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
#10201
Benny Sudakov
#10211
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Benny Sudakov is an Israeli mathematician, who works mainly on extremal and probabilistic combinatorics. He was born in Tbilissi, Georgia, and completed his undergraduate studies at Tbilisi State University in 1990. After emigrating to Israel, he received his PhD from Tel Aviv University in 1999, under the supervision of Noga Alon. From 1999 until 2002 he held a Veblen Research Instructorship, a joint position between Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Until 2007 he was an assistant professor at Princeton University. Until 2014, he was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Go to Profile#10202
Johan Roos
#10212
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Johan Roos is a Swedish organizational theorist known for his work on intellectual capital and measuring the intellectual performance of companies. He currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Hult International Business School, previously having served as President of Copenhagen Business School and Dean of the Stockholm School of Economics.
Go to Profile#10203
Grace Alele-Williams
#10213
Overall Influence
1932 - 2022 (90 years)
Grace Alele-Williams was a Nigerian professor of mathematics education, who made history as the first Nigerian woman to receive a doctorate, and the first Nigerian female vice-chancellor at the University of Benin.
Go to Profile#10204
Thomas Kinsella
#10214
Overall Influence
1928 - 2021 (93 years)
Thomas Kinsella was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher. Born outside Dublin, Kinsella attended University College Dublin before entering the civil service. He began publishing poetry in the early 1950s and, around the same time, translated early Irish poetry into English. In the 1960s, he moved to the United States to teach English at universities including Temple University. Kinsella continued to publish steadily until the 2010s.
Go to Profile#10205
Gordon Strachan
#10215
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Gordon David Strachan is a Scottish former football coach and player. He played for Dundee, Aberdeen, Manchester United, Leeds United and Coventry City, as well as the Scotland national team. He has since managed Coventry City, Southampton, Celtic, Middlesbrough and Scotland.
Go to Profile#10206
Jeff Forshaw
#10216
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Jeffrey Robert Forshaw is a British particle physicist with a special interest in quantum chromodynamics : the study of the behaviour of subatomic particles, using data from the HERA particle accelerator, Tevatron particle accelerator and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Since 2004 he has been professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.
Go to Profile#10207
Samantha Stosur
#10217
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Samantha Jane Stosur is an Australian former professional tennis player. She is a former world No. 1 in doubles, a ranking which she first achieved on 6 February 2006 and held for 61 consecutive weeks. Also a former top ten singles player, Stosur reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 on 21 February 2011 and spent a total of 165 weeks ranked inside the top ten, between March 2010 and June 2013. Stosur was also the top-ranked Australian singles player for 452 consecutive weeks, from October 2008 to June 2017, and was ranked inside the top 25 for a period of nine straight years. S...
Go to Profile#10208
Bernard d'Espagnat
#10218
Overall Influence
1921 - 2015 (94 years)
Bernard d'Espagnat was a French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality. Wigner-d'Espagnat inequality is partially named after him.
Go to Profile#10209
Michael R. Harrison
#10219
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Michael R. Harrison served as division chief in pediatric surgery at the Children's Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco for over 20 years, where he established the first fetal treatment center in the U.S. He is often referred to as the father of fetal surgery. He is currently a professor of surgery and pediatrics and the director emeritus of the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center.
Go to Profile#10210
Andrew Sayer
#10220
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Andrew Sayer is Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy at Lancaster University, UK. He is known for significant contributions to methodology and theory in the social sciences. Education Andrew Sayer studied a BA in Geography at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology in the late 1960s, and then did an MA and D.Phil. in Urban and Regional Studies at Sussex University in the early 1970s. He was lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Sussex until he moved to a lectureship at Lancaster University in 1993. Although affiliated with sociology, he has affinities with...
Go to Profile#10211
Michael A. Smith
#10221
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael Andrew Smith is an Australian philosopher who teaches at Princeton University . He taught previously at the University of Oxford, Monash University, and was a member of the Philosophy Program at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He is the author of a number of important books and articles in moral philosophy. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#10212
Jean-Pierre Faye
#10222
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Jean-Pierre Faye is a French philosopher and writer of fiction and prose poetry. Life and career Faye was born in Paris. He was member of the editing committee of the avant-garde literary review Tel Quel, and later of Change. He received the Prix Renaudot for his 1964 novel L'Écluse . He is a regular contributor to Gilles Deleuze's literary journal Chimère. With Jacques Derrida and others, he authored the "Blue Report" , which led to the Collège international de philosophie, an open university, in 1983. He soon turned against deconstructionism and postmodernism, as he reflected in Langages totalitaires 2: la raison narrative .
Go to Profile#10213
Robert M. Levine
#10223
Overall Influence
1941 - 2003 (62 years)
Robert M. Levine was an American historian, Gabelli Senior Scholar in the Arts and Sciences, Director of Latin American Studies, and professor of history at the University of Miami. His interests were related to Latin America, in particular, Brazilian cultural and political history, Jewish diasporas in Latin America, Cuban history, and Latin American history in general.
Go to Profile#10214
Richard Sakwa
#10224
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Richard Sakwa is a British political scientist and a former professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, a senior research fellow at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and an honorary professor in the Faculty of Political Science at Moscow State University. He has written books about Russian, Central and Eastern European communist and post-communist politics.
Go to Profile#10215
John Lindsay
#10225
Overall Influence
1921 - 2000 (79 years)
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America. Lindsay served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 1959 to December 1965 and as mayor of New York City from January 1966 to December 1973.
Go to Profile#10216
James Earl Jones
#10226
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances on stage and screen, and "one of the greatest actors in American history". His deep voice has been praised as a "a stirring basso profondo that has lent gravel and gravitas" to his projects. Over his career, he has received three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985. He was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Gui...
Go to Profile#10217
Chad Wolf
#10227
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Chad Fredrick Wolf is a former lobbyist and former American government official who was named the acting United States secretary of homeland security in November 2019. His appointment was ruled unlawful in November 2020. Wolf was also the under secretary of homeland security for strategy, policy, and plans from 2019 to 2021.
Go to Profile#10218
George Andrews
#10228
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
#10219
Andrea Pirlo
#10229
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Andrea Pirlo is an Italian football manager and former player who is currently the head coach of Serie B club Sampdoria. Considered one of the greatest midfielders in the history of the sport, Pirlo was renowned for his vision, ball control, technique, creativity, passing, and free kick ability.
Go to Profile#10220
Michael Stausberg
#10230
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Michael Stausberg is a German scholar on religion. He was born in Köln. He studied in Bonn, Tübingen, Bergen and Rome. He is now a professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. Apart from Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian priesthood in contemporary India and related topics, Stausberg's interests encompass the history and terminology of the scientific study of religion, ritual & ritual theory, and religion & modern tourism.
Go to Profile#10221
Don Shula
#10231
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Donald Francis Shula was an American professional football player and coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League from 1963 to 1995. He played seven seasons as a defensive back in the NFL. The head coach of the Miami Dolphins for most of his career, Shula is the NFL's winningest head coach at 347 career victories and 328 regular season victories. He held his first head coaching position with the Baltimore Colts, whom he led for seven seasons, and spent his next 26 seasons with Miami. Shula had only two losing seasons during his 33 years as a head coach and led the Dolphins to two consecutive Super Bowl titles in Super Bowl VII and Super Bowl VIII.
Go to Profile#10222
David M. Clark
#10232
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David Millar Clark, is a British psychologist. Career Clark was born in Darlington and studied experimental psychology at Oxford University. He trained as a clinical psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry. He then returned to teach at Oxford University where he became a professor, then returned to the IOP where in 2000 he became head of psychology and founded the centre for anxiety disorders and trauma at the IOP and associated Maudsley Hospital along with fellow Oxford psychologists trauma-specialist Anke Ehlers and OCD-specialist Paul Salkovskis.
Go to Profile#10223
Jeff Lynne
#10233
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jeffrey Lynne is an English musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is the co-founder and leader of the rock band Electric Light Orchestra , which was formed in 1970, and as a songwriter has written most of the band's hits, including "Evil Woman", "Livin' Thing", "Telephone Line", "Mr. Blue Sky", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Hold On Tight".
Go to Profile#10224
Sugata Bose
#10234
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Sugata Bose is an Indian historian and politician who has taught and worked in the United States since the mid-1980s. His fields of study are South Asian and Indian Ocean history. Bose taught at Tufts University until 2001, when he accepted the Gardiner Chair of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University. Bose is also the director of the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, India, a research center and archives devoted to the life and work of Bose's great uncle, the Indian nationalist, Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose is the author most recently of His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose an...
Go to Profile#10225
John Edwards
#10235
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Johnny Reid Edwards is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He also was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.
Go to Profile#10226
Ronald Findlay
#10236
Overall Influence
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Ronald Edsel Findlay was an economist and trade theorist. He served as the Ragnar Nurkse Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He was born in 1935 in Rangoon, then in British Burma. He and his family fled on foot from Burma to India during World War II.
Go to Profile#10227
P. J. Marshall
#10237
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Peter James Marshall is a British historian known for his work on the British Empire, particularly the activities of British East India Company servants in 18th-century Bengal, and also the history of British involvement in North America during the same period. He is not to be confused with his contemporary, the other P. J. Marshall, who chronicled the history of public transport in the British Isles.
Go to Profile#10228
Charles Vess
#10238
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Charles Vess is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations. Vess' studio, Green Man Press, is located in Abingdon, VA.
Go to Profile#10229
Kenneth Lieberthal
#10239
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Kenneth Guy Lieberthal is an American professor and politician known as an expert on China's elite politics, political economy, domestic and foreign policy decision making, and on the evolution of US-China relations.
Go to Profile#10230
Xavier Gabaix
#10240
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Xavier Gabaix is a French economist, currently the Pershing Square Professor of Economics and Finance at Harvard University. He has been listed among the top 8 young economists in the world by The Economist. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as well as a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.
Go to Profile#10231
Dmitri Anosov
#10241
Overall Influence
1936 - 2014 (78 years)
Dmitri Victorovich Anosov was a Russian mathematician active during the Soviet Union, he is best known for his contributions to dynamical systems theory. He was a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a laureate of the USSR State Prize . He was a student of Lev Pontryagin. In 2014, he died at the age of 77.
Go to Profile#10232
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
#10242
Overall Influence
1924 - 2015 (91 years)
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 1 August 2005 until his death in 2015. Prior to his ascension, he was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia since 13 June 1982. He was the tenth son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia.
Go to Profile#10233
Hayat Sindi
#10243
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Dr. Hayat Al Sindi is a Saudi Arabian medical scientist and one of the first female members of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. She is famous for making major contributions to point-of-care medical testing and biotechnology. She was ranked by Arabian Business as the 19th most influential Arab in the world and the ninth most influential Arab woman. In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
Go to Profile#10234
J. Roger Hindley
#10244
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
J. Roger Hindley is a prominent British logician best known for the Hindley–Milner type inference algorithm. Since 1998, he has been an Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea University. Education Hindley graduated in 1960 from Queen's University Belfast, remaining to earn an M.Sc. in 1961.
Go to Profile#10235
Martin McLaughlin
#10245
Overall Influence
Martin L. McLaughlin is Professor of Italian and Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian Studies in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford where he is a Fellow of Magdalen College. In addition to his published academic results he is the English translator of Umberto Eco's On Literature and Italo Calvino's Hermit in Paris.
Go to Profile#10236
Thanu Padmanabhan
#10246
Overall Influence
1957 - 2021 (64 years)
Thanu Padmanabhan was an Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose research spanned a wide variety of topics in gravitation, structure formation in the universe and quantum gravity. He published nearly 300 papers and reviews in international journals and ten books in these areas. He made several contributions related to the analysis and modelling of dark energy in the universe and the interpretation of gravity as an emergent phenomenon. He was a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Pune, India.
Go to Profile#10237
David M. Rosenthal
#10247
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
David Rosenthal is an American philosopher who has made significant contributions to the philosophy of mind, particularly in the area of consciousness and related topics. He is professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . He was educated at the University of Chicago and then Princeton University. Rosenthal also has research interests in cognitive science, and is Coordinator of the CUNY Graduate Center's Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science. And he has done work in philosophy of language, metaphysics, ancient philosophy, and 17th-centur...
Go to Profile#10238
Tracy Chevalier
#10248
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Tracy Rose Chevalier is an American-British novelist. She is best known for her second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was adapted as a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.
Go to Profile#10239
Zephyr Teachout
#10249
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 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.
Go to Profile#10240
Armen Takhtajan
#10250
Overall Influence
1910 - 2009 (99 years)
Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian , was a Soviet-Armenian botanist, one of the most important figures in 20th century plant evolution and systematics and biogeography. His other interests included morphology of flowering plants, paleobotany, and the flora of the Caucasus. He was one of the most influential taxonomists of the latter twentieth century.
Go to Profile#10241
Gunther Kress
#10251
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
Gunther Rolf Kress MBE was a linguist and semiotician. He is considered one of the leading theorists in critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and multimodality, particularly in relation to their educational implications. Kress has been described as "one of the leading academics of the early 21st century".
Go to Profile#10242
Donald Coggan
#10252
Overall Influence
1909 - 2000 (91 years)
Frederick Donald Coggan, Baron Coggan, was the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury from 1974 to 1980. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he "revived morale within the Church of England, opened a dialogue with Rome and supported women's ordination". He had previously been successively the Bishop of Bradford and the Archbishop of York.
Go to Profile#10243
Thomas E. Mann
#10253
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Thomas E. Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Chair and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. He primarily studies and speaks on elections in the United States, campaign finance reform, Senate and filibuster reform, Congress, redistricting, and political polarization.
Go to Profile#10244
Barton Zwiebach
#10254
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Barton Zwiebach is a Peruvian string theorist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Work Zwiebach's undergraduate work was in Electrical Engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Peru, from which he graduated in 1977.
Go to Profile#10245
Henry Margenau
#10255
Overall Influence
1901 - 1997 (96 years)
Henry Margenau was a German-American physicist and philosopher of science. Biography Early life Born in Bielefeld, Germany, Margenau obtained his bachelor's degree from Midland Lutheran College, Nebraska before his M.Sc. from the University of Nebraska in 1926, and PhD from Yale University in 1929.
Go to Profile#10246
Bobbye Hall
#10256
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bobbye Jean Hall is an American percussionist who has recorded with a variety of rock, soul, blues and jazz artists, and has appeared on 20 songs that reached the top ten in the Billboard Hot 100. Early career, work for Motown and move to Los Angeles Bobbye Jean Hall was born in Detroit, Michigan, and began her career there playing percussion in nightclubs while still in her teens. While playing at the 20 Grand nightclub in 1961 she was approached by Motown arranger Paul Riser to play on a recording session. Using bongos, congas and other percussion, she played uncredited on many Motown recordings in the 1960s.
Go to Profile#10247
Barbara S. Held
#10257
Overall Influence
Barbara S. Held is the Barry N. Wish Research Professor of Psychology and Social Studies Emerita at Bowdoin College in the fields of clinical psychology and theoretical/philosophical psychology. She served as President of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology from 2008 to 2009, and was recipient of the 2012 Joseph B. Glitter Award from the American Psychological Association recognizing her "scholarly contribution to the philosophical foundations of psychological knowledge."
Go to Profile#10248
Eric Chaisson
#10258
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Eric J. Chaisson is an American astrophysicist known for his research, teaching, and writing on the interdisciplinary science of cosmic evolution. He is a member of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian, teaches natural science at Harvard University and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#10249
Ernst Dickmanns
#10259
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Ernst Dieter Dickmanns is a German pioneer of dynamic computer vision and of driverless cars. Dickmanns has been a professor at Bundeswehr University Munich , and visiting professor to Caltech and to MIT, teaching courses on "dynamic vision".
Go to Profile#10250
Stuart Schreiber
#10260
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D. is the Morris Loeb Research Professor at Harvard University, a co-Founder of the Broad Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Emeritus, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. His work integrates chemical biology and human biology to advance the science of therapeutics. Key advances include the discovery that small molecules can function as “molecular glues” that promote protein–protein interactions, the co-discovery of mTOR and its role in nutrient-response signaling, the discovery of histone deacetylases and...
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