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
#8901
Žarko Puhovski
#8911
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Žarko Puhovski is a Croatian professor, political analyst, philosopher and intellectual, former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee. Biography Puhovski was born in Zagreb on 15 December 1946. He was born to a Jewish mother although he has never been an active Jew. Puhovski became well-known public figure at a very early age, for almost a trivial reason: When he became the president of his gymnasium committee of the Alliance of Socialist Youth a directive arrived to revitalise the political work with more vivacious subjects. Having discovered an article on contraception in the magazin...
Go to Profile#8902
Shaun King
#8912
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Jeffery Shaun King is an American writer and activist. King uses social media to promote social justice causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement. King was raised in Kentucky and received his undergraduate degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. After briefly teaching high school civics, he became a pastor. King founded a church in Atlanta in 2008 called Courageous Church, which he led for four years. During this time, King launched a number of internet campaigns, including HopeMob.org. He later received a master's degree from Arizona State University. As a writer, King has previously been a regular contributor to Daily Kos, the New York Daily News, and The Young Turks.
Go to Profile#8903
Temple F. Smith
#8913
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Temple Ferris Smith is an emeritus professor in biomedical engineering who helped to develop the Smith-Waterman algorithm with Michael Waterman in 1981. The Smith-Waterman algorithm serves as the basis for multi sequence comparisons, identifying the segment with the maximum local sequence similarity, see sequence alignment. This algorithm is used for identifying similar DNA, RNA and protein segments. He was director of the BioMolecular Engineering Research Center at Boston University for twenty years and is now professor emeritus.
Go to Profile#8904
Tom Sharpe
#8914
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Thomas Ridley Sharpe was an English satirical novelist, best known for his Wilt series, as well as Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape, all three of which were adapted for television. Life Sharpe was born in Holloway, London, and brought up in Croydon. Sharpe's father, the Reverend George Coverdale Sharpe, was a Unitarian minister who was active in far-right politics in the 1930s. He was chairman of the Acton and Ealing branch of The Link, and a member of the Nordic League. He declared that he hated Jews "in the sense that he hated all corruption". Sharpe initially shared some of hi...
Go to Profile#8905
Behram Kurşunoğlu
#8915
Overall Influence
1922 - 2003 (81 years)
Behram Kurşunoğlu was a Turkish physicist and the founder and the director of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami. He was best known for his works on unified field theory, energy and global issues.
Go to Profile#8906
Maurice Goldhaber
#8916
Overall Influence
1911 - 2011 (100 years)
Maurice Goldhaber was an American physicist, who in 1957 established that neutrinos have negative helicity. Early life and childhood He was born on April 18, 1911, in Lemberg, Austria, now called Lviv, Ukraine to a Jewish family. His son Alfred Goldhaber is a professor at the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at SUNY Stony Brook. His grandson, David Goldhaber-Gordon is a Physics Professor at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#8907
Mark Pesce
#8917
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Mark D. Pesce is an American-Australian author, researcher, engineer, futurist and teacher. Early life Pesce was born in Everett, Massachusetts in 1962. In September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a Bachelor of Science degree, but left in June 1982 to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-tech industry. He worked as an engineer for the next few years, developing prototype firmware and software for SecurID cards.
Go to Profile#8908
Jaber F. Gubrium
#8918
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Jaber Fandy "Jay" Gubrium is an American sociologist and social psychologist. His research perspective is the narrative ethnography of caregiving, especially care constructed in organizational context. Now retired, he is professor emeritus in the University of Missouri Department of Sociology. Previously, he was professor of sociology at the University of Florida, 1987-2002, and before that professor of sociology at Marquette University, 1970-1987. He received a PhD honoris causa at Lund University, Sweden, in 2017. Over the years, through a variety of field studies and along with colleagues D...
Go to Profile#8909
Bent Flyvbjerg
#8919
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Bent Flyvbjerg is a Danish economic geographer. He was the First BT Professor and Inaugural Chair of Major Programme Management at Oxford University's Saïd Business School and is the Villum Kann Rasmussen Professor and Chair of Major Program Management at the IT University of Copenhagen. He was previously Professor of Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark and Chair of Infrastructure Policy and Planning at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#8910
Joe Chiccarelli
#8920
Overall Influence
Joe Chiccarelli is an American record producer, mixer and engineer, who is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been active since the 1980s. He has produced albums by Stan Ridgway, Morrissey, Oingo Boingo, Spoon, The Shins, Sandra Bernhard, My Morning Jacket, Counting Crows, Augie March, Manchester Orchestra, Minus the Bear, Boy & Bear, Kurt Elling, Saints of Valory, and Big Talk. Other artists include Elton John, Rufus Wainwright, U2, Alanis Morissette, Beck, Etta James, Jamie Cullum, Al Stewart, Tori Amos, The Strokes, The Killers, Cage The Elephant, Cafe Tacuba, Pink Martini, The She...
Go to Profile#8911
Douglas Osheroff
#8921
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Douglas Dean Osheroff is an American physicist known for his work in experimental condensed matter physics, in particular for his co-discovery of superfluidity in Helium-3. For his contributions he shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics along with David Lee and Robert C. Richardson. Osheroff is currently the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#8912
Brian Goodwin
#8922
Overall Influence
1931 - 2009 (78 years)
Brian Carey Goodwin was a Canadian mathematician and biologist, a Professor Emeritus at the Open University and a founder of theoretical biology and biomathematics. He introduced the use of complex systems and generative models in developmental biology. He suggested that a reductionist view of nature fails to explain complex features, controversially proposing the structuralist theory that morphogenetic fields might substitute for natural selection in driving evolution. He was also a visible member of the Third Culture movement.
Go to Profile#8913
Donna Tartt
#8923
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Donna Louise Tartt is an American novelist and essayist. Her novels are The Secret History , The Little Friend , and The Goldfinch , which has been adapted into a 2019 film of the same name She was included in Time magazine's 2014 "100 Most Influential People" list.
Go to Profile#8914
Shane Warne
#8924
Overall Influence
1969 - 2022 (53 years)
Shane Keith Warne was an Australian international cricketer whose career ran from 1992 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australia. Considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets, and set the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket, a record he held until 2007. Warne was a member of the Australian team that won the 1999 Cricket World Cup.
Go to Profile#8915
Timothy Shanahan
#8925
Overall Influence
Timothy Shanahan is an educator, researcher, and education policy-maker focused on literacy education. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Education, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, and he has held a visiting research appointment at Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was elected president of the International Literacy Association in 2004. He operates the popular informational website, Shanahan on Literacy. He was recently recognized as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world, according to a recent ...
Go to Profile#8916
Charles H. Lindsey
#8926
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Charles Hodgson Lindsey was a British computer scientist, most known for his involvement with the programming language ALGOL 68. He was an editor of the Revised Report on Algol 68, and co-wrote a ground breaking book on the language An Informal Introduction to Algol 68, which was unusual because it was written so that it could be read horizontally or vertically depending on how a reader wanted to learn the language.
Go to Profile#8917
Donald Angus MacKenzie
#8927
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#8918
Jeffrey M. Perloff
#8928
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jeffrey M. Perloff is an American economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most noted for his textbooks on Industrial Organization, jointly written with Dennis Carlton, and Microeconomics.
Go to Profile#8919
John T. Koch
#8929
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume Celtic Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia . He is perhaps best known as the leading proponent of the Celtic from the West hypothesis.
Go to Profile#8920
Queen Mathilde of Belgium
#8930
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Mathilde is Queen of the Belgians as the wife of King Philippe. She is the first native-born Belgian queen. She has founded and assisted charities to decrease poverty in the country. Early life and family
Go to Profile#8921
Daniel Lyons
#8931
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Daniel Lyons is an American writer. He was a senior editor at Forbes magazine and a writer at Newsweek before becoming editor of ReadWrite. In March 2013 he left ReadWrite to accept a position at HubSpot.
Go to Profile#8922
William A. Foley
#8932
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
William A. Foley is an American linguist and professor at Columbia University He was previously located at the University of Sydney. He specializes in Papuan and Austronesian languages. Foley developed Role and Reference Grammar in a partnership with Robert Van Valin.
Go to Profile#8923
Ivars Peterson
#8933
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Ivars Peterson is an American mathematics writer. Early life Peterson received a B.Sc. in Physics and Chemistry and a B.Ed. in Education from the University of Toronto. Peterson received an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Go to Profile#8924
David M. Halperin
#8934
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
David M. Halperin is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and author of several books including Before Pastoral and One Hundred Years of Homosexuality .
Go to Profile#8925
Tony Visconti
#8935
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer, musician and singer. Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers. His first hit single was T. Rex's "Ride a White Swan" in 1970, the first of many hits in collaboration with Marc Bolan. Visconti's lengthiest involvement was with David Bowie: intermittently from the production and arrangement of Bowie's 1968 single "In the Heat of the Morning" / "London Bye Ta-Ta" to his final album Blackstar in 2016, Visconti produced and occasionally performed on many of Bowie's albums. Visconti's work on Blackstar was awarded the Gr...
Go to Profile#8926
Georgiann Davis
#8936
Overall Influence
Georgiann Davis is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico and author of the book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. Davis formerly held similar positions at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, she writes widely on intersex issues and the sociology of diagnosis.
Go to Profile#8927
Noureddine Melikechi
#8937
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Noureddine Melikechi is an Algerian atomic, molecular, and optical physicist, educator and inventor. He is the author of more than 125 peer-reviewed publications, three book chapters and 15 patents. Melikechi is a member of the Mars Science Laboratory, NASA’s largest Mars exploration effort to date.
Go to Profile#8928
Richard Keynes
#8938
Overall Influence
1919 - 2010 (91 years)
Richard Darwin Keynes, CBE, FRS was a British physiologist. The great-grandson of Charles Darwin, Keynes edited his great-grandfather's accounts and illustrations of Darwin's famous voyage aboard into The Beagle Record: Selections From the Original Pictorial Records and Written Accounts of the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, which won praise from the New York Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review.
Go to Profile#8929
Gyan Prakash
#8939
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Gyan Prakash is a historian of modern India and the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. Prakash is a member of the Subaltern Studies collective. Prakash received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Delhi in 1973, his Master's degree in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1975, and his doctorate in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. His field of research concerns urban modernity, genealogies of modernity, and problems of postcolonial thought and politics. He writes about modern South Asian history, comparative colonialism and postcolonial theory, urban history, global history, and the history of science.
Go to Profile#8930
Gunther Stent
#8940
Overall Influence
1924 - 2008 (84 years)
Gunther S. Stent was Graduate Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. One of the early bacteriophage biologists, he was known also for his studies on the metabolism of bacteria and neurobiology of leeches, and for his writing on the history and philosophy of biology.
Go to Profile#8931
Robert Cade
#8941
Overall Influence
1927 - 2007 (80 years)
James Robert Cade was an American physician, university professor, research scientist and inventor. Cade, a native of Texas, earned his bachelor and medical degrees at the University of Texas, and became a professor of medicine and nephrology at the University of Florida. Although Cade engaged in many areas of medical research, he is most widely remembered as the leader of the research team that created the sports drink Gatorade. Gatorade would have significant medical applications for treating dehydration in patients, and has generated over $150 million in royalties for the university.
Go to Profile#8932
Paul Benioff
#8942
Overall Influence
1930 - 2022 (92 years)
Paul Anthony Benioff was an American physicist who helped pioneer the field of quantum computing. Benioff was best known for his research in quantum information theory during the 1970s and 80s that demonstrated the theoretical possibility of quantum computers by describing the first quantum mechanical model of a computer. In this work, Benioff showed that a computer could operate under the laws of quantum mechanics by describing a Schrödinger equation description of Turing machines. Benioff's body of work in quantum information theory encompassed quantum computers, quantum robots, and the re...
Go to Profile#8933
Ella Fitzgerald
#8943
Overall Influence
1917 - 1996 (79 years)
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
Go to Profile#8934
Steven Rosenberg
#8944
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Steven A. Rosenberg is an American cancer researcher and surgeon, chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He pioneered the development of immunotherapy that has resulted in the first effective immunotherapies and the development of gene therapy. He is the first researcher to successfully insert foreign genes into humans.
Go to Profile#8935
Chuck Easttom
#8945
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
William "Chuck" Easttom II is an American computer scientist specializing in cyber security, cryptography, quantum computing, and systems engineering. Education Chuck Easttom holds a B.A. from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, a M.Ed. from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, a master's degree in Applied Computer Science from Northcentral University and a Masters in Systems Engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso, as well as a D.Sc. Doctor of Science in cyber security from Capitol Technology University dissertation topic "A Comparative Study Of Lattice Based Algorithms ...
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John P. Allen
#8946
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
John Polk Allen is a systems ecologist, engineer, metallurgist, adventurer, and writer. Allen is a proponent of the science of biospherics and a pioneer in sustainable co-evolutionary development. He is the founder of Synergia Ranch, and is best known as the inventor and director of research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest vivarium and research facility to study global ecology. Biosphere 2 set multiple records in closed ecological systems work, including degree of sealing tightness, 100% waste and water recycle, and duration of human residence within a closed system . He is also involved ...
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Bobby Lee
#8947
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Robert Lee Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and podcaster. From 2001 to 2009, Lee was a cast member on MADtv, and he co-starred in the ABC single-camera sitcom series Splitting Up Together alongside Jenna Fischer and Oliver Hudson between 2018 and 2019. Lee has also appeared in the films Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle , Pineapple Express , and The Dictator . He had a guest appearance as the cynical, burned-out Dr. Kang on FX on Hulu's TV comedy series Reservation Dogs.
Go to Profile#8938
Sunil Kumar
#8948
Overall Influence
Sunil Kumar is an Indian-born academic administrator serving as president of Tufts University since July 1, 2023. He was previously the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University from 2016 to 2023.
Go to Profile#8939
Dwight Howard
#8949
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Dwight David Howard II is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Taoyuan Leopards of the T1 League. He began his career in the National Basketball Association , where he was an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Go to Profile#8940
Seth Benardete
#8950
Overall Influence
1930 - 2001 (71 years)
Seth Benardete was an American classicist and philosopher, long a member of the faculties of New York University and The New School. In addition to teaching positions at Harvard, Brandeis, St. John's College, Annapolis and NYU, Benardete was a fellow for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung in Munich.
Go to Profile#8941
Lenny Kravitz
#8951
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Leonard Albert Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter and actor. Known for his unique fusion of rock, funk, reggae, hard rock, soul, and R&B, Kravitz is recognized for his powerful vocal range and distinctive style. In addition to his music career, Kravitz has ventured into acting, appearing in films and TV shows.
Go to Profile#8942
Robert Kegan
#8952
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Robert Kegan is an American developmental psychologist. He is a licensed psychologist and practicing therapist, lectures to professional and lay audiences, and consults in the area of professional development and organization development.
Go to Profile#8943
Dalil Boubakeur
#8953
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Dalil Boubakeur is a physician, Mufti, and current rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. He is also the president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. He was born on 2 November 1940 in the Algerian city of Skikda, to Hamza Boubakeur and Hafza Leshtoilette. He studied at Lycées Bugeaud in Algiers, before moving to France and studying at Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He graduated from the Faculty of Sciences et Medicine of Paris and holds degrees in Quranic studies, theology and Muslim civilization.
Go to Profile#8944
Amos Yadlin
#8954
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Aluf Amos Yadlin is a former general in the Israeli Air Force , Israel Defense Forces military attaché to Washington, D.C., and head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate . Biography Amos Yadlin was born in Kibbutz Hatzerim, the son of Edah and Aharon Yadlin. In 1970, he enlisted in the IAF. Yadlin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He received a master's degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.
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Stephen Downes
#8955
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Stephen Downes is a Canadian philosopher and commentator in the fields of online learning and new media. He has explored and promoted the educational use of computer and online technologies since 1995. He gave the 2004 Buntine Oration and was a presenter at the February 2007 Online Connectivism Conference. In 2008, Downes and George Siemens designed and taught an online, open course reported as a "landmark in the small but growing push toward 'open teaching - widely considered the first massive open online course .
Go to Profile#8946
Oswald Mathias Ungers
#8956
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
Oswald Mathias Ungers was a German architect and architectural theorist, known for his rationalist designs and the use of cubic forms. Among his notable projects are museums in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne.
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Jimmy Palmiotti
#8957
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
James Palmiotti is an American writer and inker of comic books, who also does writing for games, television and film. Early life Palmiotti attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City.
Go to Profile#8948
Pete Carroll
#8958
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Peter Clay Carroll is an American football coach who is the head coach and executive vice president for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League . He was previously the head football coach at USC from 2001 to 2009, where he won six bowl games and a National Championship in 2004.
Go to Profile#8949
Donald J. Harris
#8959
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Donald Jasper Harris is a Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for applying post-Keynesian ideas to development economics. He is the father of the 49th and current vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, as well as of her sister, lawyer and political commentator Maya Harris.
Go to Profile#8950
John G. Cramer
#8960
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
John Gleason Cramer, Jr. is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, known for his development of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. He has been an active participant with the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
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