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
#15751
Paul Dubreil
#15762
Overall Influence
1904 - 1994 (90 years)
Paul Dubreil was a French mathematician. He was born in Le Mans, Maine, France and died in Soisy-sur-École, France. Dubreil was married to fellow mathematician Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin. Selected publications
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Owen Beattie
#15763
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Owen Beattie is a Canadian professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta. Beattie gained international attention in 1984 for his investigation into the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin, which had left England in 1845 searching for the Northwest Passage. His specialized knowledge of human skeletal biology and forensic anthropology has led Beattie to assist the RCMP and other agencies in criminal investigations and accidents, including the Hinton rail disaster in central Alberta. Through the exhumation in 1984 and 1986 of the frozen bodies of Petty Officer John Torrington, Able-bod...
Go to Profile#15753
Martin C. Putna
#15764
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Prof. Mgr. Martin C. Putna, Dr., is a Czech literary historian, university teacher, publicist and essayist. He works at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. Biography and career Putna was born in Písek, Czech Republic. Between 1986 and 1991 he studied Philology at the Charles University in Prague. Since 1992 he has worked at the Charles University. He also studied Theology at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He was visiting scholar at the University of Regensburg.
Go to Profile#15754
James A. Beckford
#15765
Overall Influence
1942 - 2022 (80 years)
James Arthur Beckford was a British sociologist of religion. He was professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Warwick and a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1988/1989, he served as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and from 1999 to 2003, as the president of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.
Go to Profile#15755
Darleane C. Hoffman
#15766
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Darleane Christian Hoffman is an American nuclear chemist who was among the researchers who confirmed the existence of Seaborgium, element 106. She is a faculty senior scientist in the Nuclear Science Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor in the graduate school at UC Berkeley. In acknowledgment of her many achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Go to Profile#15756
Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus
#15767
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus is a German mathematician and logician. He received his PhD in 1967 at the University of Münster under Hans Hermes and Dieter Rödding. Ebbinghaus has written various books on logic, set theory and model theory, including a seminal work on Ernst Zermelo. His book Einführung in die mathematische Logik, joint work with Jörg Flum and Wolfgang Thomas, first appeared in 1978 and became a standard textbook of mathematical logic in the German-speaking area. It is currently in its sixth edition . An English edition of Mathematical Logic was published in the Springer-Verlag Und...
Go to Profile#15757
Frederik Stjernfelt
#15768
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Frederik Stjernfelt is a Danish professor and writer. As a professor, he lectures in science studies, history of ideas, and semiotics, at Aalborg University's Copenhagen department. Career Stjernfelt has been working as a reviewer and writer at 'Weekendavisen' since 1994. Earlier in his career, he was employed as an editor at Gyldendal's cultural journal 'Kritik' between 1993 and 2012. Stjernfelt has been a member of 'Danish Academy' since 2001. Also, he is cofounder of the political network 'Fri debat', which functions to promote freedom of speech. Subsequently, he has published a number of...
Go to Profile#15758
Karan Johar
#15769
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Karan Kumar Johar , often informally referred to as KJo, is an Indian filmmaker and television personality, who primarily works in Hindi cinema. He has launched the careers of several successful actors under his company Dharma Productions. The recipient of several accolades, including two National Film Awards and seven Filmfare Awards, he has been honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2020.
Go to Profile#15759
Stefano Zamagni
#15770
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Stefano Zamagni is an Italian economist. Born in Rimini, Zamagni is Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna. Zamagni is also a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association and President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Go to Profile#15760
Stefano Boeri
#15771
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Stefano Boeri is an Italian architect and urban planner, and a founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti. Among his most known projects are the Vertical Forest in Milan, the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, and the House of the Sea of La Maddalena. He is the professor of urban planning at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Go to Profile#15761
Jerry I. Porras
#15772
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Jerry I. Porras is an American organizational theorist, Lane Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior and Change at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He is best known as co-author of the 1994 bestseller Success Built to Last: Creating A Life That Matters, written with James C. Collins.
Go to Profile#15762
Jonathan Davis
#15773
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Jonathan Howsmon Davis , also known as JD or JDevil, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is the lead vocalist and frontman of nu metal band Korn, which is considered a pioneering act of the nu metal genre. Davis's distinctive personality and Korn's music influenced a generation of musicians and performers who have come after them.
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James S. Shapiro
#15774
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
James S. Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.
Go to Profile#15764
Bernie Taupin
#15775
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bernard John Taupin is an English-American lyricist and visual artist. He is most well known for his songwriting partnership with Sir Elton John, recognised as one of the most successful partnerships of its kind in history. Taupin is behind the majority of John's songs, dating back to the 1960s.
Go to Profile#15765
Cyril Clarke
#15776
Overall Influence
1907 - 2000 (93 years)
Sir Cyril Astley Clarke, KBE, FRCP, FRCOG, FRC Path, FRS was a British physician, geneticist and lepidopterist. He was honoured for his pioneering work on prevention of Rh disease of the newborn, and also for his work on the genetics of the Lepidoptera .
Go to Profile#15766
Keith Ansell-Pearson
#15777
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Keith Ansell-Pearson is a British philosopher specialising in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University. Ansell-Pearson is the author of numerous books including Germinal Life, Viroid Life and Philosophy and the Adventure of the Virtual.
Go to Profile#15767
Ernie Wise
#15778
Overall Influence
1925 - 1999 (74 years)
Ernest Wiseman, , known by his stage name Ernie Wise, was an English comedian, best known as one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, who became a national institution on British television, especially for their Christmas specials.
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William F. House
#15779
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
William Fouts House was an American otologist, physician and medical researcher who developed and invented the cochlear implant. The cochlear implant is considered to be the first invention to restore not just the sense of hearing, but any of the absent five senses in humans. Dr. House also pioneered approaches to the lateral skull base for removal of tumors, and is considered "the Father of Neurotology".
Go to Profile#15769
Abraham Skorka
#15780
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Abraham Skorka is an Argentine biophysicist, rabbi and book author. Abraham Skorka is rector emeritus of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the rabbi of the Jewish community Benei Tikva, professor of biblical and rabbinic literature at the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano and honorary professor of Hebrew Law at the Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires.
Go to Profile#15770
Lindsey Doe
#15781
Overall Influence
Lindsey Takara Doe is a sexologist, sex educator, and host of Sexplanations on YouTube. Personal life Lindsey Takara Doe was born in . she had three children. In 2015, when one of her daughters complained about a boy who would not stop pestering her for a date, Doe took the opportunity and published a video addressing such harassment from boys; the video received international attention, spirited debate, and over 76,000 views in ten days.
Go to Profile#15771
Romesh Ranganathan
#15782
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan is a British-Sri Lankan actor, radio host and stand-up comedian. He is known for his deadpan, often self-deprecating humour. Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows, and in 2016 he co-presented It's Not Rocket Science on ITV, alongside Rachel Riley and Ben Miller. He has also been a regular panellist on The Apprentice: You're Fired!, Play to the Whistle, and The Museum of Curiosity. He completed his first major tour, Irrational Live, in 2016 in which he performed in large venues such as the Hammersmith Apollo. In 2018, Ranganathan joined A League of Their Own as a regular panellist, replacing Jack Whitehall.
Go to Profile#15772
Stirling Colgate
#15783
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Stirling Auchincloss Colgate was an American nuclear physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor emeritus of physics at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology from 1965 to 1974, of which he also served its president.
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Moshe Sharon
#15784
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Moshe Sharon is an Israeli historian of Islam. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he serves as Chair in Baháʼí Studies.
Go to Profile#15774
Marc Galanter
#15785
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Marc Galanter is Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and has served as the Founding Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. His studies have addressed family therapy for substance abuse, pharmacologic treatment for addiction, and Twelve Step recovery for addiction. He is an author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles. He chairs Twelve Step Interest Groups in AAAP, ASAM, and the International Society of Addiction Medicine and teaches at the New York University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#15775
Juhn Atsushi Wada
#15786
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
Juhn Atsushi Wada was a Japanese–Canadian neurologist known for research into epilepsy and human brain asymmetry, including his description of the Wada test for cerebral hemispheric dominance of language function. The Wada Test remains the gold standard for establishing cerebral dominance and is conducted worldwide prior to epilepsy surgery.
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Michael Whinston
#15787
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michael D. Whinston is an American economist and currently the Sloan Fellows Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously he was the Robert E. and Emily H. King Professor at Northwestern University and is also a Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Econometric Society.
Go to Profile#15777
John D. Turner
#15788
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
John D. Turner was the Cotner Professor of Religious Studies and Charles J. Mach University Professor of Classics and History Classics & Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska. He was well known for his translations of the Nag Hammadi library.
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Robert S. Siegler
#15789
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Robert S. Siegler is an American psychologist and professor of psychology at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the American Psychological Association's 2005 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.
Go to Profile#15779
Anwar Ibrahim
#15790
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Anwar bin Ibrahim is a Malaysian politician who has served as the tenth Prime Minister of Malaysia since 2022. He served as the 12th and 16th Leader of the Opposition from 2008 to 2015 and again from 2020 to 2022. He has been the chairman of the Pakatan Harapan coalition since 2020, second President of the People's Justice Party since 2018 and the Member of Parliament for Tambun since November 2022. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and in many other Cabinet positions in the Barisan Nasional administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from 1982 to his removal in 1998...
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Margaret Gardner
#15791
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Margaret Elaine Gardner, is an Australian academic, economist and university executive serving as the 30th and current governor of Victoria since August 2023. She was previously the vice-chancellor of Monash University from 2014 to 2023 and the president and vice-chancellor of RMIT University from 2005 to 2014.
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Joyce Johnson
#15792
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Joyce Johnson is an American author of fiction and nonfiction. She was born Joyce Glassman in 1935 to a Jewish family in New York City and raised in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, a few blocks from the apartment of Joan Vollmer Adams where William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac lived from 1944 to 1946. She was a child actress and appeared in the Broadway production of I Remember Mama, which she writes about in her 2004 memoir Missing Men.
Go to Profile#15782
Radoslav Katičić
#15793
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
Radoslav Katičić was a Croatian linguist, classical philologist, Indo-Europeanist, Slavist and Indologist, one of the most prominent Croatian scholars in the humanities. Biography Radoslav Katičić was born on 3 July 1930 in Zagreb which was part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the time. In 1949, he graduated at the classical gymnasium in his home town.
Go to Profile#15783
David Auerbach
#15794
Overall Influence
David Auerbach is an American writer and former Microsoft and Google software engineer. He has written on a variety of subjects, including social issues and popular culture, the environment, computer games, philosophy and literature. His 2018 book Bitwise: A Life in Code was well received, and chosen by Popular Mechanics as one of its 30 "Best Sci/Tech Books of 2018".
Go to Profile#15784
Carl E. Douglas
#15795
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Carl Edwin Douglas is an American civil rights, wrongful death, personal injury, employment, and criminal defense attorney specializing in police misconduct cases. He is best known for being one of the defense attorneys in the O. J. Simpson murder case, who were collectively dubbed the "Dream Team". Douglas was the managing attorney at the law office of Johnnie Cochran Jr., before leaving to establish The Douglas Law Group in 1998. The practice is now known as Douglas / Hicks Law. Douglas' other notable clients have included: singer Michael Jackson, actors Jamie Foxx and Queen Latifah, and f...
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Catherine Bertini
#15796
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Catherine "Cathy" Bertini is an American public servant. She is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. She served as the UN Under-Secretary for Management from 2003 to 2005. Currently she is a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Chair of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the Chair of the Executive Board of the Crop Trust.
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Beatrice Blyth Whiting
#15797
Overall Influence
1914 - 2003 (89 years)
Beatrice Blyth Whiting , was an American anthropologist specializing in the comparative study of child development. Together with her husband John Whiting, she was a key figure in the Harvard Department of Social Relations and a pioneer in the cross-cultural study of childhood and child development.
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Robert Ray
#15798
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Robert William Ray is an American lawyer. As the successor to Ken Starr as the head of the Office of the Independent Counsel he investigated and issued the final reports on the Whitewater controversy, the White House travel office controversy, and the White House FBI files controversy. Before that he was Deputy Independent Counsel investigating former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy and before that Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
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Michael Boudin
#15799
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Michael Boudin is a former United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He served as Chief Judge of that court from 2001 to 2008. Before his service on the First Circuit, he was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2010.
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Miriam Hadar Weingarten
#15800
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Miriam Hadar Weingarten is an American-Israeli lawyer, model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Israel 1958 and represented Israel at Miss Universe 1958. Life Hadar-Weingarten was born in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine . She did her military service in the Israeli Air Force while studying law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1958, she won the title of Beauty Queen of Jerusalem and Beauty Queen of Israel.
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Merrill Swain
#15801
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Merrill Swain is a Canadian applied linguist whose research has focused on second language acquisition . Some of her most notable contributions to SLA research include the Output Hypothesis and her research related to immersion education. Swain is a Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Swain is also known for her work with Michael Canale on communicative competence. Swain was the president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 1998. She received her PhD in psychology at the University of California. Swain has co-su...
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Shu Chien
#15802
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Shu Chien is a Chinese–American physiologist and bioengineer. His work on the fluid dynamics of blood flow has had a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. More recently, Chien's research has focused on the mechanical forces, such as pressure and flow, that regulate the behaviors of the cells in blood vessels. Chien is currently President of the Biomedical Engineering Society.
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Richard N. Current
#15803
Overall Influence
1912 - 2012 (100 years)
Richard Nelson Current was an American historian, called "the Dean of Lincoln Scholars", best known for The Lincoln Nobody Knows , and Lincoln and the First Shot . Life Born in Colorado City, Colorado, Current graduated in 1934 from Oberlin College with a B.A., in 1935 from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University with an M.A., and in 1940 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a PhD. At Wisconsin, he studied under William B. Hesseltine. His doctoral dissertation was on "Thaddeus Stevens, the Man and the Politician."
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Deborah Freund
#15804
Overall Influence
Deborah Anne Freund is an American university administrator and academic specializing in health economics. She was the president of Claremont Graduate University from 2010 to 2015. Education Freund received a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1973, a Master of Public Health in medical care administration in 1975, a Master of Arts in Applied Economics in 1975, and a PhD in Economics in 1980, the latter three degrees all from the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#15794
Lucien Bouchard
#15805
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Lucien Bouchard is a French-Canadian lawyer, diplomat and retired politician. A minister for two years in the Mulroney cabinet, Bouchard then founded and led the Bloc Québécois and became Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 1996. He became a central figure for the "Yes" side in the 1995 Quebec referendum, alongside Jacques Parizeau, whom he succeeded to serve as the 27th premier of Quebec from January 29, 1996, to March 8, 2001.
Go to Profile#15795
Alexander Dvorkin
#15806
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin is a Russian anti-cult activist. From 1999 to 2012 he was professor and head of the department of the study of new religious movements at Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University. He is currently professor of department of missiology at that university.
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Peter Bellwood
#15807
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Peter Stafford Bellwood is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is well known for his Out of Taiwan model regarding the spread of Austronesian languages.
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Frederick Redlich
#15808
Overall Influence
1910 - 2004 (94 years)
Frederick Carl Redlich was a psychiatrist and academic administrator. He was dean of the Yale School of Medicine from 1967 to 1972. Personal life Redlich was born in Vienna, the son of Ludwig Johann and Emma Redlich, and received his M.D. in 1935 from the University of Vienna. Following graduation, Redlich was an intern at Vienna General Hospital and a psychiatric resident at Vienna University Clinic . He moved to the United States in 1938 with his wife Elsa . They had two sons, Erik Christopher , and Peter J. 195?. They became U.S. citizen in 1943. Later Fritz married operatic mezzo-sopra...
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Arnold Flammersfeld
#15809
Overall Influence
1913 - 2001 (88 years)
Arnold Rudolf Karl Flammersfeld was a German nuclear physicist who worked on the German nuclear energy project during World War II. From 1954, he was a professor of physics at the University of Göttingen.
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Anthony A. Hyman
#15810
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Anthony Arie Hyman is a British scientist and director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. Early life and education Hyman was born in 1962, the eldest of three children of R. Anthony Hyman, a historian of computing, and Hon. Laura Alice Boyd, daughter of the 6th Baron Kilmarnock. He was educated at William Ellis School and St Marylebone Grammar School, University College London and the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD in 1987.
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David Bronstein
#15811
Overall Influence
1924 - 2006 (82 years)
David Ionovich Bronstein was a Soviet chess player. Awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1950, he narrowly missed becoming World Chess Champion in 1951. Bronstein was one of the world's strongest players from the mid-1940s into the mid-1970s, and was described by his peers as a creative genius and master of tactics. He was also a renowned chess writer; his book Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953 is widely considered one of the greatest chess books ever written.
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