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 people in Political Science,

#801

Soledad Loaeza

#24190
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Dr. María Soledad Loaeza Tovar is a Mexican academic who specializes in the process of democratization and the transformations of society in Mexico. Biography Soledad Loaeza completed her high school studies at UNAM's Vidal Castañeda y Najera National "Plantel 4" high school. She received a degree in international relations from the College of Mexico , obtaining the title in 1972 with the thesis La política exterior del general Charles de Gaulle, 1962-1970 . She traveled to Europe to study for an international relations specialization at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut in Munich and a doctora...
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#802

Richard C. Snyder

#47653
Overall Influence
1916 - 1997 (81 years)
Richard C. Snyder was an American political scientist who specialized in foreign policy. Life and career Snyder graduated from Union College in 1937 and earned his doctorate in 1945 from Columbia University. He then took a position at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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#803

Rodney Croome

Rodney Croome
#31131
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Rodney Peter Croome AM is an Australian LGBT rights activist and academic. He worked on the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, was a founder of Australian Marriage Equality, and currently serves as the spokesperson for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and a spokesperson for LGBT advocacy group Just.Equal.
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#804

Kenneth Prewitt

#32555
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Kenneth Prewitt an American academic who is the Carnegie Professor of Social Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he is also director of the Scholarly Knowledge Project. He was Director of the United States Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001.
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#805

John C. McAdams

#12113
Overall Influence
1945 - 2021 (76 years)
John Charles McAdams was an American conservative and associate professor of political science at Marquette University. McAdams taught courses on American politics and public policy, voter behavior, and the John F. Kennedy assassination; he ran a website on the assassination and published a book on the subject, JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think about Claims of Conspiracy . He described himself as "a debunker by temperament". McAdams was suspended by Marquette in 2014 for publicly criticizing and sharing the first and last names of a graduate student on his personal blog. McAdams filed su...
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#806

Dali Yang

#26123
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Dali L. Yang is an American political scientist and sinologist. He is the William Claude Reavis Professor in the Department of Political Science and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost on Global Initiatives at The University of Chicago. Between 2010 and 2016, he was the founding Faculty Director of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing, a university-wide initiative to strengthen exchanges and collaboration with Chinese academic institutions. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He is a member of the Committee of 100, a member of the Na...
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#807

Mohammed Ayoob

#41623
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Mohammed Ayoob is a Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Michigan State University's James Madison College and the Department of Political Science. He is also Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University. Within international relations theory he is known for this theory of subaltern realism.
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#808

Grigory Yavlinsky

#27291
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Grigory Alekseyevich Yavlinsky is a Russian economist and politician. Serving as Deputy Premier of the Russian SFSR and later the entire Soviet Union, Yavlinsky authored the 500 Days Program, a plan for the transition of the Soviet economy to a free-market one. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he created the Yabloko party, which has advocated for a centrist alternative to the right-wing economic policies of President Boris Yeltsin. Between 1994 and 2003, he led his party in the State Duma.
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#809

David Cortright

#20654
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
David Cortright is an American scholar and peace activist. He is a Vietnam veteran who is currently Professor Emeritus and special adviser for policy studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 22 books. Cortright has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war.
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#810

Dieter Nohlen

#32955
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Dieter Nohlen is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expert on electoral systems and political development, he has published several books.
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#811

Alison Dundes Renteln

#21807
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Alison Dundes Renteln is an American college professor. She is a Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, Law, and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Education She holds a B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe, a J.D. from USC's Gould School of Law, and a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence & Social Policy and M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1981 to 1982 she studied International Law at the London School of Economics.
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#812

Joseph Rothschild

#26249
Overall Influence
1931 - 2000 (69 years)
Joseph Arthur Rothschild was an American professor of history and political science at Columbia University, specializing in Central European and Eastern European history. Rothschild was a member of the Academy of Political Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Phi Beta Kappa and American Professors for Peace in the Middle East . From 1985 he was also a member of the Commission on International Affairs for the American Jewish Congress.
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#813

John Gaventa

#26132
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
John Gaventa is currently the director of research at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, where he has been a Fellow since 1996. From 2011 to 2014, he served as the director of the Coady International Institute and vice-president of International Development at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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#814

Gloria Álvarez

Gloria Álvarez
#16358
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (39 years)
Gloria Álvarez Cross is a Guatemalan radio and television presenter, author, and libertarian political commentator. She is the host of the Viernes de Gloria radio program in Guatemala. Álvarez is also the program director of the National Civic Movement of Guatemala, an organization that advocates for political participation in the national politics of Guatemala. She has also published books on political topics for a popular audience.
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#815

Salim Mansur

#32407
Overall Influence
Salim Mansur is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He is a former columnist for the London Free Press and the Toronto Sun, and has contributed to various publications including National Review, the Middle East Forum and Frontpagemag. He often presents analysis on the Muslim world, Islam, South Asia, Middle East. He is also a member of the Freedom Party of Ontario.
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#816

Glenn Snyder

#44245
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Glenn Herald Snyder was professor emeritus of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His expertise was in the fields of international relations theory and security studies. He made influential contribution to the study of alliances and deterrence theory.
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#817

Henry E. Brady

Henry E. Brady
#42323
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Henry E. Brady is an American political scientist specializing in methodology and its application in a diverse array of political fields. He is Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley and holds the Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. He was elected President of the American Political Science Association, 2009–2010, giving a presidential address entitled "The Art of Political Science: Spatial Diagrams as Iconic and Revelatory." He has published academic works on diverse topics, co-authoring with colleagues at a variety of institutions and ranks, as well as many solo authored works.
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#818

Margaret Canovan

#11775
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Margaret Canovan was an English political theorist. Born in Carlisle in 1939, Canovan studied history at Girton College, Cambridge, where she subsequently completed a PhD on Joseph Priestley. She became a professor in the Politics Department at Lancaster University not long after its inception, later moving to Keele University where she remained until her retirement in 2002.
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#819

Beth A. Simmons

Beth A. Simmons
#25007
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Beth A. Simmons is an American academic and notable international relations scholar. She is the Andrea Mitchell University Professor in Law, Political Science and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is a former Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs at the Department of Government. Her research interests include international relations, political economy, international law, and international human rights law compliance.
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#820

Maarten Hajer

Maarten Hajer
#26456
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Maarten Allard Hajer is a Dutch political scientist and regional planner. Since 1 October 2015, Hajer has been Faculty Professor of Urban Futures at Utrecht University, where he leads the Urban Futures Studio.
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#821

Nicholas J. Wheeler

Nicholas J. Wheeler
#36861
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Nicholas J. Wheeler FLSW is professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham and co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series, published by Cambridge University Press and the British International Studies Association. Wheeler specializes in security studies and has focused his research on the security dilemma and humanitarian intervention.
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#822

Lester Spence

#22702
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Lester K. Spence , Professor of Political Science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University is known for his academic critiques of neoliberalism and his media commentary and research on race, urban politics, and police violence. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Spence's writings on race and politics appear regularly in publications such as Jacobin, The Chronicle of Higher Education, DissentNPR, New York Times, Baltimore City Paper, among others. Spence also appeared regularly on C-SPAN, The Marc Steiner Show, among o...
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#823

Peter Gowan

#20322
Overall Influence
1946 - 2009 (63 years)
Peter Gowan was a Professor of International Relations at London Metropolitan University, activist, published author and public speaker. He was a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review and was one of the founders of Labour Focus on Eastern Europe.
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#824

Stephen Zunes

#25209
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Stephen Zunes is an American international relations scholar specializing in the Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, and strategic nonviolent action. He is known internationally as a leading critic of United States policy in the Middle East, particularly under the George W. Bush administration, and an analyst of nonviolent civil insurrections against autocratic regimes.
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#825

Shalanda Young

#12737
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Shalanda Delores Young is an American political advisor who is the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, previously serving in an acting capacity from March 24, 2021, through March 17, 2022 concurrently as deputy director. She previously worked for the United States House Committee on Appropriations as its staff director.
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#826

Kanti Bajpai

Kanti Bajpai
#24429
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Kanti Prasad Bajpai is an Indian political scientist, international affairs expert, academic and the former headmaster of The Doon School, Dehradun, India. He is known to be an expert on Indo-China relations. He is currently Vice Dean and Wilmar Professor of Asian Studies at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore. Bajpai also writes a monthly column for The Times of India.
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#827

G. William Skinner

#14771
Overall Influence
1925 - 2008 (83 years)
George William Skinner was an American anthropologist and scholar of China. Skinner was a proponent of the spatial approach to Chinese history, as explained in his Presidential Address to the Association for Asian Studies in 1984. He often referred to his approach as "regional analysis," and taught the use of maps as a key class of data in ethnography.
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#828

Julian Le Grand

#33723
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Sir Julian Ernest Michael Le Grand, FBA is a British academic specialising in public policy. He is the Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and was a senior policy advisor to former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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#829

Doug Stokes

#35535
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Doug Stokes is a British academic who is Professor in International Security and Strategy in the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter. He was born in 1972 in Hackney, East London. His father was a gardener and sign writer and his mother was a cleaner and secretary. He was educated in London inner city state schools and left home at 17, and Hackney when 25.
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#830

Nannerl O. Keohane

Nannerl O. Keohane
#15459
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Nannerl "Nan" Overholser Keohane is an American political theorist and former president of Wellesley College and Duke University. Until September 2014, Keohane was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She is now a professor in social sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where she is researching the theory and practice of leadership in democratic societies.
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#831

Charles L. Glaser

#23171
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Charles Louis Glaser is a scholar of international relations theory, known for his work on defensive realism, as well as nuclear strategy. He is the founding director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, as well as a professor of political science and international affairs. His best-known book, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation received an Honorable Mention for 2011 Best Book from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies...
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#832

Jürgen W. Falter

Jürgen W. Falter
#18600
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Jürgen Wilfried Falter is a German political scientist. His research interests include political extremism and xenophobia. Born in Heppenheim, Hesse, Falter enrolled with a political science and modern history major at the University of Heidelberg in 1963 before finishing his studies with a Diplom at the Free University of Berlin in 1968. He earned his doctoral degree in 1973 and his Habilitation in 1981, both from the Saarland University.
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#833

Robert E. Lane

#24939
Overall Influence
1917 - 2017 (100 years)
Robert E. Lane was an American political scientist and political psychologist. He was the Eugene Meyer Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale University. Lane taught there for nearly 50 years; during that time, he twice headed the department and helped lead the shift towards behavioralism.
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#834

Michael Cox

Michael Cox
#14359
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
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#835

David Miller

#27488
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
David Leslie Miller is an English political theorist. He is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford and an Official Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He previously lectured at the University of Lancaster and the University of East Anglia. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge, and his Bachelor of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Oxford. Previous works include Social Justice, On Nationality and Citizenship and National Identity. Miller is known for his support of a modest form of liberal nationalism.
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#836

Subrata K. Mitra

#29503
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Subrata Kumar Mitra was director and research professor at the Institute for South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore till May 20, 2018. Currently emeritus at the University of Heidelberg.
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#837

Cheryl Rubenberg

#22925
Overall Influence
1946 - 2017 (71 years)
Cheryl A. Rubenberg was a writer and researcher specializing in the Middle East, formerly an associate professor in the department of political science at Florida International University. Life Born in Pennsylvania, Rubenberg specialized in political science and obtained her B.A. at Hunter College, and then earned an M.A. in international relations at Johns Hopkins University. The latter topic was the object of her Ph.D. at the University of Miami. Soon after, she joined the political science faculty at Florida International University. Her initial research focus was on Latin America where he...
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#838

Christopher Hill

Christopher Hill
#4277
Overall Influence
1912 - 2003 (91 years)
John Edward Christopher Hill was an English Marxist historian and academic, specialising in 17th-century English history. From 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Early life and education Christopher Hill was born on 6 February 1912, Bishopthorpe Road, York, to Edward Harold Hill and Janet Augusta . His father was a solicitor and the family were devout Methodists. He attended St Peter's School, York. At the age of 16, he sat his entrance examination at Balliol College, Oxford. The two history tutors who marked his papers recognised his ability and offered him a place in order to forestall any chance he might go to the University of Cambridge.
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#839

Marie Mendras

Marie Mendras
#34485
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Dr. Marie Mendras is a political scientist in the field of Russian and post-Soviet studies. She is a research fellow with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique and a professor at Sciences Po University’s School of International Affairs in Paris.
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#840

Vinod Aggarwal

#21977
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Vinod K. Aggarwal is Distinguished Professor and Alan P. Bedford Endowed Chair of Asian Studies, Travers Department of Political Science. He is a Travers Family Senior Faculty Fellow of Political Science in the Haas School of Business, and directs the Berkeley APEC Study Center at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a visiting professor at INSEAD's Asia campus, a blogger for the Harvard Business Review, and has contributed to the New York Times. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Business and Politics. Aggarwal is a frequent commentator and author about issues relat...
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#841

Kenneth Minogue

Kenneth Minogue
#14075
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Kenneth Robert Minogue , also known as Ken Minogue, was an Australian academic and political theorist. Long residing in the United Kingdom, Minogue was a prominent part of the intellectual life of British conservatism.
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#842

Edwin G. Pulleyblank

#10819
Overall Influence
1922 - 2013 (91 years)
Edwin George "Ted" Pulleyblank was a Canadian sinologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He was known for his studies of the historical phonology of Chinese. Life and career Edwin G. "Ted" Pulleyblank was born on August 7, 1922, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His father, William George Edwin Pulleyblank, was a teacher of mathematics who later became a school vice-principal, and his mother, Ruth Pulleyblank, had also been a teacher. Pulleyblank was an avid student with a bright intellect and an excellent memory for details, and taught himself Ancient Greek while in high school.
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#843

Shibley Telhami

Shibley Telhami
#30315
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Shibley Telhami is an American professor in the department of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a nonresident senior fellow of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
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#844

John Jost

#18391
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
John Thomas Jost is a social psychologist best known for his work on system justification theory and the psychology of political ideology. Jost received his AB degree in Psychology and Human Development from Duke University , where he studied with Irving E. Alexander, Philip R. Costanzo, David Goldstein, and Lynn Hasher, and his PhD in Social and Political Psychology from Yale University , where he was the last doctoral student of Leonard Doob and William J. McGuire. He was also a doctoral student of Mahzarin R. Banaji and a postdoctoral trainee of Arie W. Kruglanski.
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#845

Michel Oksenberg

#43128
Overall Influence
1938 - 2001 (63 years)
Michel Charles Oksenberg was an American political scientist and China watcher who moved between academia and policy work. As a senior member of the National Security Council, he was closely involved in the normalization of U.S.-China relations undertaken during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who said, "Mike Oksenberg changed my life—and changed the life of this country, and to some degree changed the life of every citizen of China."
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#846

Thomas G. Weiss

Thomas G. Weiss
#22737
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Thomas G. Weiss is a distinguished international diplomat and scholar of international relations and global governance with special expertise in the politics of the United Nations, where he himself served in various high-ranking roles. He was named a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for a project exploring the concept of a world without the United Nations. Since 1998, he has been Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and is Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. At present, he also is co-chair, Cultural Heritage at Risk Project, J.
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#847

Zephyr Teachout

#10249
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Zephyr Rain Teachout is an American attorney, author, political candidate, and associate professor of law at Fordham University. In 2014, Teachout ran for the Democratic Party nomination for governor of New York and lost to incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo, receiving 34% of the primary vote. In 2016, Teachout was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 19th congressional district. Teachout won the Democratic primary before losing to Republican John Faso. In 2018, Teachout was a candidate for New York State attorney general in the 2018 elections but lost the Democratic nomination to Letitia James.
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#848

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri
#29241
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri was an Indian political scientist, political historian and international relations expert. He was a senior research fellow in international relations at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, United Kingdom, and an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at India's University Grants Commission. Earlier he taught at the universities of Calcutta, Rabindra Bharati, London and Oxford.
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#849

Jacek Czaputowicz

#24284
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Jacek Krzysztof Czaputowicz is a Polish politician and academic who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland from 9 January 2018 to 20 August 2020. Education In the years 1980-1983 Czaputowicz studied geography at the University of Warsaw, in 1986 he graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the Warsaw Central School of Planning and Statistics|Warsaw Central of Planning and Statistics]]. In the years 1992-1993 he was a member of the Foreign Service Programme at the University of Oxford. In 1997, he received a doctorate in political science at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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#850

Scott Pace

Scott Pace
#22711
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Scott Norman Pace currently serves as Director of the Space Policy Institute, Director of the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy and Director of the MA International Science and Technology Policy program at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. He served as the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council from July 2017 to January 2021, when he resigned. Pace was formerly the Director of the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where he was also a Professor of th...
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