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
#17701
John Fogerty
#17712
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Cameron Fogerty is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty, he founded the band Creedence Clearwater Revival , for which he was the lead singer, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter. CCR had nine top-10 singles and eight gold albums between 1968 and 1972, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Go to Profile#17702
Shirley Geok-lin Lim
#17713
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Shirley Geok-lin Lim is an American writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. She was both the first woman and the first Asian person to be awarded Commonwealth Poetry Prize for her first poetry collection, Crossing The Peninsula, which she published in 1980. In 1997, she received the American Book Award for her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces.
Go to Profile#17703
Erwin J. Haeberle
#17714
Overall Influence
1936 - 2021 (85 years)
Erwin J. Haeberle was a German social scientist and sexologist. Biography Haeberle was born on 30 March 1936 in Dortmund, Germany and died in Freiburg, Germany. From 1956 to 1963 he studied drama, German, English literature, and French literature at the University of Cologne, University of Freiburg, University of Glasgow, and University of Heidelberg. He received a M.A. in 1964 from Cornell and a Ph.D. in 1966 from Heidelberg. Haeberle was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and U.C. Berkeley from 1966–1972. He earned an Ed. D. in sexology from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in 1977, where he was a professor from 1977–1988.
Go to Profile#17704
Tom Coughlin
#17715
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Thomas Richard Coughlin is an American former football coach and executive. He was the head coach for the New York Giants from 2004 to 2015. He led the Giants to victory in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, both times against the New England Patriots. Coughlin was also the inaugural head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, serving from 1995 to 2002 and leading the team to two AFC Championship Game appearances. Prior to his head coaching career in the NFL, he was head coach of the Boston College Eagles football team from 1991 to 1993, and served in a variety of coaching positions in the NFL ...
Go to Profile#17705
Marlene van Niekerk
#17716
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Marlene van Niekerk is a South African poet, writer, and academic. She is best known for her novels, the satirical tragicomedy Triomf and the Hertzog-winning Agaat , which explore themes including the family, the change in power dynamics occasioned by the end of Apartheid, and inequalities of race, gender, and class. Van Niekerk is also an award-winning poet. She writes in her native tongue, Afrikaans, and teaches at Stellenbosch University.
Go to Profile#17706
Andris Ambainis
#17717
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Andris Ambainis is a Latvian computer scientist active in the fields of quantum information theory and quantum computing. Education and career Ambainis has held past positions at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey and the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. He is currently a professor in the Faculty of Computing at the University of Latvia.
Go to Profile#17707
Mehdi Bazargan
#17718
Overall Influence
1907 - 1995 (88 years)
Mehdi Bazargan was an Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government. One of the leading figures of Iranian Revolution of 1979, he was appointed prime minister in February 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, making him Iran's first prime minister after the revolution. He resigned his position in November of the same year, in protest at the US Embassy takeover and as an acknowledgement of his government's failure in preventing it.
Go to Profile#17708
Ernst B. Haas
#17719
Overall Influence
1924 - 2003 (79 years)
Ernst Bernard Haas was an American political scientist who made numerous contributions to theoretical discussions in the field of international relations. He was a leading authority on international relations theory, and was the founder of neofunctionalism.
Go to Profile#17709
John Howard Yoder
#17720
Overall Influence
1927 - 1997 (70 years)
John Howard Yoder was an American Mennonite theologian and ethicist best known for his defense of Christian pacifism. His most influential book was The Politics of Jesus, which was first published in 1972. Yoder was a Mennonite and wrote from an Anabaptist perspective. He spent the latter part of his career teaching at the University of Notre Dame.
Go to Profile#17710
Fred L. Smith
#17721
Overall Influence
Fred L. Smith Jr. is founder and former president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit libertarian think tank. He has written on topics such as antitrust law, environmental regulation, and the economic impacts of global warming.
Go to Profile#17711
Olaf Sporns
#17722
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Olaf Sporns is Provost Professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and scientific co-director of the university's Network Science Institute. He is the founding editor of the academic journal Network Neuroscience, published by MIT Press.
Go to Profile#17712
Kumble R. Subbaswamy
#17723
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kumble R. Subbaswamy was the 11th chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has been appointed as Interim Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs and Equity, serving the five-campus University of Massachusetts system. He formerly served as the provost of University of Kentucky.
Go to Profile#17713
David Masser
#17724
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David William Masser is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Basel. He is known for his work in transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation, and Diophantine geometry. With Joseph Oesterlé in 1985, Masser formulated the abc conjecture, which has been called "the most important unsolved problem in Diophantine analysis".
Go to Profile#17714
Kazuo Shinohara
#17725
Overall Influence
1925 - 2006 (81 years)
Kazuo Shinohara was a Japanese architect, forming what is now widely known as the "Shinohara School", which has been linked to the works of Toyo Ito, Kazunari Sakamoto and Itsuko Hasegawa. As architectural critic Thomas Daniell put it, "A key figure who explicitly rejected Western influences yet appears on almost every branch of the family tree of contemporary Japanese architecture... is Kazuo Shinohara... His effects on the discipline as a theorist, designer and teacher have been immense." He studied at Tokyo Institute of Technology, finishing in 1953, and going on to become professor in 1970.
Go to Profile#17715
Cristian S. Calude
#17726
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Cristian Sorin Calude is a Romanian-New Zealander mathematician and computer scientist. Biography After graduating from the Vasile Alecsandri National College in Galați, he studied at the University of Bucharest, where he was student of Grigore C. Moisil and Solomon Marcus. Calude received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Bucharest under the direction of Solomon Marcus in 1977.
Go to Profile#17716
Giorgio Chiellini
#17727
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Giorgio Chiellini is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Major League Soccer club Los Angeles FC. Considered one of the best defenders of his generation, Chiellini is known for his strength, aggressiveness and man-marking, as well as his ability to play in either a three or four-man defense. He has also played as a left-back earlier in his career.
Go to Profile#17717
George Radda
#17728
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Sir George Charles Radda is a Hungarian - British chemist. In 1957, he attended Merton College, Oxford, to study chemistry, having set aside an earlier interest in literary criticism. His early work was concerned with the development and use of fluorescent probes for the study of structure and function of membranes and enzymes. He became interested in using spectroscopic methods including nuclear magnetic resonance to study complex biological material. In 1974, his research paper was the first to introduce the use of NMR to study tissue metabolites. In 1981, he and his colleagues published the first scientific report on the clinical application of his work.
Go to Profile#17718
Clayton Heathcock
#17729
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Clayton Heathcock is an organic chemist, professor of chemistry, and dean of the college of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Heathcock is well known for his accomplishments in the synthesis of complex polycyclic natural products and for his contributions to the chemistry community. In 1995 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#17719
Joseph Oesterlé
#17730
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Joseph Oesterlé is a French mathematician who, along with David Masser, formulated the abc conjecture which has been called "the most important unsolved problem in diophantine analysis". He is a member of Bourbaki.
Go to Profile#17720
Kelly Link
#17731
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Kelly Link is an American editor and author of short stories. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism. Among other honors, she has won a Hugo award, three Nebula awards, and a World Fantasy Award for her fiction, and she was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
Go to Profile#17721
Christopher Chase-Dunn
#17732
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Christopher K. Chase-Dunn is an American sociologist best known for his contributions to world-systems theory. Education and career Chase-Dunn earned his PhD in 1975 at Stanford University and has taught at The Johns Hopkins University and at the University of California, Riverside . He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served as President of Research Committee 02 of the International Sociological Association from 2002 to 2006. He was chair of the Section on International Political Economy of the International Studies Association from 1984 to 1986,...
Go to Profile#17722
Harry J. Lipkin
#17733
Overall Influence
1921 - 2015 (94 years)
Harry Jeannot Lipkin , also known as Zvi Lipkin, was an Israeli theoretical physicist specializing in nuclear physics and elementary particle physics. He is a recipient of the prestigious Wigner Medal.
Go to Profile#17723
Denis Buican
#17734
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Denis Buican is a Romanian-French scientist, bilingual writer, biologist, philosopher and a historian of science. He has studied genetics. Background His father Dumitru Peligrad a boyar and philanthropist was placed under house arrest after the invasion of Romania by the Red Army , but he refused to submit to regular police checks. Although belonging to a class deemed "unhealthy" by the then communist regime, the young researcher was a brilliant undergraduate at the University of Bucharest.
Go to Profile#17724
Anne Buttimer
#17735
Overall Influence
1938 - 2017 (79 years)
Anne Buttimer was an Irish geographer. She was emeritus professor of geography at University College, Dublin. Background Buttimer grew up in Ireland with strong Catholic convictions. She studied at University College Cork and the National University of Ireland . After this, she joined the Dominican Order and moved to Seattle. She remained in the order for 17 years.
Go to Profile#17725
Henri Guaino
#17736
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Henri Guaino is a French speechwriter and politician who served as the member of the National Assembly for the 3rd constituency of Yvelines from 2012 to 2017. A member of The Republicans , he previously was a special advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 until his retirement from politics following the 2012 election.
Go to Profile#17726
John David Jackson
#17737
Overall Influence
1925 - 2016 (91 years)
John David Jackson was a Canadian–American physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a faculty senior scientist emeritus at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A theoretical physicist, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, well known for his work in nuclear and particle physics, as well as his widely used graduate text on classical electrodynamics.
Go to Profile#17727
Camille Landais
#17738
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Camille Landais is a French economist who currently works as Professor of economics at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on public finance and labour economics. In 2016, Landais was awarded the Prize of Best Young Economist of France for his research on the relationship between changes in inequality and fiscal and social policy.
Go to Profile#17728
Tony Kushner
#17739
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Anthony Robert Kushner is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage, he is most known for his seminal work Angels in America, which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, as well as its subsequent acclaimed HBO miniseries of the same name. At the turn of the 21st century, he became known for his numerous film collaborations with Steven Spielberg. He received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. Kushner is among the few playwrights in history nominated for an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.
Go to Profile#17729
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
#17740
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano is a civil engineer and prominent social-democrat Mexican politician. The son of 51st President of Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas, he is a former Head of Government of Mexico City and a founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. He ran for the presidency of Mexico three times, and his 1988 loss to the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari had long been considered a direct result of obvious electoral fraud perpetrated by the ruling PRI, later acknowledged by President Miguel de la Madrid. He previously served as a Senator, having be...
Go to Profile#17730
Isaiah Washington
#17741
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Isaiah Washington IV is an American actor and film producer. Following a series of film appearances, he came to prominence for portraying Dr. Preston Burke in the first three seasons of the series Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2007.
Go to Profile#17731
Ronnie O'Sullivan
#17742
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan is an English professional snooker player, and current world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, he has won the World Snooker Championship seven times, a modern-era record he holds jointly with Stephen Hendry. He has also won a record seven Masters and a record seven UK Championship titles for a total of 21 Triple Crown titles, the most achieved by any player. He holds the record for the most ranking titles, with 39, and has held the top ranking position multiple times.
Go to Profile#17732
Azriel Lévy
#17743
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Azriel Lévy is an Israeli mathematician, logician, and a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Lévy obtained his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1958, under the supervision of Abraham Fraenkel and Abraham Robinson. Later, using Cohen's method of forcing, he proved several results on the consistency of various statements contradicting the axiom of choice. For example, with J. D. Halpern he proved that the Boolean prime ideal theorem does not imply the axiom of choice. He discovered the models L[x] used in inner model theory. He also introduced the...
Go to Profile#17733
Louise Fresco
#17744
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Louise Ottilie Fresco is a Dutch scientist and writer known for her work on globally sustainable food production. Career in academia Fresco has been the President of the Wageningen University & Research Executive Board since 1 July 2014. She is a professor at Wageningen University and a corresponding member of Belgium's Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences.
Go to Profile#17734
Anthony F. DePalma
#17745
Overall Influence
1904 - 2005 (101 years)
Anthony F. DePalma was an orthopedic surgeon and professor at Thomas Jefferson University, as well as the founder of the orthopedic department at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. DePalma was a commander in the US Navy during World War II, an author of numerous medical manuscripts and textbooks, and the creator and first editor-in-chief of the medical journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.
Go to Profile#17735
Susan Shirk
#17746
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Susan L. Shirk is an American political scientist and China specialist currently serving as a research professor at UCSD's School of Global Policy and Strategy. Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs of the US State Department from 1997 to 2000 during the Clinton administration.
Go to Profile#17736
Vanilla Ice
#17747
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Robert Matthew Van Winkle , known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, actor, and television host. Born in South Dallas, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Ice released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 on Ichiban Records, before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group, which released a reformatted version of the album in 1990 under the title To the Extreme; which became the fastest-selling hip hop album of all time and contained Ice's best-known hits: "Ice Ice Baby" and a cover of "Play That Funky Music". "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop si...
Go to Profile#17737
Michael Crowley
#17748
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Michael Leland Crowley is an American journalist who is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. Until May 2019, he was White House and national security editor for Politico. From 2010 to 2014, he served as the senior foreign affairs correspondent and deputy Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Time magazine and was senior foreign affairs correspondent for Politico.
Go to Profile#17738
Boudewijn Sirks
#17749
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sirks leads here. For places and people named Sirk, see Sirk Adriaan Johan Boudewijn Sirks , known as Boudewijn Sirks and as A. J. B. Sirks, is a Dutch academic lawyer and legal historian specializing in Roman law. He was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2014.
Go to Profile#17739
Warren Siegel
#17750
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Warren Siegel is a theoretical physicist specializing in supersymmetric quantum field theory and string theory. He was a professor at the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University. He retired in Fall of 2022.
Go to Profile#17740
Chris Amon
#17751
Overall Influence
1943 - 2016 (73 years)
Christopher Arthur Amon was a New Zealand motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One racing in the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely regarded as one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix. His reputation for bad luck was such that fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying". Former Ferrari Technical Director Mauro Forghieri stated that Amon was "by far the best test driver I have ever worked with. He had all the qualities to be a World Champion but bad luck just wouldn't let him be".
Go to Profile#17741
Michel Ragon
#17752
Overall Influence
1924 - 2020 (96 years)
Michel Ragon was a French art and literature critic and writer. His primary focus was on anarchic and libertarian literature. Biography Ragon was born into a poor family on 24 June 1924 in Marseille, but spent much of his childhood in Fontenay-le-Comte. After his father died when he was eight, Ragon moved to Nantes with his mother. Here, he discovered the works of Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jules Verne, Andre Gide, and others. He discovered a passion for arts at the Musée d'Arts de Nantes, as well as classical music at the Théâtre Graslin. In 1943, at age 19, Ragon met the poets of the École de Rochefort, such as Jean Bouhier and René-Guy Cadou, as well as painter James Guitet.
Go to Profile#17742
Lawrence Carra
#17753
Overall Influence
1909 - 2006 (97 years)
Lawrence Carra was an American professor of drama at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director of theater and television as well as a mentor to hundreds of actors and directors.
Go to Profile#17743
Edmund W. Gordon
#17754
Overall Influence
1921 - Present (105 years)
Edmund Wyatt Gordon is a professor of psychology who "had a tremendous influence on contemporary thinking in psychology, education and social policy and the implications of his work for the schooling of lower status youth and children of color in America".
Go to Profile#17744
Donald S. Lopez Jr.
#17755
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Donald Sewell Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished university professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Life Lopez was born in Washington, D.C., and is the son of U.S. Air Force pilot and Smithsonian Institution official Donald Lopez. He was educated at the University of Virginia, receiving a B.A. in Religious Studies in 1974, an M.A. in Buddhist Studies in 1977, and his doctorate in Buddhist Studies in 1982. He is married to another prominent Religious Studies scholar, Tomoko Masuzawa.
Go to Profile#17745
Robbie Williams
#17756
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Robert Peter Williams is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, Life thru a Lens, was released in 1997, and included his signature song "Angels". His second album, I've Been Expecting You, featured the songs "Millennium" and "She's the One", his first number one singles. His discography includes seven UK No. 1 singles, and all but one of his 14 studio albums have reached No. 1 in the UK. Six of his albums are among the top 100 biggest-selling albums in the UK, with two o...
Go to Profile#17746
Robert H. Hewsen
#17757
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Robert H. Hewsen was an Armenian-American historian and professor of history at Rowan University. He was an expert on the ancient history of the South Caucasus. Hewsen is the author of Armenia: A Historical Atlas , a major reference book, acclaimed as an important achievement in Armenian studies.
Go to Profile#17747
Jean Brossel
#17758
Overall Influence
1918 - 2003 (85 years)
Jean Brossel was a French physicist known for his work on quantum optics. He was born and died in Périgueux. Brossel passed the entrance exam for l'École normale supérieure 1938, but then was for two years a soldier. From 1941 to 1945 he studied at the ENS under Alfred Kastler and then went to the group of Samuel Tolansky in Manchester where he spent the years 1945–1948 before moving in 1948 to Francis Bitter at MIT. In 1951 for work done at MIT, Brossel received his PhD in Paris under Kastler with a thesis on the application of double resonance methods to the study of the excited states of Hg.
Go to Profile#17748
Ron Crocombe
#17759
Overall Influence
1929 - 2009 (80 years)
Ronald Gordon Crocombe was a Professor of Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific. His reputation was such that he was described as the "father of Pacific Studies". Biography Ron Crocombe was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and was raised in Piopio in the King Country, before attending Otahuhu College in Auckland. He later completed a degree from Auckland University. Ron went to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands as Clerk of Works for the New Zealand colonial Government's Public Works Department in 1950. In 1957 he became the Resident Agent "Akavanui" or head of local government on the island of Atiu.
Go to Profile#17749
Jason Sorens
#17760
Overall Influence
Jason Sorens is a Senior Research faculty member for the American Institute for Economic Research also known as, AIER. Previously, Sorens served as director of the Center for Ethics in Society at St. Anselm College and prior to his work with St. Anselm, Sorens was a lecturer in the department of government at Dartmouth College. He has been an affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University since 2008. His primary research interests include fiscal federalism, public policy in federal systems, secessionism, and ethnic politics. Sorens received his B.A. in economics and ph...
Go to Profile#17750
Shang-Jin Wei
#17761
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Shang-Jin Wei is the N. T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. At Columbia University, Wei is also affiliated with the School of International and Public Affairs and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. His research covers international finance, trade, macroeconomics, and China, and he writes and speaks frequently in the area of U.S.-China economic integration and other international finance and trade issues.
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