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
#13201
Howard Berg
#13212
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Howard Curtis Berg was the Herchel Smith Professor of Physics and professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, where he taught biophysics and studied the motility of the bacterium Escherichia coli .
Go to Profile#13202
Allen Hatcher
#13213
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Allen Edward Hatcher is an American topologist. Biography Hatcher was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. After obtaining his B.S from Oberlin College in 1966, he went for his graduate studies to Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1971. His thesis, A K2 Obstruction for Pseudo-Isotopies, was written under the supervision of Hans Samelson. Afterwards, Hatcher went to Princeton University, where he was an NSF postdoc for a year, then a lecturer for another year, and then Assistant Professor from 1973 to 1979. He was also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1975–76 and 1979–80.
Go to Profile#13203
Ilkka Niiniluoto
#13214
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Ilkka Maunu Olavi Niiniluoto is a Finnish philosopher and mathematician, serving as a professor of philosophy at the University of Helsinki since 1981. He is currently on leave from his position, having been appointed as rector of the University of Helsinki on 1 August 2003, for a five-year period. On 25 April 2008 he was chosen to succeed Kari Raivio as chancellor of the University of Helsinki, beginning 1 June 2008.
Go to Profile#13204
Allen Knutson
#13215
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Allen Ivar Knutson is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University. Education Knutson completed his undergraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology and received a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 under the joint advisorship of Victor Guillemin and Lisa Jeffrey.
Go to Profile#13205
Ewan Campbell
#13216
Overall Influence
Ewan Campbell is a Scottish archaeologist and author, who serves as the senior lecturer of archaeology at the University of Glasgow. An author of a number of books, he is perhaps best known as the originator of the historical revisionist thesis that the Dál Riata did not originate from Ireland. He has also authored works about Dunadd and Forteviot.
Go to Profile#13206
Shaul Bakhash
#13217
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Shaul Bakhash , is an Iranian-American historian in Iranian studies at George Mason University where he is a "Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History." Bakhash is Jewish and was born in Iran. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow as well as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He received his MA from Harvard University and his DPhil from the University of Oxford.
Go to Profile#13207
Anthony Swofford
#13218
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Anthony Swofford is an American writer and former U.S. Marine, best known for his 2003 book Jarhead, based heavily on his accounts of various situations encountered in the Persian Gulf War. This memoir was the basis of the 2005 film of the same name, directed by Sam Mendes.
Go to Profile#13208
Daniel Craig
#13219
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. He gained international fame by playing the fictional secret agent James Bond for five installments in the film series, from Casino Royale up to No Time to Die .
Go to Profile#13209
Shadia Habbal
#13220
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Shadia Rifa'i Habbal is a Syrian-American astronomer and physicist specialized in Space physics. A professor of Solar physics, her research is centered on Solar wind and Solar eclipse. Life and education She was born as Shadia Na'im Rifa'i in the city of Homs where she finished secondary education, she enrolled in the University of Damascus where she received her bachelor in physics and math. She received a master in physics from the American University of Beirut before receiving her PhD from the University of Cincinnati.
Go to Profile#13210
Barry Sanders
#13221
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Barry David Sanders is an American former football running back who played for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League for 10 seasons. Sanders led the league in rushing yards four times and in rushing touchdowns once, establishing himself as one of the most elusive runners in the history of the NFL with his quickness and agility, despite being only 5 ft 8 in tall and weighing 203 lbs. Sanders played college football for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. As a college junior in 1988, he compiled what is widely considered the greatest individual season by a running back in college football history, rushing for 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns in 11 games.
Go to Profile#13211
Ian Botham
#13222
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ian Terence Botham, Baron Botham, is an English cricket commentator, member of the House of Lords, a former cricketer who has been chairman of Durham County Cricket Club since 2017 and charity fundraiser. Hailed as one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of the game, Botham represented England in both Test and One-Day International cricket.
Go to Profile#13212
Eric Cassell
#13223
Overall Influence
1928 - 2021 (93 years)
Eric Jonathan Cassell was an American physician and bioethicist. Early life and education Eric Jonathan Goldstein was born on August 29, 1928, in New York City. He and his brother changed their surname to Cassell to render it closer to their grandfather's name, which was changed at Ellis Island. He received a BS from Queens College, City University of New York, in 1950, an MA from Columbia University, also in 1950, and an MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1954.
Go to Profile#13213
John Mauceri
#13224
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Francis Mauceri is an American conductor, producer, educator and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut almost half a century ago, he has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest-conducted at the premiere opera houses, produced and musically supervised Tony and Olivier Award-winning Broadway musicals, and served as university faculty and administrator. Through his varied career, he has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and supervised and conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Stockhausen, Korngold, Hindemith, Bernstein, Sibelius, Ives, Elfman and Shore.
Go to Profile#13214
John Lewis
#13225
Overall Influence
1940 - 2020 (80 years)
John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States, in 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery ma...
Go to Profile#13215
Peter Bernus
#13226
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Peter Bernus is a Hungarian Australian scientist and Associate Professor of Enterprise Architecture at the School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Go to Profile#13216
Aaron Sorkin
#13227
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. Born in New York City, he developed a passion for writing at an early age. As a writer for stage, television, and film, Sorkin is recognized for his trademark fast-paced dialogue and extended monologues, complemented by frequent use of the storytelling technique called the "walk and talk". Sorkin has earned numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globes.
Go to Profile#13217
Paul Corkum
#13228
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Paul Bruce Corkum is a Canadian physicist specializing in attosecond physics and laser science. He holds a joint University of Ottawa–NRC chair in attosecond photonics. He also holds academic positions at Texas A&M University and the University of New Mexico. Corkum is both a theorist and an experimentalist.
Go to Profile#13218
Myrna Gopnik
#13229
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Myrna Lee Gopnik is a Canadian linguist. She is a professor emerita of linguistics at McGill University. She is known for her research on the KE family, an English family with several members affected by specific language impairment.
Go to Profile#13219
Valentin Danilov
#13230
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Valentin Danilov is a Russian physicist, whose research deals with the effect of solar activity on space satellites. In November 2004, he was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years for treason. Many scientists and human rights organizations, both in Russia and worldwide protested the sentence because the information he passed to China was, in fact, declassified in 1992.
Go to Profile#13220
Eric Van Young
#13231
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Eric Van Young, Distinguished Professor of History at University of California, San Diego, is an American historian of Mexico who has published extensively on socioeconomic and political history of the colonial era and the nineteenth century. He is particularly well known for his 2001 book, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Struggle for Mexican Independence, 1810-1821, which won a major prize awarded by the Conference on Latin American History. His article "The Islands in the Storm: Quiet Cities and Violent Countrysides in the Mexican Independence Era," published in Past and Present won the Conference on Latin American History Award in 1989.
Go to Profile#13221
Elif Shafak
#13232
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist. Shafak writes in Turkish and English, and has published 19 books. She is best known for her novels, which include The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, Three Daughters of Eve and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Her works have been translated into 55 languages and have been nominated for several literary awards. She has been described by the Financial Times as "Turkey's leading female novelist", with several of her works having been bestsellers in Turkey and internat...
Go to Profile#13222
Lata Mangeshkar
#13233
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Lata Mangeshkar was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Her voice was one of the unifying elements of the people of South Asia across borders. Her contribution to the Indian music industry in a career spanning eight decades gained her honorific titles such as the "Queen of Melody", "Nightingale of India", and "Voice of the Millennium".
Go to Profile#13223
Sharon Olds
#13234
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Sharon Olds is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She teaches creative writing at New York University and is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program at NYU.
Go to Profile#13224
Madhav Gadgil
#13235
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil is an Indian ecologist, academic, writer, columnist and the founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, a research forum under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Science. He is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India and the Head of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel of 2010, popularly known as the Gadgil Commission.
Go to Profile#13225
Annette Gordon-Reed
#13236
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is formerly the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children.
Go to Profile#13226
Kyrie Irving
#13237
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
Kyrie Andrew Irving is an Australian and American professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association . He was named the Rookie of the Year after being selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the first overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft. An eight-time All-Star and three-time member of the All-NBA Team, he won an NBA championship with the Cavaliers in 2016. Irving is widely considered one of the best ball handlers of all time.
Go to Profile#13227
Charles Y. Glock
#13238
Overall Influence
1919 - 2018 (99 years)
Charles Young Glock was an American sociologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion and survey research. Biography and academic background Charles Glock was born in the Bronx, New York in 1919. He earned a B.S. degree in marketing at New York University in 1940 and an Master of Business Administration at Boston University in 1941. He served in the United States Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946 where he became a major. After serving in the army, Glock earned a Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University. Glock was professor of sociology at University of California, Berkeley, California. He was twice appointed chair of the department.
Go to Profile#13228
James Der Derian
#13239
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
James Der Derian is the Michael Hintze Chair of International Security Studies and Director of the Centre for International Security Studies at The University of Sydney, having taken up his appointment in January 2013. His research and teaching interests are in international security, information technology, international theory and documentary film.
Go to Profile#13229
Sam Edwards
#13240
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards was a Welsh physicist. The Sam Edwards Medal and Prize is named in his honour. Early life and studies Edwards was born on 1 February 1928 in Swansea, Wales, the son of Richard and Mary Jane Edwards. He was educated at the Bishop Gore School, Swansea, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the University of Manchester, and at Harvard University, in the United States. He wrote his thesis under Julian Schwinger on the structure of the electron, and subsequently developed the functional integral form of field theory.
Go to Profile#13230
Björn Engquist
#13241
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Björn Engquist has been a leading contributor in the areas of multiscale modeling and scientific computing, and a productive educator of applied mathematicians. Life He received his PhD in numerical analysis from University of Uppsala in 1975, and taught there during the following years while also holding a professorship at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2001, he moved to Princeton University as the Michael Henry Stater University Professor of Mathematics and served as the director of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics. He has also been professor at the Royal...
Go to Profile#13231
Susumu Ohno
#13242
Overall Influence
1928 - 2000 (72 years)
Susumu Ohno was a Japanese-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and seminal researcher in the field of molecular evolution. Biography Susumu Ohno was born to Japanese parents in Keijō, Chōsen , Empire of Japan on February 1, 1928. The second of five children, he was the son of the minister of education of the Japanese Protectorate of Korea. The family returned to mainland Japan after the war in 1945. He later became a citizen of the United States. Susumu Ohno married musician Midori Aoyama in 1951. They had two sons and one daughter.
Go to Profile#13232
Carol Smart
#13243
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Carol Christine Smart is a feminist sociologist and academic at the University of Manchester. She has also conducted research about divorce and children of divorced couples. Smart is an important figure within the feminist criminology world. Her book titled Women, Crime and Criminology, written in 1976, remains a key feminist critique of criminology. Smart was also the co-director of the Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life at Manchester.
Go to Profile#13233
Leon Russell
#13244
Overall Influence
1942 - 2016 (74 years)
Leon Russell was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock and roll, country, gospel, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, southern rock, blues rock, folk, surf and the Tulsa sound. His recordings earned six gold recordss and he received two Grammy Awards from seven nominations. In 2011, he was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#13234
Leslie Greengard
#13245
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Leslie Frederick Greengard is an American mathematician, physicist and computer scientist. He is co-inventor with Vladimir Rokhlin Jr. of the fast multipole method in 1987, recognized as one of the top-ten algorithms of the 20th century.
Go to Profile#13235
Chet Atkins
#13246
Overall Influence
1924 - 2001 (77 years)
Chester Burton Atkins , also known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music style which expanded its appeal to adult pop music fans. He was primarily a guitarist, but he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele, and occasionally sang.
Go to Profile#13236
Giorgi Japaridze
#13247
Overall Influence
Giorgi Japaridze is a Georgian-American researcher in logic and theoretical computer science. He currently holds the title of Full Professor at the Computing Sciences Department of Villanova University. Japaridze is best known for his invention of computability logic, cirquent calculus, and Japaridze's polymodal logic.
Go to Profile#13237
Vic Hayes
#13248
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Victor "Vic" Hayes is a former Senior Research Fellow at the Delft University of Technology. His role in establishing and chairing the IEEE 802.11 Standards Working Group for Wireless Local Area Networks has led to him being referred to by some as the "Father of Wi-Fi". Hayes is a graduate of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, where he studied electrical engineering.
Go to Profile#13238
Nancy Kanwisher
#13249
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Nancy Gail Kanwisher FBA is the Walter A Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. She studies the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying human visual perception and cognition.
Go to Profile#13239
Herbert S. Lewis
#13250
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Herbert S. Lewis is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught from 1963 to 1998. He has conducted extensive field research in Ethiopia and Israel and worked with Oneida Indian Nation of Wisconsin. Aside from publications based on ethnographic field research he has written theoretical works about political leadership and systems, ethnicity, cultural evolution. Since the late 1990s he has published extensively about the history of anthropology, much of it offering new insights into the work and thought of Franz Boas.
Go to Profile#13240
Lindsey Graham
#13251
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Lindsey Olin Graham is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A member of the Republican Party, Graham chaired the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 2019 to 2021.
Go to Profile#13241
Dimitra Fimi
#13252
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Dimitra Fimi is a Scottish academic and writer and since 2020 the Senior Lecturer in Fantasy and Children's Literature at the University of Glasgow. Her research includes that of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and children's fantasy literature.
Go to Profile#13242
Nathan Sivin
#13253
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Nathan Sivin , also known as Xiwen , was an American sinologist, historian, essayist, educator, and writer. He taught first at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then at the University of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 2006.
Go to Profile#13243
Mark Thoma
#13254
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Mark Allen Thoma is a macroeconomist and econometrician and a professor of economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Oregon. Thoma is best known as a regular columnist for The Fiscal Times through his blog "Economist's View", which Paul Krugman called "the best place by far to keep up with the latest in economic discourse", and as an analyst at CBS MoneyWatch. He is also a regular contributor to EconoMonitor.
Go to Profile#13244
John Cardy
#13255
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John Lawrence Cardy FRS is a British–American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, and in particular for research on critical phenomena and two-dimensional conformal field theory.
Go to Profile#13245
Matthew McConaughey
#13256
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor. He had his breakout role with a supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused . After a number of supporting roles, his first success as a leading man came in the legal drama A Time to Kill . His career progressed with lead roles in the science fiction film Contact , the historical drama Amistad , and the war film U-571 .
Go to Profile#13246
John K. Roth
#13257
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
John King Roth is an American-based author, editor, and the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Roth taught at CMC from 1966 through 2006, where he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, which is now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. Best known for his contributions to Holocaust and genocide studies, he is the author or editor of more than fifty books. In 1988, he was named the U.S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of E...
Go to Profile#13247
Maurice Richard
#13258
Overall Influence
1921 - 2000 (79 years)
Joseph Henri Maurice "Rocket" Richard was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in one season, accomplishing the feat in 50 games in 1944–45, and the first to reach 500 career goals.
Go to Profile#13248
Robert Munsch
#13259
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Robert Norman Munsch is an American-Canadian children's author. Personal life and career Robert Munsch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 11, 1945. He grew up in a family of 9 children. Munsch graduated from Fordham University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and from Boston University in 1971 with a Master of Arts degree in anthropology.
Go to Profile#13249
Richard G. Morris
#13260
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Richard Graham Michael Morris, , is a British neuroscientist. He is known for developing the Morris water navigation task, for proposing the concept of synaptic tagging He is the director of the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems and the Wolfson Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. Since 1994 he has been a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and since 1997, he has been a fellow of the Royal Society. Morris was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2007.
Go to Profile#13250
Masao Maruyama
#13261
Overall Influence
1914 - 1996 (82 years)
Masao Maruyama was a leading Japanese political scientist and political theorist. His expertise lay in the history of Japanese political thought, to which he made major contributions. Early life Maruyama Masao was born in Osaka in 1914. He was the second son of journalist Maruyama Kanji. He was influenced by friends of his father such as Hasegawa Nyozekan, a circle of people identified with the liberal current of political thought during the period of Taishō democracy. After graduating from Tokyo Furitsu Number One Middle School , he entered the Tokyo Imperial University and graduated from the Department of Law in 1937.
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