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
#18201
Stephanos Bibas
#18212
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
#18202
Touraj Atabaki
#18213
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Touraj Atabaki is Emeritus Professor by special appointment of Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia at the Leiden University. He was the Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He also held the chair of the Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia at the School of Middle East Studies of Leiden University, and is past president of the Association for Iranian Studies and the European Society for Central Asian Studies.
Go to Profile#18203
John Lithgow
#18214
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and four Grammy Awards. Lithgow has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2005.
Go to Profile#18204
Frank Freidel
#18215
Overall Influence
1916 - 1993 (77 years)
Frank Burt Freidel, Jr. was an American historian, the first major biographer of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and one of the first scholars to work on his papers stored in the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.
Go to Profile#18205
Richard Anuszkiewicz
#18216
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Life and work Anuszkiewicz was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of Victoria and Adam Anuszkiewicz, who worked in a paper mill. His parents were Polish immigrants. He first studied art under Joseph Plavcan while still in high school, later describing him as his most significant influence. Anuszkiewicz trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio , and then with Josef Albers at the Yale University School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut , where he earned his Masters of Fine Arts.
Go to Profile#18206
Joan Acker
#18217
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Joan Elise Robinson Acker was an American sociologist, researcher, writer and educator. She joined the University of Oregon faculty in 1967. Acker is considered one of the leading analysts regarding gender and class within the second wave of feminism.
Go to Profile#18207
Erik Hornung
#18218
Overall Influence
1933 - 2022 (89 years)
Erik Hornung was a Latvian Egyptologist and one of the most influential modern writers on ancient Egyptian religion. He was professor emeritus of Basel University. Biography Hornung was born in Riga, Latvia in 1933 and gained his PhD at the University of Tübingen in 1956. He was Professor of Egyptology at the University of Basel from 1967 to 1998. His main research field has been funerary literature, the Valley of the Kings in particular. He published the first edition of the Book of Amduat in three volumes between 1963 and 1967. J. Gwyn Griffiths described Hornung as the foremost authority in such literature.
Go to Profile#18208
Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani
#18219
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani is an Iranian writer, poet, literary critic, editor, and translator. Kadkani was born in Nishapur, Razavi Khorasan. He is currently professor of literature at Tehran University. Shafiei-Kadkani is known for his works on literary criticism and modern Persian poetry.
Go to Profile#18209
William Messing
#18220
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
William Messing is an American mathematician who works in the field of arithmetic algebraic geometry. Messing received his doctorate in 1971 at Princeton University under the supervisions of Alexander Grothendieck with his thesis entitled The Crystals Associated to Barsotti–Tate Groups: With Applications to Abelian Schemes. In 1972, he was a C.L.E. Moore instructor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a professor at the University of Minnesota .
Go to Profile#18210
William Blair
#18221
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sir William James Lynton Blair is a British retired judge. He was previously a Queen's Counsel at London barristers' chambers 3 Verulam Buildings, specialising in domestic and international banking and finance law. He is the elder brother of Sir Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
Go to Profile#18211
Walter Matthau
#18222
Overall Influence
1920 - 2000 (80 years)
Walter Matthau was an American actor, comedian and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie . He is best known for his film roles in A Face in the Crowd , King Creole , and as a coach of a hapless little league team in the baseball comedy The Bad News Bears . He also starred in 10 films alongside Jack Lemmon, including The Odd Couple , The Front Page , and Grumpy Old Men . Matthau is also known for his performances in Stanley Donen's romance Charade , Fail Safe , Gene Kelly's musical Hello, Dolly! , Elaine May's screwball comedy A New Leaf , and Herbert Ross's ensemble comedy California Suite .
Go to Profile#18212
Wayne G. Hammond
#18223
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Wayne Gordon Hammond is an American scholar known for his research and writings on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Biography Wayne Hammond was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and then raised in Brooklyn, Ohio. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors as an English major at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1975. He gained his Master of Arts degree in Library Science from the University of Michigan in 1976. From August 1976 to June 2015, he was Assistant Librarian of the Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College, and in July 2015 was promoted to Chapin Librarian.
Go to Profile#18213
J. Alex Halderman
#18224
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
J. Alex Halderman is professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, where he is also director of the Center for Computer Security & Society. Halderman's research focuses on computer security and privacy, with an emphasis on problems that broadly impact society and public policy.
Go to Profile#18214
Zhengzhang Shangfang
#18225
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Zhengzhang Shangfang was a Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese. Zhengzhang was born as Zheng Xiangfang in Yongjia County, on the outskirts of Wenzhou. As and have the same pronunciation in the Wenzhou dialect, his personal name became Shangfang . While he was in high school, his parents changed his family name to Zhengzhang , a combination of the parents' surnames .
Go to Profile#18215
Shiv Kumar Sarin
#18226
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Shiv Kumar Sarin is an Indian gastroenterologist, hepatologist, translational scientist, researcher and teacher. He set up the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. He is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and the Padma Bhushan. He served as chairman of the Board of Governors of Medical Council of India. He was the president of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver and founder of Asian Pacific School of Hepatology.
Go to Profile#18216
Mung Chiang
#18227
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
#18217
Anton Corbijn
#18228
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard is a Dutch photographer, film director and music video director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both bands over three decades. Some of his works include music videos for Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" , U2's "One" , Bryan Adams' "Do I Have to Say the Words?", Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" and Coldplay’s "Talk" and "Viva la Vida" , as well as the Ian Curtis biographical film Control , The American , A Most Wanted Man , based on Joh...
Go to Profile#18218
Norman Sartorius
#18229
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Norman Sartorius is a German-Croatian psychiatrist and university professor. Sartorius is a former director of the World Health Organization's Division of Mental Health, and a former president of the World Psychiatric Association and of the European Psychiatric Association. He has been described as "one of the most prominent and influential psychiatrists of his generation" and as "living legend"
Go to Profile#18219
Jock Kinneir
#18230
Overall Influence
1917 - 1994 (77 years)
Richard "Jock" Kinneir was a British typographer and graphic designer who, with his colleague Margaret Calvert, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and British overseas territories. Their system has become a model for modern road signage.
Go to Profile#18220
Jeffrey Arnett
#18231
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Massachusetts. His main research interest is in "emerging adulthood", a term he coined, which refers to the distinct phase between adolescence and young adulthood, occurring from the ages of 18 to 25.
Go to Profile#18221
Akihiko Tanaka
#18232
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Akihiko Tanaka is the current president of Japan International Cooperation Agency since 1 April 2022, succeeding Shinichi Kitaoka. He is a Japanese academic, specializing in theories of international systems, contemporary international relations in East Asia, Japan-US relations, and Japan-China relations. He is also an author, policy adviser, a media commentator, an administrator, and was president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
Go to Profile#18222
Charles M. Lieber
#18233
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#18223
Debra Pepler
#18234
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Debra Pepler is a Canadian psychologist known for her research and advocacy within the field of childhood aggression and bullying. She is currently a distinguished research professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario.
Go to Profile#18224
John Emsley
#18235
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
John Emsley is a UK popular science writer, broadcaster and academic specialising in chemistry. He researched and lectured at King's College London for 25 years, authoring or co-authoring about 100 papers, and then became Science Writer in Residence at Imperial College London in 1990. From 1997 to 2002 he was Science Writer in Residence at the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University, England, during which time he started and wrote the newsletter Chem@Cam. He is the author of more than 12 books and several of them have been translated into other languages.
Go to Profile#18225
Hugo Banzer
#18236
Overall Influence
1926 - 2002 (76 years)
Hugo Banzer Suárez was a Bolivian politician and military officer who served as the 51st president of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from 1971 to 1978 in a military dictatorship; and then again from 1997 to 2001, as a democratically elected president.
Go to Profile#18226
Chandra Shekhar
#18237
Overall Influence
1927 - 2007 (80 years)
Chandra Shekhar was an Indian politician who served as the 8th Prime Minister of India, between 10 November 1990 and 21 June 1991. He headed a minority government of a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal with outside support from the Indian National Congress. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who had never held any prior government office.
Go to Profile#18227
Scot McKnight
#18238
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Scot McKnight is an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, and author who has written widely on the historical Jesus, early Christianity and Christian living. He is currently Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lisle, IL. McKnight is an ordained Anglican deacon and canon theologian for the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others with anabaptist leanings, and has also written frequently on issues in modern anabaptism.
Go to Profile#18228
Tim Whitmarsh
#18239
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Timothy John Guy Whitmarsh, is a British classicist and Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He is best known for his work on the Greek literary culture of the Roman Empire, especially the Second Sophistic and the ancient Greek novel.
Go to Profile#18229
Karl Kordesch
#18240
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
Karl Kordesch was an Austrian chemist and inventor, most notable for jointly inventing the alkaline battery. In 1953 he moved to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. Life Kordesch was born in Vienna. He studied chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna, and earned his doctoral degree in 1948. From 1948–53 he worked at the university's Chemical Institute. He was then recruited as a member of Operation Paperclip and moved to the United States, where from 1953–55 he was head of the Battery Division of the U.S. Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth. In 1955 he joined Union Carbide in Ohio, working with two fellow Austrians.
Go to Profile#18230
Mickey Hart
#18241
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mickey Hart is an American percussionist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 1971, and again from October 1974 until their final show in July 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname "the rhythm devils".
Go to Profile#18231
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
#18242
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Karl-Heinz "Kalle" Rummenigge is a German football executive and former professional player. Considered one of the greatest German footballers, he was also the longtime Chairman of Executive Board of FC Bayern München AG, a daughter company of German Bundesliga team Bayern Munich.
Go to Profile#18232
Rainer Forst
#18243
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Rainer Forst is a German philosopher and political theorist, and was called the "most important political philosopher of his generation" in 2012, when he won the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. Currently he is Professor of Political Theory at the Department for Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt. He is often identified with the newest generation of scholars associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He received his doctorate under the supervision of Jürgen Habermas in 1993, with additional supervision by John Rawls from 1991 to 1992.
Go to Profile#18233
Saroj Khan
#18244
Overall Influence
1948 - 2020 (72 years)
Saroj Khan was an Indian dance choreographer in Hindi cinema. She was born in Bombay State , India. She was best known for the dance form mujra and the first woman choreographer in Bollywood. With a career spanning over forty years, she choreographed more than 3000 songs. She died on 3 July 2020 of a sudden cardiac arrest.
Go to Profile#18234
Shailendra Raj Mehta
#18245
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Shailendra Raj Mehta is an Indian economist who is specialized in Microeconomics theory, institution design, industrial organization, Information economics, Experimental economics, strategic management and Entrepreneurship. He was chairman of the Board of Management at Auro University. In 2017, he became the President and Director of MICA , Ahmedabad.
Go to Profile#18235
David Dabydeen
#18246
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
David Dabydeen is a Guyanese-born broadcaster, novelist, poet and academic. He was formerly Guyana's Ambassador to UNESCO from 1997 to 2010 and the youngest Member of the UNESCO Executive Board , elected by the General Council of all Member States of UNESCO. He was appointed Guyana's Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinaire to China, from 2010 to 2015. He is one of the longest serving diplomats in the history of Guyana, most of his work done in a voluntary unpaid capacity.
Go to Profile#18236
Jean Tigana
#18247
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Amadou Jean Tigana is a French former footballer and coach. He has played in midfield and managed professional football extensively throughout France, including 52 appearances and one goal for the France national football team during the 1980s. He most recently coached Chinese Super League outfit Shanghai Shenhua. In his prime, he was a tireless central midfielder, renowned as one of the best midfielders in the world during the 1980s.
Go to Profile#18237
Dick Vitale
#18248
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Richard John Vitale , also known as "Dickie V", is an American basketball sportscaster. A former head coach in the college and professional ranks, he is well known for his 41-year tenure as a college basketball broadcaster for ESPN. He is known for catchphrases such as "This is awesome, baby!" and "diaper dandy" , as well as his enthusiastic and colorful remarks during games. He has also written fourteen books, and appeared in several films.
Go to Profile#18238
Judith Dunn
#18249
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Judith Frances Dunn, is a British psychologist and academic, who specialises in social developmental psychology. Early life and education Dunn was the daughter of James Pace and Jean Stewart. She studied at New Hall, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1962; as per tradition, her BA was promoted to a Master of Arts degree in 1968. While a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, she undertook postgraduate research and she completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1982.
Go to Profile#18239
Heather McHugh
#18250
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Heather McHugh is an American poet notable for the independent ranges of her aesthetic as a poet, and for her working devotion to teaching and translating literature. Early life and education McHugh was born in San Diego, California, to Canadian parents. They raised McHugh in Gloucester Point, Virginia. There, her father directed the marine biological laboratory on the York River. She began writing poetry at age five and claims to have become an expert eavesdropper by the age of twelve.
Go to Profile#18240
Neil Tennant
#18251
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Neil Francis Tennant is an English musician, singer, songwriter and music journalist, and co-founder of the synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, which he formed with Chris Lowe in 1981. He was a journalist for Smash Hits, and assistant editor for the magazine in the mid-1980s.
Go to Profile#18241
Oren Yiftachel
#18252
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Oren Yiftachel is an Israeli professor of political and legal geography, urban studies and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Beersheba. He holds the Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Chair in Urban Studies.
Go to Profile#18242
Michael Turvey
#18253
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Michael T. Turvey was the Board of Trustees' Distinguished Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Connecticut and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is best known for his pioneering work in ecological psychology and in applying the dynamical systems approach to the study of motor behavior. He was the founder of the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action. His research spans a number of areas including: dynamic touch and haptics, interlimb coordination, visual perception and optic flow, postural stability, visual word recognition and speech perception.
Go to Profile#18243
Kōichirō Matsuura
#18254
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Kōichirō Matsuura is a Japanese diplomat. He is the former Director-General of UNESCO. He was first elected in 1999 to a six-year term and reelected on 12 October 2005 for four years, following a reform instituted by the 29th session of the General Conference. In November 2009, he was replaced by Irina Bokova.
Go to Profile#18244
Nick Lane
#18255
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Nick Lane is a British biochemist and writer. He is a professor in evolutionary biochemistry at University College London. He has published five books to date which have won several awards. Career Educated at Imperial College, London, he earned his PhD at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in 1995 with a thesis entitled In vivo studies of ischaemia-reperfusion injury in hypothermically stored rabbit renal autograft. He then worked as Medical Writer at Oxford Clinical Communications for a year before joining Medi Cine International a medical multimedia company, also as a writer. In 1999 he...
Go to Profile#18245
K. R. Parthasarathy
#18256
Overall Influence
1936 - 2023 (87 years)
Kalyanapuram Rangachari Parthasarathy was an Indian statistician who was professor emeritus at the Indian Statistical Institute and a pioneer of quantum stochastic calculus. Parthasarathy was the recipient the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in Mathematical Science in 1977 and the TWAS Prize in 1996.
Go to Profile#18246
Scotty Bowman
#18257
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
William Scott Bowman is a Canadian former National Hockey League head coach. He holds the record for most wins in league history, with 1,244 wins in the regular season and 223 in the Stanley Cup playoffs, thus ranking second of all time for most Stanley Cup victories by a player, coach or executive with fourteen. He coached the St. Louis Blues, Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings. He was most recently the senior advisor of hockey operations for the Chicago Blackhawks, until stepping down in July 2022. Bowman is often regarded as the greatest coach ...
Go to Profile#18247
Eric Charnov
#18258
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Eric Lee Charnov is an American evolutionary ecologist. He is best known for his work on foraging, especially the marginal value theorem, and life history theory, especially sex allocation and scaling/allometric rules. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two of his papers are Science Citation Classics.
Go to Profile#18248
Karl Shell
#18259
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Karl Shell is an American theoretical economist, specializing in macroeconomics and monetary economics. Shell received an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1960. He earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1965 at Stanford University, where he studied under Nobel Prize in Economics winner Kenneth Arrow and Hirofumi Uzawa.
Go to Profile#18249
Tim Kaine
#18260
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Timothy Michael Kaine is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Go to Profile#18250
Lucie Green
#18261
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Lucinda "Lucie" May Green is a British science communicator and solar physicist. Green is a Professor of Physics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College London . Green runs MSSL's public engagement programme and sits on the board of the European Solar Physics Division of the European Physical Society and the advisory board of the Science Museum.
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