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
#16501
David Carrasco
#16512
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Davíd Lee Carrasco is an American academic historian of religion, anthropologist, and Mesoamericanist scholar. As of 2001, he holds the inaugural appointment as Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin America Studies at the Harvard Divinity School, in a joint appointment with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Carrasco previously taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Princeton University and is known for his research and publications on Mesoamerican religion and history, his public speaking as well as wider contributions within Latin American studies and Latino/a studies.
Go to Profile#16502
Trent Lott
#16513
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Chester Trent Lott Sr. is an American lawyer, author, and politician who represented Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1989 and in the United States Senate from 1989 to 2007. Lott served in numerous leadership positions in both chambers of Congress as one of the first of a wave of Republicans winning seats in Southern states that had been solidly Democratic. Later in his career, he served twice as Senate Majority Leader, and also, alternately, Senate Minority Leader. In 2003, he stepped down from the position after controversy due to his praising of Senato...
Go to Profile#16503
Leon Panetta
#16514
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Leon Edward Panetta is an American politician and government official who has served under several Democratic administrations as Secretary of Defense , director of the CIA , White House Chief of Staff , director of the Office of Management and Budget , and as a U.S. Representative from California .
Go to Profile#16504
Patricia K. Kuhl
#16515
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Patricia Katherine Kuhl is a Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. She specializes in language acquisition and the neural bases of language, and she has also conducted research on language development in autism and computer speech recognition. Kuhl currently serves as an associate editor for the journals Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Neuroscience, and Developmental Science.
Go to Profile#16505
Arthur S. Reber
#16516
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Arthur S. Reber is an American cognitive psychologist. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the Association for Psychological Science and a Fulbright Fellow. He is known for introducing the concept of implicit learning and for using basic principles of evolutionary biology to show how implicit or unconscious cognitive functions differ in fundamental ways from those carried out consciously.
Go to Profile#16506
Linda Yueh
#16517
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Linda Yi-Chuang Yueh is a British/American economist, broadcaster, and author, born in Taiwan and of dual British and American citizenship. Yueh is an adjunct professor of economics at London Business School, and a Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. She was also a Visiting Professor at Peking University and associated with both the Centre for Economic Performance and IDEAS research centres at the London School of Economics . She is a TV and radio presenter, including for BBC programmes such as Radio 4 Analysis, Business Daily on BBC World Service, and Radio 4 Today programme.
Go to Profile#16507
John W. Pratt
#16518
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
John Winsor Pratt is Emeritus William Ziegler professor business administration at Harvard University. His former education was conducted at Princeton University and Stanford University, where he specialized in mathematics and statistics. Pratt spent most of his academic career at Harvard University. He was an editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association from 1965 to 1970. His researches on risk aversion, risk sharing incentives, and the nature and discovery of stochastic laws, statistical relationships that describe the effects of decisions. He has made contributions to rese...
Go to Profile#16508
Michael Friedman
#16519
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Michael Friedman is an American philosopher who serves as Professor of Philosophy and the Frederick P. Rehmus Family Professor of Humanities at Stanford University. Friedman is best known for his work in the philosophy of science, especially on scientific explanation and the philosophy of physics, and for his historical work on Immanuel Kant. Friedman has also done historical work on figures in continental philosophy such as Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. Friedman also serves as the co-director of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#16509
Omar Bongo
#16520
Overall Influence
1935 - 2009 (74 years)
Omar Bongo Ondimba was a Gabonese politician who was the second president of Gabon for almost 42 years, from 1967 until his death in 2009. Bongo was promoted to key positions as a young official under Gabon's first President Léon M'ba in the 1960s, before being elected vice-president in his own right in 1966. In 1967, he succeeded M'ba to become the country's second president, upon the latter's death.
Go to Profile#16510
John Reynolds
#16521
Overall Influence
John Reynolds is a record producer and musician. He was the first husband of singer Sinéad O'Connor; they had one child, Jake Reynolds, formerly a drummer for the solo musician, Jah Wobble. Reynolds met O'Connor and recorded her first album, The Lion and the Cobra, in 1987, and has since collaborated on her albums I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got ; Universal Mother , for which he was nominated as Q Producer of the Year; the Gospel Oak EP ; How About I Be Me ? ; and I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss . He was also the drummer for O'Connor's band on her 2013 tour.
Go to Profile#16511
Thomas J. Scheff
#16522
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Thomas J. Scheff is an American Professor, Emeritus, Department of Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. His fields of study are the emotional/relational world, mental illness, restorative justice, and collective violence. He holds a BS from the University of Arizona in Physics , and a PhD in sociology from the University of California . He was at University of Wisconsin from 1959–63, when he joined the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Go to Profile#16512
Deborah Batts
#16523
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
Deborah Anne Batts was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. During Gay Pride Week in June 1994, Batts was sworn in as a United States district judge for Manhattan, becoming the nation's first openly LGBT, African-American federal judge. She took senior status on her 65th birthday, April 13, 2012.
Go to Profile#16513
Wendell Bell
#16524
Overall Influence
1924 - 2019 (95 years)
Wendell Bell was a futurist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Yale University. His areas of specialization included sociology, social class, race, family life and future studies. Early career During World War II, Bell was a naval aviator and served in the Philippines.
Go to Profile#16514
Sebastian Brock
#16525
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Sebastian Paul Brock is a British scholar, university professor, and specialist in the field of academic studies of Classical Syriac language and Classical Syriac literature. His research also encompasses various aspects of cultural history of Syriac Christianity. He is generally acknowledged as one of the foremost academics in the field of Syriac studies, and one of the most prominent scholars in the wider field of Aramaic studies.
Go to Profile#16515
Oskar von Stryk
#16526
Overall Influence
#16516
Michelle Miller
#16527
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Michelle Miller is a national correspondent for CBS News and currently serves as a co-host on CBS Saturday Morning. She has also served as a substitute anchor on CBS Mornings and 48 Hours on ID. Early life Miller was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Howard University and holds a Master of Science degree in urban studies from the University of New Orleans.
Go to Profile#16517
Abbas Kiarostami
#16528
Overall Influence
1940 - 2016 (76 years)
Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy , Close-Up , The Wind Will Carry Us , and Taste of Cherry , which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love , he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Fri...
Go to Profile#16518
Dua Lipa
#16529
Overall Influence
1995 - Present (31 years)
Dua Lipa is an English and Albanian singer, songwriter, and actress. Her mezzo-soprano vocal range and disco-influenced production have received critical acclaim and media coverage. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career including six Brit Awards, three Grammy Awards, and two Guinness World Records. She was included on the Time 100 Next list in 2021.
Go to Profile#16519
Norman Sharpless
#16530
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Norman Edward "Ned" Sharpless is the previous Director of the National Cancer Institute . Before that, Sharpless was Professor of Medicine and Genetics Chair, Director of University of North Carolina UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Molecular Therapeutics, Wellcome Distinguished Professorship in Cancer Research.
Go to Profile#16520
Ralf Schumacher
#16531
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Ralf Schumacher is a German former racing driver. He is the younger brother of seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher, and the pair are the only siblings to each win Formula One races.
Go to Profile#16521
Robert J. Richards
#16532
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Robert J. Richards is an author and the Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago. He has written or edited seven books about the history of science as well as dozens of articles.
Go to Profile#16522
Edward Shorter
#16533
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Edward Lazare Shorter is an American-born Canadian historian who is Professor & Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His specializations are in the history of medicine and psychiatry. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Go to Profile#16523
N. John Habraken
#16534
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
N. John Habraken was a Dutch architect, educator, and theorist. His theoretical contributions are in the field of user participation in mass housing, the integration of users and residents into the design process. The visual result of his theory is the architecture of lively variety. Habraken was the initiator of the international "Participation movement" in architecture. His book Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housin, first published in 1961, is the manifesto and starting point of this movement. The theme resident or user participation has been linked to Structuralism and open building.
Go to Profile#16524
Jeffrey Wasserstrom
#16535
Overall Influence
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is an American historian of modern China. He is Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. Wasserstrom's research interests began with the role of student protest and have grown to include the social history of China and comparative social history. Wasserstrom also writes about China for a popular audience.
Go to Profile#16525
Alex Lifeson
#16536
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Aleksandar Živojinović , known professionally as Alex Lifeson , is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist for the rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded a band that would later become Rush, with drummer John Rutsey and bassist and lead vocalist Jeff Jones. Jones was replaced by Geddy Lee a month later, and Rutsey was replaced by Neil Peart in 1974, after which the lineup remained unchanged until the band's dissolution in 2018. Lifeson was the only member of Rush who stayed in the band throughout its entire existence, and he and Lee were the only members to appear on all of the ...
Go to Profile#16526
Carel van Schaik
#16537
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Carolus Philippus "Carel" van Schaik is a Dutch primatologist who since 2004 is professor and director of the Anthropological Institute and Museum at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. Van Schaik studied biology at the University of Utrecht, graduating in 1979. He was a researcher for the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research until 1984 and finished his doctoral dissertation for the Utrecht University in 1985. After positions at this university and at Princeton University, he became Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University in Durham in 1989.
Go to Profile#16527
Vincent Blondel
#16538
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Vincent Daniel Blondel is a Belgian professor of applied mathematics and current rector of the University of Louvain and a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Blondel's research lies in the area of mathematical control theory and theoretical computer science. He is mostly known for his contributions in computational complexity in control, multi-agent coordination and complex networks.
Go to Profile#16528
Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan
#16539
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan is an Indian-American scientist. He is currently the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Physics at Harvard University. His work centers around understanding the organization of matter in space and time . Mahadevan is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow.
Go to Profile#16529
Stuart M. Kaminsky
#16540
Overall Influence
1934 - 2009 (75 years)
Stuart M. Kaminsky was an American mystery writer and film professor. He is known for three long-running series of mystery novels featuring the protagonists Toby Peters, a private detective in 1940s Hollywood ; Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, a Moscow police inspector ; and veteran Chicago police officer Abe Lieberman . There is also a fourth series featuring a Sarasota, Florida, process server named Lew Fonesca .
Go to Profile#16530
Danny Glover
#16541
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Danny Lebern Glover is an American actor, producer and political activist. Glover is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series. He also had leading roles in The Color Purple, To Sleep with Anger, Predator 2, Angels in the Outfield and Operation Dumbo Drop, and had prominent supporting roles in Silverado, Witness, A Rage in Harlem, Dreamgirls, Shooter, Death at a Funeral, Beyond the Lights, Saw, 2012, Sorry to Bother You, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Dead Don't Die, Lonesome Dove and Jumanji: The Next Level.
Go to Profile#16531
Annette Karmiloff-Smith
#16542
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Annette Karmiloff-Smith CBE FBA FMedSci was a professorial research fellow at the Developmental Neurocognition Lab at Birkbeck, University of London. Before moving to Birbeck, she was Head of the Neurocognitive Development Unit at Institute of Child Health, University College, London. She was an expert in developmental disorders, with a particular interest in Williams syndrome.
Go to Profile#16532
Frans van Vught
#16543
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Franciscus Adrianus van Vught is a Dutch social scientist and Professor of Higher Education Policy at the University of Twente, known for his work on the theory of higher education innovation, higher education policy and relationship between government and higher education.
Go to Profile#16533
Ted Kennedy
#16544
Overall Influence
1932 - 2009 (77 years)
Edward Moore Kennedy was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party and the prominent political Kennedy family, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died. He is ranked fifth in United States history for length of continuous service as a senator. Kennedy was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy. He was the father of U.S. representative Patrick J. Kennedy.
Go to Profile#16534
Mahmoud Behzad
#16545
Overall Influence
1913 - 2007 (94 years)
Professor Mahmoud Behzad , born in Rasht, the capital city of Gilan province, is known as the father of modern biology in Iran. He wrote more than 100 books in Persian and participated in the authorship of more than 200 books in Iran.
Go to Profile#16535
Bill Davis
#16546
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
William Grenville Davis, was a Canadian politician who served as the 18th premier of Ontario from 1971 to 1985. Behind Oliver Mowat, Davis was the second-longest serving premier of Ontario. Born in Toronto, Davis was a lawyer before being elected as a Progressive Conservative member of provincial Parliament for Peel in the 1959 provincial election. He was a backbencher in the Conservative caucus until 1962, when he was appointed minister of education under John Robarts. During this period, Davis created the community college system and the educational television network now known as TVO.
Go to Profile#16536
Linda Arrigo
#16547
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Linda Gail Arrigo is an American political activist, human rights activist, and academic researcher in Taiwan. She formerly served as the international affairs officer of Green Party Taiwan. Early life and education Born in the United States to Joseph and Nellie Arrigo, she went to Taiwan as a teenager in 1963 with her father, formerly a United States Army logistics officer who was assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Taiwan. Arrigo attended Taipei American School and after graduating as valedictorian in 1966, eloped with her Taiwanese-American husband, George Chen, to the U.S.
Go to Profile#16537
Malcolm Ross
#16548
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Malcolm David Ross is an Australian linguist. He is the emeritus professor of linguistics at the Australian National University. Ross is best known among linguists for his work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact . He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1996.
Go to Profile#16539
Arnold Fruchtenbaum
#16550
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Arnold Fruchtenbaum is an evangelist and theologian who founded Ariel Ministries, a Messianic Judaic organization dedicated to promoting the idea that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah. Fruchtenbaum was born in Siberia on September 26, 1943. Due to wartime circumstances he and his family were forced to immigrate through Poland, Czechoslovakia, and West Germany before ending up in the United States. After settling in New York at age 13 and being heavily influenced by a Lutheran minister and Chosen People Ministries, Fruchtenbaum became a Messianic Jew. Fruchtenbaum studied at Cerdarville College where he earned a Bachelor of Art in Hebrew and Greek.
Go to Profile#16540
France Winddance Twine
#16551
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist, and documentary filmmaker. Twine has conducted field research in Brazil, the UK, and the United States on race, racism, and anti-racism. She has published 11 books and more than 100 articles, review essays, and books on these topics.
Go to Profile#16541
E. F. K. Koerner
#16552
Overall Influence
1939 - 2022 (83 years)
Ernst Frideryk Konrad Koerner was a German author, researcher, professor of linguistics, and historian of linguistics. Early life and education Koerner was born on the family manor in Mlewiec, near Toruń, at the time of his birth located in the Polish Corridor. The town was previously known as Hofleben bei Thorn, Marienwerder, West Prussia, Germany. He was the second son of the economist Johann Jakob Friedrich Koerner and his wife Annelise, née Koerner . He has two well-known great grandfathers; one was the Lord Mayor of Thorn 1842–1871, Theodor Eduard Koerner , the other the Berlin oriental...
Go to Profile#16542
Tania Singer
#16553
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Tania Singer is a German psychologist and social neuroscientist and the scientific director of the Max Planck Society's Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin, Germany. Between 2007 and 2010, she became the inaugural chair of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics at the University of Zurich and was the co-director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research in Zurich. Her research focuses on the developmental, neuronal, and hormonal mechanisms underlying human social behavior and social emotions such as compassion and empathy. She is founder and principal investigator of the ReSource...
Go to Profile#16543
Eiichi Goto
#16554
Overall Influence
1931 - 2005 (74 years)
Eiichi Goto was a Japanese computer scientist, the builder of one of the first general-purpose computers in Japan. Biography Goto was born on January 26, 1931, in Shibuya, Tokyo. After attending Seikei High School he went to Tokyo University, where he graduated in 1953. He continued his graduate studies at Tokyo in physics under the supervision of Hidetoshi Takahashi, earning his doctorate in 1962. He became a faculty member at Tokyo in 1959. In 1968, he became the chief scientist of the Information Science Laboratory at RIKEN, a position he held until 1991. However, he continued to hold a position at Tokyo University as well, becoming a full professor there in 1970.
Go to Profile#16544
James C. Wang
#16555
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
James C. Wang is Chinese-born American biochemist and biologist. He is a Harvard University Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. Wang was the first discoverer of topoisomerases. He was elected as an academician of the Taiwan Academia Sinica in 1982 and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#16545
Nidhal Guessoum
#16556
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Nidhal Guessoum is an Algerian astrophysicist. He is a professor at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. His research interests range from gamma-ray astrophysics, such as positron-electron annihilation, nuclear gamma-ray lines, and gamma-ray bursts, to Islamic astronomy, i.e. crescent visibility, Islamic calendar, and prayer times at high latitudes, problems that have yet to be fully resolved. He has published a number of technical works and lectured internationally at many renowned universities .
Go to Profile#16546
Denis Healey
#16557
Overall Influence
1917 - 2015 (98 years)
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey, was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the longest-serving Defence Secretary to date. He was a Member of Parliament from 1952 to 1992, and was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983. To the public at large, Healey became well known for his bushy eyebrows, his avuncular manner and his creative turns of phrase.
Go to Profile#16547
Wolfgang Fikentscher
#16558
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Wolfgang Fikentscher was a German jurist and legal anthropologist. Life Fikentscher was born in Nuremberg, Germany. He earned his Dr. juris and S.J.D. at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich/Germany. His professional career began as assistant in the law department of Wackerchemie , at that time under Allied IG Farben control, and as teacher of labor law at trade union schools . In 1952, he received the degree of LL.M at University of Michigan Law School In 1957, he was appointed full professor at University of Münster School of Law. In 1965, he went to University of Tübingen and in 1971 ...
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Richard Werner
#16559
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Richard Andreas Werner is a German banking and development economist who is a university professor at University of Winchester. He has proposed the "Quantity Theory of Credit", or "Quantity Theory of Disaggregated Credit", which disaggregates credit creation that are used for the real economy , on the one hand, and financial transactions, on the other hand. In 1995, he proposed a new monetary policy to swiftly deal with banking crises, which he called 'Quantitative Easing', and it was published in the Nikkei. He also first used the expression "QE2" in public to refer to the need to implement 'true quantitative easing' as an expansion in credit creation.
Go to Profile#16549
Lucy Mangan
#16560
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Lucy Katherine Mangan is a British journalist and author. She is a columnist, features writer and TV critic for The Guardian and an opinion writer for i news. A major part of her writing is related to feminism.
Go to Profile#16550
Neo Rauch
#16561
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Neo Rauch is a German artist whose paintings mine the intersection of his personal history with the politics of industrial alienation. His work reflects the influence of socialist realism, and owes a debt to Surrealists Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, although Rauch hesitates to align himself with surrealism. He studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig, and he lives in Markkleeberg near Leipzig, Germany and works as the principal artist of the New Leipzig School. The artist is represented by Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin and David Zwirner, New York.
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