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 Mathematics,
#6151
De-chang Jia
#128011
Overall Influence
#6152
Michel Dupuis
#128044
Overall Influence
#6153
Peter Dalgaard
#32983
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Peter Dalgaard is a Danish statistician and one of the core developers of the R statistical programming language. He is a professor at Copenhagen Business School and was previously a professor of biostatistics at the University of Copenhagen, where he obtained his MSc in 1985 and PhD in 1991.
Go to Profile#6154
Kathy Horadam
#112263
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Kathryn Jennifer Horadam is an Australian mathematician known for her work on Hadamard matrices and related topics in mathematics and information security. She is an Emeritus Professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology .
Go to Profile#6155
Sergei Konstantinovich Godunov
#128106
Overall Influence
#6156
Anna Zdunik
#109451
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Anna Maria Zdunik is a Polish mathematician. She specializes in dynamical systems, and is a professor at the University of Warsaw. Education Zdunik earned her habilitation in 2002, on the basis of an evaluation of her achievements and her dissertation.
Go to Profile#6157
Adrian G. Barnett
#126810
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Adrian Gerard Barnett is a professor in the faculty of Health in the school of Public Health and Social Work, at Queensland University of Technology and was president of the Statistical Society of Australia from 2018–2020.
Go to Profile#6158
Arnoldo Frigessi
#86663
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Arnoldo Frigessi di Rattalma is an Italian statistician based in Norway, where he is a professor at the Department of Biostatistics with the Institute of Basic Medical Research at the University of Oslo. He has also a position at the Oslo University Hospital and is affiliated with the Norwegian Computing Centre. He led the centre Statistics for Innovation, which was created in 2007 as one of 14 designated national centres for research-based innovation, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, until 2014. Frigessi succeeded in obtaining funding for a second centre of the same type, BigInsight, which started in 2014 and will operate for 8 years, again under his leadership.
Go to Profile#6159
Xavier Pennec
#128161
Overall Influence
#6160
Grace Y. Yi
#99767
Overall Influence
Grace Yun Yi is a professor of the University of Western Ontario where she currently holds a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Data Science. She was a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where she holds a University Research Chair in Statistical and Actuarial Science. Her research concerns event history analysis with missing data and its applications in medicine, engineering, and social science.
Go to Profile#6161
William Q. Meeker
#128172
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
#6162
Gadadhar Misra
#52260
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Gadadhar Misra is an Indian mathematician who specializes in operator theory. He was born at Bhubaneswar in the state of Odisha to Prof Chakrapani Mishra and Smt Arunabala Mishra. He studied at DM School, BJB College, Sambalpur University and State University of New York in USA . He taught at Indian Statistical Institute , Kolkata and Bengaluru before joining the Indian Institute of Science , Bengaluru where he is currently engaged in teaching and research.
Go to Profile#6163
Jonathan R. M. Hosking
#128214
Overall Influence
#6164
Franco Blanchini
#128273
Overall Influence
#6165
Natalia Komarova
#72675
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (54 years)
Natalia L. Komarova is a Russian-American applied mathematician whose research concerns the mathematical modeling of cancer, the evolution of language, gun control, pop music, and other complex systems. She is a Chancellor's Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine.
Go to Profile#6166
Diane Lambert
#54791
Overall Influence
Diane Marie Lambert is an American statistician known for her work on zero-inflated models, a method for extending Poisson regression to applications such as the statistics of manufacturing defects in which one can expect to observe a large number of zeros. A former Bell Labs Fellow, she is a research scientist for Google, where she lists her current research areas as "algorithms and theory, data mining and modeling, and economics and electronic commerce".
Go to Profile#6167
Tang Tao
#87521
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Tang Tao is a Chinese mathematician currently serving as President of BNU-HKBU United International College. Tang is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences., Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. , Fellow of the The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries . He is also a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and American Mathematical Society.
Go to Profile#6168
Helga Königsdorf
#60407
Overall Influence
1938 - 2014 (76 years)
Helga Königsdorf was an East German author and physicist. Life She was born in Gera, a farmer's daughter. She went into academia and was appointed to the East Berlin Academy of Sciences of the GDR from 1961 to 1990. Since 1974, she headed the Department of Probability and Mathematical Statistics. At age 40, she published her first short-story collection Meine ungehörigen Träume .
Go to Profile#6169
Márton Balázs
#91330
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Márton Balázs was a Romanian mathematician of Hungarian descent. He was born in Lueta, Odorhei County , Romania. After graduating from high school in Odorheiu Secuiesc, he got his undergraduate degree from Babeș-Bolyai University, with a specialization in mathematical physics.
Go to Profile#6170
Da Ruan
#128392
Overall Influence
1960 - 2011 (51 years)
Da Ruan was a Chinese-Belgian mathematician, scientist, professor. He had a Ph.D. from Ghent University. Bibliography Fuzzy set theory and advanced mathematical applications
Go to Profile#6171
Notker Rösch
#128410
Overall Influence
#6172
Luigi Bolondi
#128430
Overall Influence
#6173
Leiba X. Rodman
#128498
Overall Influence
#6174
Petru Mocanu
#110113
Overall Influence
1931 - 2016 (85 years)
Petru T. Mocanu was a Romanian mathematician who was elected in 2009 as a titular member of the Romanian Academy. Mocanu was born in Brăila. He studied at the Nicolae Bălcescu High School in Brăila, graduating in 1950. He then went to study mathematics at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, completing his B.Sc in 1953, and his Ph.D. in 1959. His dissertation, written under the supervision of Gheorghe Călugăreanu, was titled Variational methods in the theory of univalent functions. He continued as faculty at Babeș-Bolyai University, rising to the rank of Professor in 1970.
Go to Profile#6175
Robert Sorgenfrey
#128573
Overall Influence
1915 - 1996 (81 years)
Robert Henry Sorgenfrey was an American mathematician and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Sorgenfrey line and the Sorgenfrey plane are named after him; the Sorgenfrey line was the first example of a normal topological space whose product with itself is not normal.
Go to Profile#6176
Volodymyr Koshmanenko
#124674
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
Volodymyr Koshmanenko — Ukrainian mathematician, Doctor of Science, professor, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Mathematics of the NAS of Ukraine. Volodymyr Koshmanenko is a notable Ukrainian mathematician and a talented researcher. Prof. Koshmanenko has been reading lectures at Taras Shevchenko University, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University and National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He has over 120 publications and 5 monographs. Volodymyr Koshmanenko promotes creativity in science, incredible performance, healthy lifestyle.
Go to Profile#6177
Walter Wiora
#75607
Overall Influence
1906 - 1997 (91 years)
Walter Wiora was a German musicologist and music historian. Life and career Born in Kattowitz, Wiora received his doctorate in Freiburg with Wilibald Gurlitt and then worked as an assistant at the Deutsches Volksliedarchiv in Freiburg. He became on request of 19 May 1937 member of the Nazi Party number 4.715.785. In 1940 he wrote a contribution to folk song research in Alfred Rosenberg's magazine "Die Musik" under the title: "Die Molltonart im Volkslied der Deutschen in Polen und im polnischen Volkslied" . Wiora was habilitated in 1941 and in 1942 lecturer at the "Reichsuniversität Posen". At...
Go to Profile#6178
Sander P. Zwegers
#120734
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Sander Pieter Zwegers is a Dutch mathematician who made a connection between Maass forms and Srinivasa Ramanujan's mock theta functions in 2002. He was born in Oosterhout. After a period at the Max-Planck Institute in Bonn, he became an assistant professor at the University College Dublin in 2008. Since 2011, he has been is professor of number theory at the University of Cologne.
Go to Profile#6179
Michael A. Henning*
#128711
Overall Influence
#6180
Reiner Kirchheim
#128719
Overall Influence
#6181
Ernst Snapper
#68323
Overall Influence
1913 - 2011 (98 years)
Ernst Snapper was a Dutch-American mathematician, known for his research in "commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, cohomology of groups, character theory, and combinatorics." Biography Ernst Snapper, born to a Jewish family in the Netherlands, received in 1936 the equivalent of a master's degree from the University of Amsterdam. In 1938 his father, Isidore Snapper, an internationally known physician and medical researcher, accepted an offer to become the director of medical research at the Rockefeller Foundation's Peking Union Medical College. Acting on a suggestion from Abraham Flexner, I...
Go to Profile#6182
Aad W. Van Der Vaart
#128844
Overall Influence
#6183
Harold A. Linstone
#80451
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Harold Adrian Linstone was a German-American mathematician, consultant, futurist and University Professor Emeritus of Systems Science at Portland State University and a specialist in applied mathematics.
Go to Profile#6184
Franziska Michor
#65865
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (43 years)
Franziska Michor is an Austrian-American computational biologist who is a Professor in the Department of Data Science at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. She serves as Director of the Physical Sciences-Oncology Center and the Center for Cancer Evolution.
Go to Profile#6185
John Gotti
#388
Overall Influence
1940 - 2002 (62 years)
John Joseph Gotti Jr. was an American gangster and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss Paul Castellano in December 1985 and took over the family shortly thereafter, becoming boss of what was described as America's most powerful crime syndicate.
Go to Profile#6186
Fernanda Botelho
#116075
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Fernanda Maria Botelho is an American mathematician, a professor and the director of graduate studies and coordinator of mathematics at the University of Memphis. Botelho earned her Ph.D. in 1988 at the University of California at Berkeley, where Jenny Harrison was her doctoral advisor. Earlier she did her M.Sc. in 1985 and B.Sc. in 1981 in mathematics at the Universidade do Porto. Her research interests include functional analysis, operator theory and dynamical systems. From 2013 through 2016, she held the Dunavant Professorship at the University of Memphis.
Go to Profile#6187
Bernardo Uribe
#121366
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Bernardo Uribe Jongbloed is a Colombian mathematician. Uribe's research deals with algebraic geometry and topology with string theory applications. Biography Uribe graduated from secondary school in Bogotá and then studied from 1994 to 1998 at the Universidad de Los Andes. In 2002 he received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with thesis Twisted K-Theory and Orbifold Cohomology of the Symmetric Product under the supervision of Alejandro Ádem and Yongbin Ruan. He was a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. In 2003/04 he was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#6188
Ali S. Hadi
#127716
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Ali S. Hadi is an Egyptian American emeritus professor at Cornell University, USA. He was a former vice provost and director of graduate studies and research at American University, Cairo. He is the chairman and the founder of the Actuarial Science Program at the American University in Cairo. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Association and African Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#6189
Yvo G. Desmedt
#128947
Overall Influence
#6190
Michael W. M. Mahoney
#128965
Overall Influence
#6191
B. V. Rajarama Bhat
#106265
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
B. V. Rajarama Bhat is an Indian mathematician specialising in operator theory. He is a Professor of Mathematics in Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. Professor Bhat obtained his MSc and PhD degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
Go to Profile#6192
Martin Schottenloher
#110584
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Martin Schottenloher is a German mathematician. Life He was born on July 25, 1944, in Lindau, Germany. He specializes in algorithms, artificial intelligence and complex analysis. Career He completed his Dr. rer. nat. degree at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1972. His doctoral supervisors were Walter Roelcke and Karl Stein. He received his habilitation in 1975, also from the University of Munich.
Go to Profile#6193
David M. Jacobs
#7170
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
David Michael Jacobs is an American historian and retired Associate Professor of History at Temple University specializing in 20th-century American history. Jacobs is a prominent figure in ufology and the study of the alleged alien abduction phenomenon, including the use of hypnosis on subjects claiming to be abductees. Jacobs has authored several books on the subject.
Go to Profile#6194
Henning Urlaub
#129068
Overall Influence
#6195
Nancy Flournoy
#100880
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Nancy Flournoy is an American statistician. Her research in statistics concerns the design of experiments, and particularly the design of adaptive clinical trials; she is also known for her work on applications of statistics to bone marrow transplantation, and in particular on the graft-versus-tumor effect. She is Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of Missouri.
Go to Profile#6196
Hans Robert Müller
#109035
Overall Influence
1911 - 1999 (88 years)
Hans Robert Müller was an Austrian mathematician, professor and director of mathematical institutes at two universities. Career From 1930 to 1935 he studied astronomy, descriptive geometry, mathematics, philosophy, physics at the University of Graz and the Graz University of Technology. In 1935 he passed the teaching examination for mathematics and descriptive geometry. In 1936 he became assistant at the institute of mathematics at the University Graz, obtaining his doctorate in 1937 in mathematics, the habilitation in 1939, and in 1940 he became a docent. In 1941 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , became a prisoner of war and was released in September 1945.
Go to Profile#6197
Matti Vuorinen
#129096
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
Matti Vuorinen is a Finnish mathematician working in the area of classical analysis. His main topics of interest include geometric function theory, quasiregular and quasiconformal mappings, computational potential theory, and generalized hyperbolic geometry.
Go to Profile#6198
Patrick J. Heagerty
#129137
Overall Influence
#6199
Arup Bose
#120917
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Arup Bose is an Indian statistician. He is a Professor of Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics, in Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Arup Bose obtained his B.Stat, M.Stat and Ph.D degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata where G. Jogesh Babu was his PhD supervisor. He then joined Purdue University, USA, as an Assistant Professor. After four years at Purdue, he returned to India in 1991 and joined the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata as an Associate Professor and was promoted to full Professorship in 1995. Most notable areas of his research include, sequential ana...
Go to Profile#6200
Ann Katharine Mitchell
#73682
Overall Influence
1922 - 2020 (98 years)
Ann Katharine Mitchell was a British cryptanalyst and psychologist who worked on decrypting messages encoded in the German Enigma cypher at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. After the war she became a marriage guidance counsellor, then studied for a Master of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She worked at the university's Department of Social Administration and wrote several academic books about the psychological effects of divorce on children, including Someone to Turn to: Experiences of Help Before Divorce and Children in the Middle: Living Through Divorce .
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