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
#5601
Roderick Nash
#5609
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Roderick Frazier Nash is a professor emeritus of history and environmental studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. He was the first person to descend the Tuolumne River using a raft. Scholarly biography Nash received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University in 1960 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965. He is the author of several books and essays. His dissertation, "Wilderness and the American Mind," done under the supervision of Merle Curti, became what has come to be seen as one of the foundational texts of the field of environmental history. Af...
Go to Profile#5602
Albert K. Cohen
#5610
Overall Influence
1918 - 2014 (96 years)
Albert Kircidel Cohen was a prominent American criminologist. He is known for his Subcultural Theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential book Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang. He has served as Vice President of the American Society of Criminology from 1984–1985 and in 1993 he received the society's Edwin H. Sutherland award.
Go to Profile#5603
Cyril Wecht
#5611
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Cyril Harrison Wecht is an American forensic pathologist. He has been the president of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine, and headed the board of trustees of the American Board of Legal Medicine. Wecht served as County Commissioner and Allegheny County Coroner and Medical Examiner, serving the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. He is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's findings concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Go to Profile#5604
Walter Hooper
#5612
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Walter McGehee Hooper was an American writer and literary advisor of the estate of C.S. Lewis. He was a literary trustee for Owen Barfield from December 1997 to October 2006. Life Hooper was born in Reidsville, North Carolina, United States. He earned an M.A. in education in 1958 from the University of North Carolina and was an instructor in English at the University of Kentucky in the early 1960s. He served briefly in 1963 as C.S. Lewis's private secretary when Lewis was in declining health. He devoted himself to Lewis's memory after his death in November 1963, eventually taking up residence...
Go to Profile#5605
Dimitri Gutas
#5613
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Dimitri Gutas is an American Arabist and Hellenist specialized in medieval Islamic philosophy, who serves as professor emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University.
Go to Profile#5606
Ivan Lendl
#5614
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Ivan Lendl is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Lendl was ranked world No. 1 in singles for a then-record 270 weeks and won 94 singles titles. He won eight major singles titles and was runner-up 11 times, making him the first man to contest 19 major finals. Lendl also contested a record eight consecutive US Open finals, and won five year-end championships.
Go to Profile#5607
James Bjorken
#5615
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken is an American theoretical physicist. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954, received a BS in physics from MIT in 1956, and obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 1959. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the fall of 1962. Bjorken is emeritus professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and was a member of the Theory Department of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory .
Go to Profile#5608
Craig A. Evans
#5616
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Craig Alan Evans is an American biblical scholar. He is a prolific writer with 70 books and over 600 journal articles and reviews to his name. Career He earned his B.A in history and philosophy from Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Divinity from Western Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Claremont Graduate University in southern California.
Go to Profile#5609
John C. Whitcomb
#5617
Overall Influence
1924 - 2020 (96 years)
John Clement Whitcomb Jr. was an American theologian and young Earth creationist. Along with Henry M. Morris, he wrote The Genesis Flood, which influenced many conservative American Christians to adopt flood geology.
Go to Profile#5610
Kenneth Womack
#5618
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Kenneth Womack is an American writer, literary critic, public speaker, and music historian, particularly focusing on the cultural influence of the Beatles. He is the author of the bestselling Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles and John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.
Go to Profile#5611
Henry Fuchs
#5619
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Henry Fuchs is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Association for Computing Machinery and the Federico Gil Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . He is also an adjunct professor in biomedical engineering.
Go to Profile#5612
Andrew Tridgell
#5620
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell is an Australian computer programmer. He is the author of and a contributor to the Samba file server, and co-inventor of the rsync algorithm. He has analysed complex proprietary protocols and algorithms, to allow compatible free and open source software implementations.
Go to Profile#5613
Henk Barendregt
#5621
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Hendrik Pieter Barendregt is a Dutch logician, known for his work in lambda calculus and type theory. Life and work Barendregt studied mathematical logic at Utrecht University, obtaining his master's degree in 1968 and his PhD in 1971, both cum laude, under Dirk van Dalen and Georg Kreisel. After a postdoctoral position at Stanford University, he taught at Utrecht University.
Go to Profile#5614
Gerry Spence
#5622
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Gerald Leonard Spence is a semi-retired American trial lawyer and author. He is a member of the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame, and is the founder of the Trial Lawyers College. Spence has never lost a criminal case before a jury either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney, and did not lose a civil case between 1969 and 2010. He is considered one of the greatest lawyers of the 20th century, and one of the best trial lawyers of all time. Described by Richard Falk as a "lawyer par excellence".
Go to Profile#5615
Hugh Darwen
#5623
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Hugh Darwen is a computer scientist who was an employee of IBM United Kingdom from 1967 to 2004, and has been involved in the development of the relational model. Work From 1978 to 1982 he was a chief architect on Business System 12, a database management system that faithfully embraced the principles of the relational model. He worked closely with Christopher J. Date and represented IBM at the ISO SQL committees until his retirement from IBM. Darwen is the author of The Askew Wall and co-author of The Third Manifesto, a proposal for serving object-oriented programs with purely relational dat...
Go to Profile#5616
W. Hugh Woodin
#5624
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
William Hugh Woodin is an American mathematician and set theorist at Harvard University. He has made many notable contributions to the theory of inner models and determinacy. A type of large cardinals, the Woodin cardinals, bear his name. In 2023, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#5617
Jacob Zuma
#5625
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan names Nxamalala and Msholozi. Zuma was a former anti-apartheid activist, member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and president of the African National Congress from 2007 to 2017.
Go to Profile#5618
Georges Balandier
#5626
Overall Influence
1920 - 2016 (96 years)
Georges Balandier was a French sociologist, anthropologist and ethnologist noted for his research in Sub-Saharan Africa. Balandier was born in Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont. He was a professor at the Sorbonne , and is a member of the Center for African Studies , a research center of the École pratique des hautes études . He held for many years the Editorship of Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie and edited the series Sociologie d'Aujourd'hui at Presses Universitaires de France. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1976. He died on 5 October 2016 at the age of 95.
Go to Profile#5619
Wolfgang Stegmüller
#5627
Overall Influence
1923 - 1991 (68 years)
Wolfgang Stegmüller was a German-Austrian philosopher who made important contributions in philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. Biography W. Stegmüller studied economics and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck. In 1944 he graduated as "Diplom-Volkswirt" and one year later he obtained a PhD in economics. Also at the University of Innsbruck he obtained in 1947 a PhD in philosophy with the thesis Erkenntnis und Sein in der modernen Ontologie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erkenntnismetaphysik Nicolai Hartmanns: eine kritische Untersuchung. In 1949 he habilitated with the thes...
Go to Profile#5620
Alfred D. Chandler Jr.
#5628
Overall Influence
1918 - 2007 (89 years)
Alfred DuPont Chandler Jr. was a professor of business history at Harvard Business School and Johns Hopkins University, who wrote extensively about the scale and the management structures of modern corporations. His works redefined business and economic history of industrialization. He received the Pulitzer Prize for History for his work, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business . He was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has been called "the doyen of American business historians".
Go to Profile#5621
David Mallet
#5629
Overall Influence
David Victor Mark Mallet is a British director of music videos and concert films. He was one of the most prolific directors of music videos in the 1980s. Career Mallet rose to prominence in the late 1970s as a director of the then new format of music videos with the hugely successful enterprise MGMM, which he co-founded with Scott Millaney, Brian Grant and Russell Mulcahy. He is noted for his innovative work on hugely popular music videos in the 1980s, becoming one of the decade's most sought-after directors for this format. His work includes Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills", David Bowie's "A...
Go to Profile#5622
Daniel Gilbert
#5630
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#5623
Marc Van Montagu
#5631
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Marc, Baron Van Montagu is a Belgian molecular biologist. He was full professor and director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University and scientific director of the genetics department of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology . Together with Jozef Schell he founded the biotech company Plant Genetic Systems Inc. in 1982, of which he was scientific director and member of the board of directors. Van Montagu was also involved in founding the biotech company CropDesign, of which he was a board member from 1998 to 2004. He is president of the...
Go to Profile#5624
Sarah Vowell
#5632
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, essayist, social commentator and actress. She has written seven nonfiction books on American history and culture. She was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996 to 2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program's live shows. She was also the voice of Violet Parr in the 2004 animated film The Incredibles and its 2018 sequel.
Go to Profile#5625
Theodore R. Sarbin
#5633
Overall Influence
1911 - 2005 (94 years)
Theodore Roy Sarbin was an American psychologist and professor of psychology and criminology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was known as "Mr. Role Theory" because of his contributions to the social psychology of role-taking.
Go to Profile#5626
Stephen Curry
#5634
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Wardell Stephen Curry II is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association . Widely regarded as the greatest shooter and one of the greatest players of all time, Curry is credited with revolutionizing the sport by inspiring teams and players to take more three-point shots. He is a four-time NBA champion, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player , an NBA Finals MVP, an NBA All-Star Game MVP, a nine-time NBA All-Star, and a nine-time All-NBA selection, including four times on the first team.
Go to Profile#5627
Owen Gingerich
#5635
Overall Influence
1930 - 2023 (93 years)
Owen Jay Gingerich was an American astronomer who had been professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he had written many books on the history of astronomy.
Go to Profile#5628
Jehangir Karamat
#5636
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
General Jehangir Karamat is a retired four-star rank military officer, diplomat, public intellectual, and a former professor of political science at the National Defense University. Prior to serving as a Chief of Army Staff, he also served as the 9th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1997 to 1998.
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Zaytoven
#5637
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Xavier Lamar Dotson , known professionally as Zaytoven, is an American record producer from Atlanta, Georgia. He has released collaborative projects with artists including Gucci Mane, Usher, Future, Young Dolph, Migos, Lecrae, Lil Yachty, Chief Keef, Young Scooter, B.o.B, Boosie Badazz, Waka Flocka Flame, Jack Harlow, and Deitrick Haddon.
Go to Profile#5630
Peter Orlovsky
#5638
Overall Influence
1933 - 2010 (77 years)
Peter Anton Orlovsky was an American poet and actor. He was the long-time partner of Allen Ginsberg. Early life and career Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine and Oleg Orlovsky, a Russian immigrant. He was raised in poverty and was forced to drop out of Newtown High School in his senior year so he could support his impoverished family. After many odd jobs, he began working as an orderly at Creedmoor State Mental Hospital, known today as Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
Go to Profile#5631
Ian Barbour
#5639
Overall Influence
1923 - 2013 (90 years)
Ian Graeme Barbour was an American scholar on the relationship between science and religion. According to the Public Broadcasting Service his mid-1960s Issues in Science and Religion "has been credited with literally creating the contemporary field of science and religion."
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Irving Weissman
#5640
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Irving Lerner "Irv" Weissman is a Professor of Pathology and Developmental Biology at Stanford University where he is the Director of the Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine along with Michael Longaker.
Go to Profile#5633
Herman Kalckar
#5641
Overall Influence
1908 - 1991 (83 years)
Herman Moritz Kalckar was a Danish biochemist who pioneered the study of cellular respiration. Kalckar made a number of significant contributions to the development of 20th century biochemistry including:a founder of bioenergetics;enzymology, including novel assay techniques;galactose metabolism in both microorganisms and animal tissues;suggestion that strontium-90 levels in children’s deciduous teeth correlated with nuclear testing.
Go to Profile#5634
Laurence Silberman
#5642
Overall Influence
1935 - 2022 (87 years)
Laurence Hirsch Silberman was an American jurist and diplomat who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1985 until his death. He was appointed in October 1985 by President Ronald Reagan and took senior status on November 1, 2000. On June 11, 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Silberman the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Go to Profile#5635
Christopher Norris
#5643
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Christopher Charles Norris is a British philosopher and literary critic. Career Norris completed his PhD in English at University College London in 1975. After an early career in literary and music criticism , Norris moved in 1991 to the Cardiff Philosophy Department. In 1997, he was awarded the title of Distinguished Research Professor in the Cardiff School of English, Communication & Philosophy. He has also held fellowships and visiting appointments at a number of institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley, the City University of New York, Aarhus University, and Dartmou...
Go to Profile#5636
Lyn Yvonne Abramson
#5644
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Lyn Yvonne Abramson is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was born in Benson, Minnesota. She took her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1972 before attaining her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at University of Pennsylvania in 1978.
Go to Profile#5637
K. Anders Ericsson
#5645
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
K. Anders Ericsson was a Swedish psychologist and Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University who was internationally recognized as a researcher in the psychological nature of expertise and human performance.
Go to Profile#5638
Robert Epstein
#5646
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert Epstein is an American psychologist, professor, author, and journalist. He was awarded a Ph.D. in psychology by Harvard University in 1981, was editor in chief of Psychology Today, and has held positions at several universities including Boston University, University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. He is also the founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Concord, MA. In 2012, he founded the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology , a nonprofit organization that conducts research to promote the well-being and fun...
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Stephen Levinson
#5647
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Stephen C. Levinson FBA is a British social scientist, known for his studies of the relations between culture, language and cognition, and former scientific director of the Language and Cognition department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Go to Profile#5640
David Wiggins
#5648
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
David Wiggins is an English moral philosopher, metaphysician, and philosophical logician working especially on identity and issues in meta-ethics. Biography David Wiggins was born on 8 March 1933 in London, the son of Norman and Diana Wiggins . He attended St Paul's School before reading philosophy at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree. His tutor was J. L. Ackrill.
Go to Profile#5641
Paul Cliteur
#5649
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Paul Bernard Cliteur is a Dutch professor of jurisprudence at Leiden University, as well as a politician, philosopher, writer, publicist and columnist. He is known for his conservative perspective, his atheism, his republicanism, and his dislike of Islam. He is a member of De Vrije Gedachte. Since 2015, Cliteur is a member of the Dutch political party Forum voor Democratie, where he is chairman of the advisory board and the party's official think tank. In 2019 he was elected to be parliamentary group leader for Forum voor Democratie in the Dutch Senate.
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Paul Preston
#5650
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Sir Paul Preston CBE is an English historian and Hispanist, biographer of Francisco Franco, and specialist in Spanish history, in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 30 years. He is the winner of multiple awards for his books on the Spanish Civil War.
Go to Profile#5643
Walter Mosley
#5651
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California; they are perhaps his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
Go to Profile#5644
Lars Gårding
#5652
Overall Influence
1919 - 2014 (95 years)
Lars Gårding was a Swedish mathematician. He made notable contributions to the study of partial differential equations and partial differential operators. He was a professor of mathematics at Lund University in Sweden 1952–1984. Together with Marcel Riesz, he was a thesis advisor for Lars Hörmander.
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John Arundel Barnes
#5653
Overall Influence
1918 - 2011 (93 years)
John Arundel Barnes FBA was an Australian and British social anthropologist. Until his death in 2010, Barnes held the post of Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Fellow of Churchill College. From 1969 to 1982, he held the post of Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Previous positions include faculty posts in social anthropology at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University in Canberra, He also was associated with Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, University College London, St John's College, Cambridge, Balliol College, Oxford and the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.
Go to Profile#5646
Randy Merrill
#5654
Overall Influence
Randy Merrill is an American mastering engineer who has worked with international artists including Blink-182, DAY6, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Harry Styles, One Direction, Adele, Imagine Dragons, Beck, Liam Gallagher, Jonas Brothers, Muse, Cage the Elephant, Maren Morris, Ariana Grande, Mumford & Sons, Paul McCartney, Troye Sivan, Taylor Swift, Lorde, Justin Bieber, Porter Robinson, Ayumi Hamasaki, BUCK-TICK, King Gnu, Little Mix and BTS.
Go to Profile#5647
Pierre Hadot
#5655
Overall Influence
1922 - 2010 (88 years)
Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Epicureanism and Stoicism. Life In 1944, Hadot was ordained, but following Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani generis left the priesthood. He studied at the Sorbonne between 1946–1947. In 1961, he graduated from the École Pratique des Hautes Études. In 1964, he was appointed a Director of Studies at EPHE, initially occupying a chair in Latin Patristics, before his chair was renamed "Theologies and Mysticisms of Hellenistic Greece and the End of Antiquity" in 1972. He became profe...
Go to Profile#5648
Tony Harrison
#5656
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Tony Harrison is an English poet, translator and playwright. He was born in Beeston, Leeds and he received his education in Classics from Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University. He is one of Britain's foremost verse writers and many of his works have been performed at the Royal National Theatre. He is noted for controversial works such as the poem "V", as well as his versions of dramatic works: from ancient Greek such as the tragedies Oresteia and Lysistrata, from French Molière's The Misanthrope, from Middle English The Mysteries. He is also noted for his outspoken views, particularly those on the Iraq War.
Go to Profile#5649
Phillip Blond
#5657
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Phillip Blond is an English political philosopher, Anglican theologian, and director of the ResPublica think tank. Early life Born in Liverpool and educated at Pensby High School for Boys, Blond went on to study philosophy and politics at the University of Hull, continental philosophy at the University of Warwick, and theology at Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge. At Peterhouse, he was a student of John Milbank, founder of the radical orthodoxy theological movement and a noted critic of liberalism, philosophically understood. Blond's first work, Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philos...
Go to Profile#5650
Alexander Piatigorsky
#5658
Overall Influence
1929 - 2009 (80 years)
Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky was a Soviet dissident, Russian philosopher, scholar of Indian philosophy and culture, historian, philologist, semiotician, writer. Well-versed in the study of language, he knew Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Tibetan, German, Russian, French, Italian and English. In an obituary appearing in the English-language newspaper The Guardian, he was cited as "a man who was widely considered to be one of the more significant thinkers of the age and Russia's greatest philosopher." On Russian television stations he was mourned as "the greatest Russian philosopher."
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