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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people
#17501
Tali Sharot
#17512
Overall Influence
Tali Sharot is an Israeli/British/American neuroscientist and professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT. Sharot began studying at Tel Aviv University, receiving a B.A. in economics in 1999, and an M.A. in psychology from New York University in 2002. She received her Ph.D in psychology and neuroscience from New York University. Sharot is known for her research on the neural basis of emotion, decision making and optimism. Sharot hopes to better understand these processes to enhance overall well-being.
Go to Profile#17502
Barry Mehler
#17513
Overall Influence
Barry Alan Mehler is an American social researcher. He was a professor of humanities at Ferris State University, who founded the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism . He earned his B.A. from Yeshiva University in 1970, his M.A. from City College of New York in 1972, and his Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988. His dissertation was entitled, "A history of the American Eugenics Society, 1921-1940."
Go to Profile#17503
Michael Baum
#17514
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Michael Baum , Professor Emeritus of Surgery and visiting Professor of Medical Humanities in University College London , is a British surgical oncologist who specialises in breast cancer treatment. He is also known for his contributions to the evaluation and support of patient quality of life. He has been Professor of Surgery in King's College London, the Royal Marsden Hospital and UCL. He is a notable critic of alternative medicine.
Go to Profile#17504
Birch Bayh
#17515
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Birch Evans Bayh Jr. was an American Democratic Party politician who served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981. He was first elected to office in 1954, when he won election to the Indiana House of Representatives; in 1958, he was elected Speaker, the youngest person to hold that office in the state's history. In 1962, he ran for the U.S. Senate, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Homer E. Capehart. Shortly after entering the Senate, he became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, and in that role authored two constitutional amendments: the Twenty-fifth—wh...
Go to Profile#17505
James Garbarino
#17516
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
James Garbarino is an author and professor at Loyola University Chicago. He has specialized in studying what causes violence in children, how they cope with it and how to rehabilitate them. Garbarino has served as consultant or adviser to a wide range of organizations, including the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, the National Institute for Mental Health, the American Medical Association, the National Black Child Development Institute, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the FBI. In addition, Garbarino's work is associated with th...
Go to Profile#17506
Mahmoud Amin El Alem
#17517
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
Mahmoud Amin El Alem was an award-winning Egyptian cultural critic and leading Marxist theorist. He was a leading public intellectual in Egypt in his day. El Alem was also the head of the administrative board of Akhbar el-Yom and editor of several newspapers and magazines, including Rose al-Yūsuf, ar-Risala al-gadida, Magallat al-musawwir, and Qadaya fikriyya.
Go to Profile#17507
Ahmed Ben Bella
#17518
Overall Influence
1916 - 2012 (96 years)
Ahmed Ben Bella was an Algerian politician, soldier and socialist revolutionary who served as the head of government of Algeria from 27 September 1962 to 15 September 1963 and then the first president of Algeria from 15 September 1963 to 19 June 1965.
Go to Profile#17508
Andrew D. Martin
#17519
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Andrew D. Martin is chancellor and professor of political science and law at Washington University in St. Louis. As an academic, Martin has contributed widely to the areas of judicial politics, quantitative political methodology, and applied statistics, with attention paid specifically to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Go to Profile#17509
Barbara F. Walter
#17520
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Barbara F. Walter is an American political scientist who is the Rohr Professor of International affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on civil wars, violent extremism and domestic terrorism. Walter is the author of numerous books and articles on these subjects. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and PBS, and has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Time, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs. Walter has consulted for the World Bank, the Departments of Defense and State, the United Nations, and the January 6th Committee.
Go to Profile#17510
Marvin Manheim
#17521
Overall Influence
#17511
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun
#17522
Overall Influence
1926 - 2003 (77 years)
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was an American academic at Columbia University, the first woman to receive tenure in the English department, and a prolific feminist author of academic studies. In addition, beginning in the 1960s, she published numerous popular mystery novels with a woman protagonist, under the pen name of Amanda Cross. These have been translated into numerous languages and in total sold nearly one million copies worldwide.
Go to Profile#17512
Massimo Marchiori
#17523
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Massimo Marchiori is an Italian mathematician and computer scientist. Biography In July, 2004, he was awarded the TR35 prize by Technology Review . He is Professor in Computer Science at the University of Padua, and Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the World Wide Web Consortium.
Go to Profile#17513
Gerhard J. Woeginger
#17524
Overall Influence
1964 - 2022 (58 years)
Gerhard J. Woeginger was an Austrian mathematician and computer scientist who worked in Germany as a professor at RWTH Aachen University, where he chaired the algorithms and complexity group in the department of computer science.
Go to Profile#17514
Boris Grushin
#17525
Overall Influence
1929 - 2007 (78 years)
Boris Andreevich Grushin was a well-known Soviet and Russian philosopher, sociologist and historical and sociological scientist. He is generally seen as the pioneer of public opinion polling in the Soviet Union more than thirty years before its breakup. Prominent American novelist Olga Grushin is his daughter.
Go to Profile#17515
Kari Enqvist
#17526
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Kari-Pekka Enqvist is a professor of cosmology in the Department of Physical Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Enqvist was awarded his PhD in theoretical physics in 1983. Enqvist is the chairman of the scientific advisory board of Skepsis ry and has written many books that popularize physics.
Go to Profile#17516
John W. Miles
#17527
Overall Influence
1920 - 2008 (88 years)
John Wilder Miles was a research professor emeritus of applied mechanics and geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He was well regarded for his pioneering work in theoretical fluid mechanics, and made fundamental contributions to understanding how wind energy transfers to waves.
Go to Profile#17517
Harold Pollack
#17528
Overall Influence
Harold Pollack is an American professor at the University of Chicago who has been appointed to two Institute of Medicine committees. His research has focused on public health and health policy. At the University of Chicago, he has chaired the Center for Health Administration Studies. A special correspondent for the New Republic during 2009 and 2010, he writes frequently about public policy for a variety of national publications. Pollack is a frequent contributor to Healthinsurance.org, where he has conducted interviews with other prominent health policy bloggers, including Jonathan Cohn. He i...
Go to Profile#17518
Bruce Bolt
#17529
Overall Influence
1930 - 2005 (75 years)
Bruce Alan Bolt was an Australian-born American seismologist and a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Bolt was known as a pioneer of engineering seismology. He served for 15 years on the California Seismic Safety Commission leading public debate on earthquake safety in that state, and acted as a consultant on major projects throughout the world. As well, Bolt published a number of popular and technical books on seismology.
Go to Profile#17519
Helene Ahrweiler
#17530
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler FBA is a Greek-French academic Byzantinologist. She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Greece. In the 2008 show Great Greeks, she was named amongst the 100 greatest Greeks of all time.
Go to Profile#17520
Daniel Dombrowski
#17531
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Daniel A. Dombrowski is an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at Seattle University. Since 2009 he has served as Editor of the journal Process Studies, and is a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America .
Go to Profile#17521
Maurice Cranston
#17532
Overall Influence
1920 - 1993 (73 years)
Maurice William Cranston was a British philosopher, professor and author. He served for many years as Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, and was also known for his popular publications. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was Professor of Political Theory at the European University Institute in Florence .
Go to Profile#17522
Welshman Ncube
#17533
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Welshman Ncube is a Zimbabwean lawyer, businessman and politician. He is the founding MDC leader and former President of Zimbabwean political party Movement for Democratic Change – Ncube. He currently serves within the Citizen Coalition for Change . He is a practicing lawyer in the firm Mathonsi Ncube Law Chambers, where he is the senior partner at their Bulawayo offices. He also runs a number of business ventures, including a farm in the Midlands Province.
Go to Profile#17523
Min Enze
#17534
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Min Enze was a Chinese chemical engineer and chemist. He was an expert in petrochemical catalysis, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering . Biography Min was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. He graduated from National Central University in 1946, majoring in chemical engineering.
Go to Profile#17524
Moshe Zakai
#17535
Overall Influence
1926 - 2015 (89 years)
Moshe Zakai was a Distinguished Professor at the Technion, Israel in electrical engineering, member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Rothschild Prize winner. Biography Moshe Zakai was born in Sokółka, Poland, to his parents Rachel and Eliezer Zakheim with whom he immigrated to Israel in 1936. He got the BSc degree in electrical engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1951. He joined the scientific department of the Defense Minister of Israel, where he was assigned to research and development of radar systems. From 1956 to 1958, he did graduate wor...
Go to Profile#17525
Tim Brando
#17536
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Tim Brando is an American sportscaster with Fox Sports. Formerly with CBS Sports, Raycom Sports, ESPN and SiriusXM, Brando has primarily covered NCAA football, basketball and the NBA. Along with radio duties, Brando has also served as a studio host for games, a play-by-play announcer, and halftime host.
Go to Profile#17526
Dave Gibbons
#17537
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
David Chester Gibbons is an English comics artist, writer and sometimes letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries Watchmen and the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything". He was an artist for 2000 AD, for which he contributed a large body of work from its first issue in 1977.
Go to Profile#17527
Jean-Louis Bruguès
#17538
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Jean-Louis Bruguès, OP is a French archbishop of the Catholic Church. He was the Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church from 2012 to 2018. Biography Bruguès was born at Bagnères de Bigorre, in the diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes. He studied at the Faculty of Law of Montpellier and the Faculty of Arts of Madrid , graduating with Law and Economics degrees. He graduated from the School of Political Science in 1966 with a degree in Political Science. He was selected for the entrance exam to the elite École nationale d'administration, but instead completed a doctorate in theology.
Go to Profile#17528
Daniil Medvedev
#17539
Overall Influence
1996 - Present (30 years)
Daniil Sergeyevich Medvedev is a Russian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals, holding the ranking for a total of 16 weeks. Currently ranked world No. 3 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals , Medvedev has won 20 ATP Tour singles titles, including the 2021 US Open and 2020 ATP Finals. In the former, Medvedev defeated then-world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the final to deny him the Grand Slam. In the latter, he became the first and only player to defeat the top three ranked players in the world en route to the year-end championship title.
Go to Profile#17529
S. David Wu
#17540
Overall Influence
Szu-yung David Wu is a Taiwanese-American educator who is the President of Baruch College of the City University of New York since 2020. He is the first Asian-American appointed to this position at a CUNY college. Previously he held the position of Provost and Executive Vice President of George Mason University.
Go to Profile#17530
William Opdyke
#17541
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
William F. "Bill" Opdyke is an American computer scientist and enterprise architect at JPMorgan Chase, known for his early work on code refactoring. Education Opdyke received a B.S. from Drexel University in 1979, an M.S. from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1982, and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1992 under the supervision of Ralph Johnson. His Ph.D. thesis, Refactoring Object-Oriented Frameworks, was the first in-depth study of code refactoring as a software engineering technique.
Go to Profile#17531
Raymond Klibansky
#17542
Overall Influence
1905 - 2005 (100 years)
Raymond Klibansky, was a German-Canadian historian of philosophy and art. Biography Born in Paris, to Rosa Scheidt and Hermann Klibansky, he was educated at the University of Kiel, University of Hamburg and Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, where he received a Ph.D. in 1928. From 1927 to 1933 he was an assistant at the Heidelberg Academy and from 1931 until 1933 he was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. In 1933 he was no longer able to teach since he was a Jew.
Go to Profile#17532
Luc Steels
#17543
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Luc Steels is a Belgian scientist and artist. Steels is considered a pioneer of Artificial Intelligence in Europe who has made contributions to expert systems, behavior-based robotics, artificial life and evolutionary computational linguistics. He was a fellow of the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies ICREA associated as a research professor with the Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. He was formerly founding Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and founding director of the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris.
Go to Profile#17533
Stephen C. Harrison
#17544
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Stephen C. Harrison is professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, professor of pediatrics, and director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics of Harvard Medical School, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Go to Profile#17534
Richard P. Turco
#17545
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Richard Peter "Rich" Turco is an American atmospheric scientist, and Professor at the Institute of the Environment, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles. He won an award in 1986, from MacArthur Fellows Program.
Go to Profile#17535
Marie Howe
#17546
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Marie Howe is an American poet. Her most recent poetry collection is Magdalene . In August 2012 she was named the State Poet for New York. Early life Howe is the second eldest of nine children. She attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Rochester and earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Windsor.
Go to Profile#17536
Gary Russell
#17547
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gary Russell is a British freelance writer, producer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media. As an actor, he is best known for playing Dick Kirrin in the British 1978 television series The Famous Five.
Go to Profile#17537
William J. Richardson
#17548
Overall Influence
1920 - 2016 (96 years)
William John Richardson, S.J. was an American philosopher, who was among the first to write a comprehensive study of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, featuring an important preface by Heidegger himself. In addition to his specialization in Heidegger, Richardson was also, as a trained psychoanalyst, a specialist in the thought of Jacques Lacan. He was a Jesuit priest . He taught philosophy at Fordham University and, beginning in 1981, at Boston College, where he was, at the time of his death, emeritus professor of philosophy. He died in December 2016 in Weston, Massachusetts at the age of 9...
Go to Profile#17538
Ed Stetzer
#17549
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Edward John Stetzer is an American author, speaker, researcher, pastor, church planter, and Christian missiologist. Stetzer is Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He is the North American Regional Director for Lausanne International. He is a contributor to the North American discussion on missional church, church planting, church revitalization, and Christian cultural engagement.
Go to Profile#17539
Bernard Spolsky
#17550
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Bernard Spolsky was a professor emeritus in linguistics at Bar-Ilan University , specializing in sociolinguistics, educational linguistics, and applied linguistics. Spolsky did his studies at Wellington College and Victoria University. He received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Montreal.
Go to Profile#17540
William Least Heat-Moon
#17551
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
William Least Heat-Moon is an American travel writer and historian of English, Irish, and alleged Osage ancestry. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, including cross-country trips by boat and, in his best known work , about his journey in a 1975 Ford Econoline van.
Go to Profile#17541
Duncan Pritchard
#17552
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Duncan Pritchard is the chancellor's professor of philosophy and the director of graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine. He was previously professor of philosophy and chair in epistemology at the University of Edinburgh. His research is mainly in the field of epistemology. He has studied the problem of scepticism, the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction; the rationality of religious belief; testimony; the relationship between epistemic and content externalism; virtue epistemology; epistemic value; modal epistemology; Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology; the history ...
Go to Profile#17542
Deontay Wilder
#17553
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Deontay Leshun Wilder is an American professional boxer. He held the WBC heavyweight title from 2015 to 2020, making 10 successful defenses. By winning the title, Wilder became the first American world heavyweight champion since 2007, which was the longest period of time in boxing history without an American heavyweight champion. As of April 2023, he is ranked as the world's third-best active heavyweight by The Ring magazine, ESPN and the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and fifth by BoxRec.
Go to Profile#17543
Ann Goldstein
#17554
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ann Goldstein is an American editor and translator from the Italian language. She is best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet. She was the panel chair for translated fiction at the US National Book Award in 2022. She was awarded the PEN Renato Poggioli prize in 1994 and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2008.
Go to Profile#17544
Stan Rice
#17555
Overall Influence
1942 - 2002 (60 years)
Stanley Travis Rice Jr. was an American poet and artist. He was the husband of author Anne Rice. Biography Rice was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1942. He met his future wife Anne O'Brien in high school. They briefly attended North Texas State University together, before marrying in 1961 and moving to San Francisco in 1962, to enroll at San Francisco State University, where they both earned their bachelor's and master's degrees. Rice was a professor of English and Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. In 1977, he received the Academy of American Poets' Edgar Allan Poe Award for Whit...
Go to Profile#17545
David Maier
#17556
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
David Maier is the Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technologies in the Department of Computer Science at Portland State University. Born in Eugene, OR, he has also been a computer science faculty member at the State University of New York at Stony Brook , Oregon Graduate Center , University of Wisconsin , Oregon Health & Science University and National University of Singapore . He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University .
Go to Profile#17546
Bob Bradley
#17557
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Robert Frank Bradley is an American soccer coach who is currently manager of Norwegian club Stabæk. A native of New Jersey and graduate of Princeton University, Bradley coached in the American college game and Major League Soccer , managing the Chicago Fire, MetroStars, and Chivas USA over nine seasons. In 2006, he was appointed manager of the United States men's team, winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2007 and finishing runner-up in 2009 and 2011 as well as in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. His team also reached the last 16 of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He then managed Egypt.
Go to Profile#17547
Azizah Y. al-Hibri
#17558
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Azizah Y. al-Hibri is an American philosopher and legal scholar who specializes in Islam and law. Biography Al-Hibri is professor emerita at the T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond. She is a former professor of philosophy, founding editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, and founder and president of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. A Fulbright scholar, she has written extensively about Islam and democracy, Muslim women's rights, and human rights in Islam. She was an adviser to the PBS documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet , produced by Unity Pr...
Go to Profile#17548
Larry E. Overman
#17559
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#17549
Fahrettin Altun
#17560
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Fahrettin Altun is a Тurkish politician, researcher, academic, member of the Justice and Development Party and head of media and communications in the Turkish presidency. Education and early life Altun studied Istanbul University Department of Sociology, graduating in 1998. He then studied at Mimar Sinan University and received his PhD from Istanbul University in 2006. His doctoral thesis was titled “A Comparative Analysis of Media Theories of McLuhan and Baudrillard”. Besides he has been involved in the Turkish government think tank Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research .
Go to Profile#17550
John Key
#17561
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Sir John Phillip Key is a New Zealand retired politician who served as the 38th prime minister of New Zealand from 2008 to 2016 and as leader of the New Zealand National Party from 2006 to 2016. After resigning from both posts in December 2016 and leaving politics, Key was appointed to the board of directors and role of chairman in several New Zealand corporations.
Go to Profile