraic surfaces and the calculus of variations. She was the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, and became Clark Professor of Mathematics at Oberlin College.
Go to Profile#1980
Marie Gernet
1865 - 1924 (59 years)
Marie Gernet was a German mathematician who in 1895 became the second woman to obtain a doctorate at Heidelberg University. The first was Käthe Windscheid, who earned a doctorate for her work on English pastoral poetry in the previous year. Gernet was also the first native German woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics, 13 years earlier than Emmy Noether. She was the only German among the first eight women to earn a mathematics Ph.D. in Germany.
Go to Profile#1981
Anne Cobbe
1920 - 1971 (51 years)
Anne Philippa Cobbe was a mathematician at the University of Oxford. She was an inspirational and supportive pure mathematics tutor at Somerville College which, during her time there, was still a women's college.
Go to Profile#1982
Annie Dale Biddle Andrews
1885 - 1940 (55 years)
Annie Dale Biddle Andrews was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. Early life and career She was born in Hanford, California, the youngest daughter of Samuel Edward Biddle and Achsah Annie Biddle .
Go to Profile#1983
Nelli Neumann
1886 - 1942 (56 years)
Nelli Neumann was a German mathematician who worked in synthetic geometry. She was one of the first women to obtain a doctorate in mathematics at a German university. Biography Nelli Neumann was born in Breslau, Prussia, the only child of Jewish parents Max and Sophie Neumann. Her father was a judicial officer, while her mother died when Nelli was two years old. After ten years in the private Höhere Töchterschule in Breslau, Neumann attended grammar courses and graduated from the König-Wilhelm-Gymnasium boys' school in 1905. Her father promoted her mathematical talent by arranging private mathematics lessons given by Richard Courant.
Go to Profile#1984
Ruth Goulding Wood
1875 - 1939 (64 years)
Ruth Goulding Wood was a professor of mathematics who researched non-Euclidean geometry at Smith College. Wood was also a member of the American Mathematical Society. Life and career Wood was born on January 29, 1875, in the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. After attending primary and secondary school in Pawtucket, Wood pursued and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1898. Wood then decided to further her education by attending Yale University, graduating with a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1901. Her thesis, Non-Euclidean displacements and symmetry transformations, concerned t...
Go to Profile#1985
Leila Bram
1927 - 1979 (52 years)
Leila Ann Dragonette Bram was an American mathematician. She was one of the first to study mock theta functions, and for many years directed the mathematics program at the Office of Naval Research, a position where she set the program for much of mathematics research.
Go to Profile#1986
Cora Barbara Hennel
1886 - 1947 (61 years)
Cora Barbara Hennel was an Indiana mathematician active in the first half of the 20th century. Early life and education Hennel was born in Evansville, Indiana to Joseph H. and Anna Marie Thuman Hennel. After high school graduation Cora and her older sister Cecilia taught in country grade schools to save money for college. In 1903, both Hennels entered Indiana University and shortly thereafter, convinced their parents to move with their younger sister, Edith, to Bloomington. All three sisters attended and graduated from Indiana University. Hennel earned her earned her A.B. in Mathematics in 1907, her Masters in 1908, and in 1912, became the first person to earn a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#1987
Lorna Swain
1891 - 1936 (45 years)
Lorna Mary Swain was a British mathematician and college lecturer, known for being one of few female mathematicians to contribute their talents to the war effort in World War I, and for being one of few early female lecturers at University of Cambridge. Academically, she is known for her work in fluid dynamics as well as her deep desire to see more women pursue higher education and teaching in the field of mathematics.
Go to Profile#1988
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#1989
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#1990
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#1991
Ida Busbridge
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Ida Winifred Busbridge was a British mathematician who taught at the University of Oxford from 1935 until 1970. She was the first woman to be appointed to an Oxford fellowship in mathematics. Early life and education Ida Busbridge born to Percival George Busbridge and May Edith Webb on 10 February 1908. She was the youngest of four children. Her father died when she was 8 months old of complications from influenza. This left her mother, a primary school teacher, to care for the children.
Go to Profile#1992
Priscilla Braislin
1838 - 1888 (50 years)
Priscilla Harris Braislin Merrick was the first mathematics professor at Vassar College. Early life Braislin was originally from Burlington, New Jersey, the eldest of six children. Her father was Catholic and her mother Quaker, but with five of her siblings she became a Baptist; one of her brothers, Edward Braislin , became a Baptist minister.
Go to Profile#1993
Rózsa Péter
1905 - 1977 (72 years)
Rózsa Péter, born Rózsa Politzer, was a Hungarian mathematician and logician. She is best known as the "founding mother of recursion theory". Early life and education Péter was born in Budapest, Hungary, as Rózsa Politzer . She attended Pázmány Péter University , originally studying chemistry but later switching to mathematics. She attended lectures by Lipót Fejér and József Kürschák. While at university, she met László Kalmár; they would collaborate in future years and Kalmár encouraged her to pursue her love of mathematics.
Go to Profile#1994
Gertrude Mary Cox
1906 - 1978 (72 years)
Gertrude Mary Cox was an American statistician and founder of the department of Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State University. She was later appointed director of both the Institute of Statistics of the Consolidated University of North Carolina and the Statistics Research Division of North Carolina State University. Her most important and influential research dealt with experimental design; In 1950 she published the book Experimental Designs, on the subject with W. G. Cochran, which became the major reference work on the design of experiments for statisticians for years afterwards.
Go to Profile#1995
Julia Robinson
1919 - 1985 (66 years)
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbert's tenth problem played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution. Robinson was a 1983 MacArthur Fellow.
Go to Profile#1996
Hanna Neumann
1914 - 1971 (57 years)
Johanna Neumann was a German-born mathematician who worked on group theory. Biography Neumann was born on 12 February 1914 in Lankwitz, Steglitz-Zehlendorf , Germany. She was the youngest of three children of Hermann and Katharina von Caemmerer. As a result of her father's death in the first days of the First World War, the family income was small, and from the age of thirteen she was coaching school children.
Go to Profile#1997
Irmgard Flügge-Lotz
1903 - 1974 (71 years)
Irmgard Flügge-Lotz, née Lotz was a German-American mathematician and aerospace engineer. She was a pioneer in the development of the theory of discontinuous automatic control, which has found wide application in hysteresis control systems; such applications include guidance systems, electronics, fire-control systems, and temperature regulation. She became the first female engineering professor at Stanford University in 1961 and the first female engineer elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Go to Profile#1998
Evelyn Nelson
1943 - 1987 (44 years)
Evelyn Merle Nelson , born Evelyn Merle Roden, was a Canadian mathematician. Nelson made contributions to the area of universal algebra with applications to theoretical computer science. She, along with Cecilia Krieger, is the namesake of the Krieger–Nelson Prize, awarded by the Canadian Mathematical Society for outstanding research by a female mathematician.
Go to Profile#1999
Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin
1905 - 1972 (67 years)
Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin was a French mathematician, the second woman to obtain a doctorate in pure mathematics in France, the first woman to become a full professor of mathematics in France, the president of the French Mathematical Society, and an expert on fluid mechanics and abstract algebra.
Go to Profile#2000
Lao Genevra Simons
1870 - 1949 (79 years)
Lao Genevra Simons also referred to as Lao G. Simons, was an American mathematician, writer, and historian of mathematics known for her influential book Fabre and Mathematics and Other Essays. Simons was head of the mathematics department at Hunter College in New York.
Go to Profile