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,
#3751
Rosen Plevneliev
#187089
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Rosen Asenov Plevneliev is a Bulgarian politician who was the 4th President of Bulgaria, holding the position from January 2012 to January 2017. He was the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works from July 2009 to September 2011 as part of the cabinet of Boyko Borisov. In October 2011, Plevneliev was elected as President in a second round of voting; he was inaugurated on 18 January 2012.
Go to Profile#3752
Graham M. Smith
#117455
Overall Influence
Graham M. Smith is a British political theorist and Associate Professor in Political Theory at the University of Leeds. Smith is known for his research on friendship and its relation to the understanding of the political. He previously taught at Lancaster University and is the co-editor of the online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies.
Go to Profile#3753
Frank Lequin
#173665
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Frank Lequin is a Dutch historian, academic, editor and author. He is best known as an expert on the Dutch East Indies Company and Isaac Titsingh. Early life Lequin was born in Rotterdam in 1946. He was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden in 1982.
Go to Profile#3754
Yong Lee
#140847
Overall Influence
Yong Lee is a political scientist. He was an Iowa State University Professor of Political Science with research interests in organizational theory, human resource management, and science policy. He taught at ISU for 27 years and endowed a scholarship that bears his name.
Go to Profile#3755
Wen-chin Ouyang
#100579
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Wen-chin Ouyang, is a professor of Arabic literature and comparative literature at SOAS, University of London. Early life and education Ouyang was born in Taiwan and raised in Libya. She earned her bachelor's degree in the Arabic language from the University of Tripoli and completed her PhD in Middle Eastern studies at Columbia University in the United States. She taught Arabic studies at Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of Virginia before moving to the United Kingdom. Ouyang speaks both Arabic and Mandarin Chinese as a native speaker.
Go to Profile#3756
Robert C. T. Lee
#168249
Overall Influence
1923 - 2016 (93 years)
Robert C. T. Lee , was a Taiwanese veterinarian and politician. Biography Lee was born in Shanghai, Republic of China, with his ancestral hometown in Suzhou, Jiangsu. His brother is the physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Tsung-Dao Lee.
Go to Profile#3757
Susan M. Elliott
#76875
Overall Influence
Susan M. Elliott is an American diplomat currently serving as president and CEO of The National Committee on American Foreign Policy . Elliott is a retired Foreign Service Officer who was the U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan from 2012 to 2015.
Go to Profile#3758
Helmut Schmidt
#190036
Overall Influence
#3759
Ibrahim Shihata
#94966
Overall Influence
1937 - 2001 (64 years)
Dr. Ibrahim F. I. Shihata was an expert on international development and the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank from 1983 to 2000. Early life and education At the age of 20, Ibrahim Shihata graduated with a BA in law from Cairo University Law School at the top of his class. He originally planned to continue his education in the United States, but then received an offer from the Conseil d’Etat to work as a legal advisor in the Ministry of Health.
Go to Profile#3760
John J. Kennedy
#138211
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
John J. Kennedy is an American political scientist and author. He teaches at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. He is an acknowledged expert on elections. Kennedy is originally from Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Kennedy received his Bachelor's degree in Public Administration at Kutztown University in 1984 and his Master in Public Administration from the same institution in 1988. After spending some time at the University of Houston, he earned his Ph.D from Temple University in 1996. Kennedy's dissertation was entitled "The State of the Pennsylvania Legislature in the 1990s."
Go to Profile#3761
Katarzyna Pisarska
#189240
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (44 years)
Katarzyna Emanuela Pisarska is a Polish social entrepreneur, civic activist and academic, specializing in diplomacy and foreign policy. She is the founder and chairwoman of the European Academy of Diplomacy in Warsaw, Poland and the Visegrad School of Political Studies run in cooperation with the Council of Europe. She is the co-founder and chairwomen of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and the Warsaw security forum and an associate professor at the Warsaw School of Economics. Since 2020 she is the vice-president of European Forum Alpbach in Austria.
Go to Profile#3762
Emanuel Bosák
#166746
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
Emanuel Bosák was a Czech physical educationalist and sports official. He was born in Jičín, and studied physical education at the Charles University in Prague. He spent his entire career, until 1990, at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of the same university; from 1964 to 1967 he served as pro-dean of his faculty. He served as a member of the IAAF European Commission from 1952 to 1970, of the IAAF Council 1968 until 1972, as president of the Czechoslovak Association of Physical Education and the Czechoslovak Olympic Committee from 1967 to 1970 and Minister of Sports from 1969 to 1...
Go to Profile#3763
Joseph Wong
#88208
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Joseph Wong was the Canada Research Chair for health, democracy and development, is the Roz and Ralph Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and is currently the Vice President, International of the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#3764
Paul Rosenthal
#176604
Overall Influence
Paul Rosenthal is an American community activist, teacher and politician who served in the Colorado House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019. He represented House District 9. Rosenthal ran for re-election in 2018 but was eliminated in the Democratic primary, so he was not a candidate in the general election.
Go to Profile#3765
Robert M Cutler
#190217
Overall Influence
Dr. Robert M Cutler is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of European, Russian & Eurasian Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa. He is also Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence (Boston), and Non-Resident Scholar, Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (Dubai) He was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.Sc.), Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies (Gallatin Fellow) and University of Michigan (Ph.D.), and has held research and teaching appointments at major universities in the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland and Russia.
Go to Profile#3766
Marcela Del Río Reyes
#172255
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (93 years)
Marcela Yolanda Del Río y Reyes is an intellectual, professor, journalist, diplomat and writer. Her works cover national and global issues. Early life Del Río Reyes was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City and grew up in a family of writers. Her mother, María Aurelia Reyes de del Río, was a writer, journalist and painter. Her father, Manuel del Río Govea, was a lawyer, historian and was a former child actor. Her brother, Carlos Pacheco Reyes, was a philosopher, journalist and psychiatrist. She learned to paint and inherited her liking for literature and classical music from her mother. Her interest ...
Go to Profile#3767
Jon Huntsman Jr.
#183678
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Jon Meade Huntsman Jr. is an American businessman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 16th governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the ambassador of the United States to Russia from 2017 to 2019, ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011, and ambassador to Singapore from 1992 to 1993.
Go to Profile#3768
Isaac Lipschits
#181686
Overall Influence
1930 - 2008 (78 years)
Isaac Lipschits was a Dutch-Jewish historian and political scientist. He survived World War II by hiding from the Nazis and their collaborators. He published many books from 1962 to 2008. Books 1962: La politique de la France au Levant 1939-1941 1966: Honderd jaar NIW: het Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, 1865-19651967: Het kapitaal: kritiek van de politieke economie; Dl.1: Het productieproces van het kapitaal1971: Simulaties in de internationale politiek1977: Politieke stromingen in Nederland: inleiding tot de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse politieke partijen1977: Ontstaansgeschiedenis van de ...
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Alex Michalos
#170779
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (90 years)
Alexandros Charles Michalos is a Canadian political scientist and philosopher known for his work in quality of life research. He is professor emeritus of political science and former chancellor at the University of Northern British Columbia, where he served as the founding director of the Institute for Social Research and Evaluation. Before joining the University of Northern British Columbia, he taught at the University of Guelph from 1966 to 1994. He served as senior research advisor to the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, and continues to serve as a member of their Canadian Research Advisory Group.
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Cheryl Glenn
#112098
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Cheryl Glenn is a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and writing. She is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies Director at Pennsylvania State University. Glenn earned her B.S., M.A., and PhD. from Ohio State University. Prior to beginning work at Pennsylvania State University in 1997, Glenn taught at Oregon State University established the Center for Teaching Excellence. In the summers, she teaches rhetoric and writing at the Bread Loaf School of English, an intensive six-week graduate school for secondary-school teachers, and has served as the on-site director of ...
Go to Profile#3771
Robert Donnorummo
#148417
Overall Influence
Robert "Bob" Donnorummo is the Senior Research Associate and Associate Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His specialization is in Russian and Polish history, transitions, and nationalism. His recent publications have focused on the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Go to Profile#3772
Evelyn Marie Simien
#190321
Overall Influence
Evelyn M. Simien is an author of many published books and a professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. There she is also Director of the Indigeneity, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (IREP) Master’s degree program. She was awarded the 2006 Anna Julia Cooper Teacher of the Year Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, and the 2007 Teaching Promise Award from the American Association of University Professors.In 2017 she was also recognized as the Faculty Member of the Year by the UConn chapter of the NAACP. Alma Mater: PhD from Purdue University Acade...
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Hamid al-Bayati
#190325
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
T. Hamid al Bayati is an Iraqi diplomat, academic and author. Bayati earned his bachelor's degree from Baghdad University, his master's degree from Cairo University and a Doctorate in Politics from Manchester University in Manchester, England
Go to Profile#3774
Taiaiake Alfred
#190366
Overall Influence
#3775
John J. Craighead
#184498
Overall Influence
1916 - 2016 (100 years)
#3776
Armen Sarkissian
#187246
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Armen Vardani Sarkissian is an Armenian politician, physicist, investor, businessman, and computer scientist who served as the 4th president of Armenia from 2018 to 2022. He also served as Prime Minister of Armenia from 1996 to 1997. He was the first president of post-Soviet Armenia born in former Armenian SSR.
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Richard Alvin Neilson
#128355
Overall Influence
1937 - 1997 (60 years)
Richard Alvin Neilson was a British diplomat who was Ambassador to Colombia and Chile, and High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago. Biography Neilson's childhood was spent in the north-west of England and he returned to the family origins the Isle of Man during the Second World War living in Kirk Michael.
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Luc Reychler
#98506
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Luc E.H.G. Reychler is a Belgian social and political scientist. His work focuses on following themes:The architecture of sustainable peacebuildingIntegral violence analysisBehavioral and existential understanding of conflict situationsThe role of time and temperament on conflict and peace dynamicsAnticipating the consequences of interventions on conflicts and peace dynamicsPeace NegotiationsDiplomacy, diplomatic thinking and failing foreign policyIntellectual solidarity
Go to Profile#3779
Tom Tillemans
#72614
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
T. J. F. Tillemans is a Dutch-Canadian Buddhologist, Indologist and Tibetologist. Since 1992, Tillemans has been Professor of Buddhology in the Faculty of Oriental Languages and Civilizations at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Go to Profile#3780
Geoffrey Edwards
#188116
Overall Influence
Geoffrey Edwards is a Canadian scientist who held the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics from 2001 to 2015. Trained originally as an astrophysicist , he has published dozens of articles in areas of "classical" geomatics .
Go to Profile#3781
Burton Crosby Hallowell
#118971
Overall Influence
1915 - 2007 (92 years)
Burton Crosby Hallowell was the ninth president of Tufts University. Early life and education Born in Orleans, Massachusetts, he received bachelor's and master's degrees from Wesleyan University, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1949. After working as an instructor of economics at Wesleyan from 1941 to 1942, Hallowell worked for the Office of Strategic Services in 1942 and the United States Army from 1942 to 1946. He then returned to Wesleyan, where he served as a professor of economics from 1946 until 1967, helping establish "the best small department of economics in the country" ....
Go to Profile#3782
Michael Goodhart
#190005
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Michael Goodhart is a political scientist and Professor of Political Science and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He was Director of Pitt's Global Studies Center from 2017 to 2021.
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Jane Bennett
#188129
Overall Influence
In 2004, Jane Bennett co-edited Jacketed Women: Qualitative Research Methodologies on Sexualities and Gender in Africa with Charmaine Pereira. Bennett has a BA from the University of Natal, MPhil and EdD from Columbia University. She has an academic background in linguistics, literature, sociology, and feminist theory.
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Madeleine Sumption
#118726
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Madeleine Sumption is a British political scientist who is Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which provides analysis of migration in the UK for public and policy audiences. Her research focuses on labour migration and the economic and social impacts of migration policies.
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Fang Weigui
#178846
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Fang Weigui is a Chinese comparative literature scholar, sinologist, and literary translator. Early Years Fang graduated from Shanghai International Studies University where he subsequently taught at the German Department before enrolling in a cooperative academic program of Beijing Foreign Studies University and Humboldt University of Berlin.
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Ramon Pacheco Pardo
#180081
Overall Influence
Ramon Pacheco Pardo is Professor of International Relations at King's College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Education and career Pacheco Pardo received his PhD in International Relations from LSE. He teaches at King's College London and became KF-VUB Korea Chair in October 2017. He was editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies in 2009–10. Pacheco Pardo has testified on North Korea before the European Parliament. In 2021 he was appointed Adjunct Fellow at CSIS.
Go to Profile#3787
Simukai Chigudu
#130272
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (39 years)
Simukai Chigudu is an Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of Oxford. His work considers the social and political mechanisms that give rise to inequality in Africa. Early life and education Chigudu was born in Zimbabwe, where he attended St George's College, Harare. In 2003 he moved to the United Kingdom, where he attended private boarding school Stonyhurst College, going on to study medicine at Newcastle University.
Go to Profile#3788
Jean-Pierre Fragnière
#176245
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Jean-Pierre Fragnière was a Swiss academic and political scientist. He taught at the Haute école spécialisée de Lausanne and the University of Geneva at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. He founded the Institut universitaire âges et générations and served as Scientific Director from 1998 to 2009 in Sion.
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Thomas M. Konda
#185151
Overall Influence
Thomas Milan Konda is author of the book Conspiracies of Conspiracies and is professor emeritus of political science at State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He began teaching at Plattsburgh State in 1986 and was a favorite of students for decades. Throughout his career he focused on media markets and political advertising, writing in The New York Times about the health care industry's advertisements attacking the Clinton health plan in 1993.
Go to Profile#3790
Hannah Arendt
#190808
Overall Influence
#3791
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
#190703
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe is a British political scientist, a military historian, and an expert on War Studies whose research interests include the contemporary history of war, the ethics of war, Cold War politics, terrorism, and Russian foreign policy. She is President of the British International Studies Association and she was Chair of the BISA from 2004 to 2006.
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L. Patrick Devlin
#101449
Overall Influence
L. Patrick Devlin was a specialist in media and politics. Devlin was a professor of communication at the University of Rhode Island, having held the post for over thirty years until 2008, when he retired. He authored books such as Contemporary Political Speaking and Political Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns .
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Ruth Butterworth
#169884
Overall Influence
1934 - 2020 (86 years)
Ruth Helen Butterworth was a New Zealand political scientist at the University of Auckland from 1965 until her retirement. Biography Born in England, Butterworth studied at the University of Oxford, from where she graduated Master of Arts and, in 1959, DPhil. The title of her doctoral thesis was The structure and organisation of some Catholic lay organisations in Australia and Great Britain: a comparative study with special reference to the function of the organisations as social and political pressure groups.
Go to Profile#3794
Alam Saleh
#188522
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
#3795
Kent Smith
#186095
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Kent Smith is the Senator of the 21st district of the Ohio Senate. Smith is a resident of Euclid, Ohio, and previously served as a Representative in the Ohio House of Representatives from 2015-2022 and on the Euclid School Board for 12 years. He also served as head of the Democratic Party for Euclid, and has a degree from the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. In 2014, Smith opted to run for the Ohio House of Representatives to replace Armond Budish, who was term-limited and sought election instead as Cuyahoga County Executive. He faced Republican Mikhail Alterman and Independent Jocelyn Conwell, and won with 71.47% of the vote.
Go to Profile#3796
Sergei Plekhanov
#189703
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Sergei M. Plekhanov is associate professor of political science at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and a former deputy director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Russia. Education and career Plekhanov received a B.A. and an M.A. in International Relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and a Ph.D. in history from the Institute for the Study of the US and Canada of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. From 1988 to 1993, he was the deputy director of the Institute for the Study of the US and Canada. From 1985 to 1990, Dr. Plekhanov participated i...
Go to Profile#3797
Sorin Lavric
#151422
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Sorin Lavric is a Romanian writer, philosopher and politician. Having started studying medicine in 1987, Lavric later began studying philosophy as well. Posteriorly, as he did not want to be a physician, he focused entirely on philosophy. Lavric finished his university studies in 1996 and obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 2005. Lavric has written several books.
Go to Profile#3798
Bonnie S. Glaser
#190984
Overall Influence
#3799
Albrecht Noth
#101957
Overall Influence
1937 - 1999 (62 years)
Albrecht Noth was a German historian of Islam. Noth was born on 23 September 1937 to the Old Testament scholar Martin Noth in Königsberg. He completed his PhD from the Bonn University in 1964 with a thesis titled Heiliger Krieg und heiliger Kampf in Islam und Christentum: Beiträge zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Kreuzzüge. His 1973 work on Islamic historiography questioned the usefulness of the Islamic narrative sources in reconstructing the early history of Islam, stressing that the sources are collections of literary topoi having little to do with actual historical events. The work spa...
Go to Profile#3800
Gary Sturgess
#189779
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Gary L. Sturgess is an academic and former public servant from Sydney, Australia, whose current research is focused on the management of front line public services. He is Adjunct Professor of Public Service Innovation with the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, in Brisbane, Australia.
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