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
#18251
Mike Sutton
#18262
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michael Robert Sutton is an ex-reader in criminology in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University, where he established the now defunct Centre for Study and Reduction of Bias, Prejudice and Hate Crime and is co-founder and chief editor of the Internet Journal of Criminology. He was joint winner of the 1998 British Journal of Criminology Prize for his research on hackers, and publicised the market reduction approach for tackling theft. Sutton has published journal articles on the subject of inter-racial relationships and violence.
Go to Profile#18252
John Skvoretz
#18263
Overall Influence
John Skvoretz is an American social scientist, focusing on theoretical methods, group processes and social psychology, and network analysis and modeling, currently at University of South Florida.
Go to Profile#18253
Jonathan Riley-Smith
#18264
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Jonathan Simon Christopher Riley-Smith was a historian of the Crusades, and, between 1994 and 2005, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#18254
Matthias Kreck
#18265
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Matthias Kreck is a German mathematician who works in the areas of Algebraic Topology and Differential topology. From 1994 to 2002 he was director of the Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics and from October 2006 to September 2011 he was the director of the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics at the University of Bonn, where he is currently a professor.
Go to Profile#18255
Gerd Albrecht
#18266
Overall Influence
1935 - 2014 (79 years)
Gerd Albrecht was a German conductor. Biography Albrecht was born in Essen, the son of the musicologist Hans Albrecht . He studied music in Kiel and in Hamburg, where his teachers included Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg. He was a first-prize winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors at age 22. His first post was as a repetiteur at the Stuttgart State Opera. Later, he became Senior Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Mainz, and Generalmusikdirektor in Lübeck. He also held posts at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and the Hamburg State Opera.
Go to Profile#18256
Penélope Cruz
#18267
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Prolific in Spanish and English language films, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Goya Awards, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and four Golden Globe Awards. She is the only Spanish actress to have won an Academy Award and to have received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Go to Profile#18257
Dipankar Chatterji
#18268
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Dipankar Chatterji is an Indian molecular biologist and the Honorary Professor at Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, a multidisciplinary research institute under the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India. He is known for his pioneering research on bacterial transcription. He is a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and is an elected fellow of all the major Indian science academies. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2016, for his contributions to science and engineering.
Go to Profile#18258
Mike Bartlett
#18269
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michael Bartlett is an English playwright and screenwriter for film and TV series. His 2015 psychological thriller TV series, Doctor Foster, starring Suranne Jones, won the New Drama award from National Television Awards. Bartlett also won Best Writer from the Broadcast Press Guild Awards. A BBC TV Film of Bartlett's play King Charles III was broadcast in May 2017 and while critically acclaimed, generated some controversy.
Go to Profile#18259
Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark
#18270
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, Count of Monpezat, is the heir apparent to the Danish throne. He is the elder son of Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik. Early life Crown Prince Frederik was born by emergency C-section at Rigshospitalet the Copenhagen University Hospital in Copenhagen, on 26 May 1968 at 23:50 to the then Princess Margrethe, oldest daughter of Frederick IX and heir presumptive to the Danish throne, and Prince Henrik. At the time of his birth, his maternal grandfather was on the throne of Denmark and his matrilineal great-grandfather was on the throne of Sweden.
Go to Profile#18260
Maurice Valency
#18271
Overall Influence
1903 - 1996 (93 years)
Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award-winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of the plays of others. Valency's version of The Madwoman of Chaillot would become the basis of the Jerry Herman musical Dear World on Broadway.
Go to Profile#18261
Jewel Plummer Cobb
#18272
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Jewel Plummer Cobb was an American biologist, cancer researcher, professor, dean, and academic administrator. She contributed to the field of cancer research by studying the cure for melanoma. Cobb was an advocate for increasing the representation of women and students of color in universities, and she created programs to support students interested in pursuing graduate school.
Go to Profile#18262
Michael Roizen
#18273
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Michael Fredric Roizen is an American anesthesiologist and internist, an award-winning author and the chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic. Roizen became famous for developing the RealAge concept and has authored or coauthored five number one New York Times best sellers.
Go to Profile#18263
André Previn
#18274
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
André George Previn was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved success, and the latter two were part of his life until the end. In movies, he arranged and composed music. In jazz, he was a celebrated trio pianist, a piano-accompanist to singers of standards, and pianist-interpreter of songs from the "Great American Songbook". In classical music, he also performed as a pianist but gained television fame as a conductor, and during his last thirty years created his legacy as a compose...
Go to Profile#18264
Steven Radelet
#18275
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Steven Radelet is an American economist working within the field of International Development. He holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development and is also the Director of the Global Human Development Program at Georgetown University, a program of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Go to Profile#18265
Deval Patrick
#18276
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Deval Laurdine Patrick is an American politician, author, businessman, and former civil rights lawyer who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic Governor of the state since Michael Dukakis left office in 1991. Patrick served from 1994 to 1997 as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton. He was briefly a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Go to Profile#18266
Stefan Rahmstorf
#18277
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Stefan Rahmstorf is a German oceanographer and climatologist. Since 2000, he has been a Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University. He studied physical oceanography at Bangor University and received his Ph.D. in oceanography from Victoria University of Wellington . His work focuses on the role of ocean currents in climate change. He was one of the lead authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Go to Profile#18267
Peter Aczel
#18278
Overall Influence
1941 - 2023 (82 years)
Peter Henry George Aczel was a British mathematician, logician and Emeritus joint Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester. He is known for his work in non-well-founded set theory, constructive set theory, and Frege structures.
Go to Profile#18268
Emma Lehmer
#18279
Overall Influence
1906 - 2007 (101 years)
Emma Markovna Lehmer was a mathematician known for her work on reciprocity laws in algebraic number theory. She preferred to deal with complex number fields and integers, rather than the more abstract aspects of the theory.
Go to Profile#18269
Dennis Wrong
#18280
Overall Influence
1923 - 2018 (95 years)
Dennis Hume Wrong was a Canadian-born American sociologist and emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at New York University. Wrong was the author of several books, including two essay collections containing articles first published in cultural, intellectual, political and scholarly journals in the United States, Canada, and Britain.
Go to Profile#18270
Antonio Merlo
#18281
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Antonio Merlo is an Italian-born American economist and academic. He currently serves as the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University. Early life Antonio Merlo was born in Italy in 1963. A first-generation college graduate, he received a Laurea summa cum laude in economics and social sciences from Bocconi University in Milan in 1987. Merlo emigrated to the United States in 1988 and earned a PhD in economics from New York University in 1992.
Go to Profile#18271
George Logemann
#18282
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
George Wahl Logemann was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He became well known for the Davis–Putnam–Logemann–Loveland algorithm to solve Boolean satisfiability problems. He also contributed to the field of computer music.
Go to Profile#18272
Laila Lalami
#18283
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom , where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Go to Profile#18273
José Goldemberg
#18284
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
José Goldemberg is a Brazilian physicist, university educator, scientific leader and research scientist. He is a leading expert on energy and environment issues. Goldemberg earned his Ph.D. in physical science from the University of São Paulo where he served as rector and full professor from 1986 to 1989. From 1983 to 1986 he directed the Energy Company of the State of São Paulo. From 1990 to 1992 he served the federal government in various capacities: as the Secretary of State for Science and Technology he modernized the information systems; as interim Secretary of the Environment he admin...
Go to Profile#18274
Paolo Brera
#18285
Overall Influence
1949 - 2019 (70 years)
Paolo Alberto Brera was an Italian economist, academic, journalist, multilingual translator and novelist. Biography Brera was born in Milan, the third son of journalist and writer Gianni Brera and teacher Rina Gramegna. In 1976, he married Clelia Bertello and later on Rosetta Griglié. With Griglié, he has two daughters, Jalée and Lavinia Lys . Since 2008, Brera divided his time between Nice, France and Milan.
Go to Profile#18275
Yasaman Farzan
#18286
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Yasaman Farzan is an Iranian researcher. She is a faculty member of Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences. Awards The Kharazmi young scientist Award in 2006Young Scientist Prize of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics in 2008International Centre for Theoretical Physics Prize in 2013
Go to Profile#18276
Spencer Bloch
#18287
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Spencer Janney Bloch is an American mathematician known for his contributions to algebraic geometry and algebraic K-theory. Bloch is a R. M. Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Chicago. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society. At the International Congress of Mathematicians, he gave an invited lecture in 1978 and a plenary lecture in 1990. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1981–82. He received a Humboldt Prize in 1996.
Go to Profile#18277
Nigel Tranter
#18288
Overall Influence
1909 - 2000 (91 years)
Nigel Tranter OBE was a writer of a wide range of books on castles, particularly on themes of architecture and history. He also specialised in deeply researched historical novels that cover centuries of Scottish history.
Go to Profile#18278
Paolo Rossi
#18289
Overall Influence
1956 - 2020 (64 years)
Paolo Rossi was an Italian professional footballer who played as a forward. He led Italy to the 1982 FIFA World Cup title, scoring six goals to win the Golden Boot as top goalscorer, and the Golden Ball for the player of the tournament. Rossi is one of only three players, and the only European, to have won all three awards at a World Cup, along with Garrincha in 1962 and Mario Kempes in 1978. Rossi was also awarded the 1982 Ballon d'Or as the European Footballer of the Year for his performances . Along with Roberto Baggio and Christian Vieri, he is Italy's top scorer in World Cup history, wit...
Go to Profile#18279
Gerry Adams
#18290
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gerard Adams is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he followed the policy of abstentionism as a Member of Parliament of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency.
Go to Profile#18280
Fred S. Roberts
#18291
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Fred Stephen Roberts is an American mathematician, a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University, and a former director of DIMACS. Biography Roberts did his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1968; his doctoral advisor was Dana Scott. After holding positions at the University of Pennsylvania, RAND, and the Institute for Advanced Study, he joined the Rutgers faculty in 1972.
Go to Profile#18281
John Shoven
#18292
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John B. Shoven is the former Trione Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics at Stanford University, the Buzz and Barbara McCoy Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He specializes in public finance and corporate finance and has published on social security, corporate and personal taxation, mutual funds, pension plans and applied general equilibrium economics.
Go to Profile#18282
William Zinsser
#18293
Overall Influence
1922 - 2015 (93 years)
William Knowlton Zinsser was an American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher. He began his career as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune, where he worked as a feature writer, drama editor, film critic and editorial writer. He was a longtime contributor to leading magazines.
Go to Profile#18283
Tasawar Hayat
#18294
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Tasawar Hayat is a Pakistani mathematician who has made pioneering research contributions to the area of mathematical fluid mechanics. He is considered one of the leading mathematicians working in Pakistan and currently is a Professor of Mathematics at the Quaid-i-Azam University.
Go to Profile#18284
Peniel E. Joseph
#18295
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Peniel E. Joseph is an American scholar, teacher, and public voice on race issues especially the history of the Black power movement. He holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in at the University of Texas at Austin . Joseph joined UT Austin in 2015 from Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he had founded the school's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy . He founded the second Center for the Study of Race and Democracy on the University of Texas campus in 2016, and is director of the center.
Go to Profile#18285
Abu Zafar Obaidullah
#18296
Overall Influence
1934 - 2001 (67 years)
Abu Zafar Obaidullah was a Bangladeshi poet and civil servant. Two of his long poems, Aami-Kingbodontir-Kathaa Bolchi and Bristi O Shahosi Purush-er Jonyo Prarthona, have become famous since their first publication in the late 1970s.
Go to Profile#18286
Reinhold Aman
#18297
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Reinhold Aman was a chemical engineer and professor of German before achieving national and even international recognition as the publisher of Maledicta, a scholarly journal dedicated to the study of offensive language, also known as maledictology.
Go to Profile#18287
Richard K. Morgan
#18298
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Richard Kingsley Morgan, is a British science fiction and fantasy author of books, short stories, and graphic novels. He is the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for his 2003 book Altered Carbon, which was adapted into a Netflix series released in 2018. His third book, Market Forces, won the John W. Campbell Award in 2005, while his 2008 work Thirteen garnered him the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Go to Profile#18288
Adi Ophir
#18299
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Adi Ophir is an Israeli philosopher. Early life Adi Ophir was born on September 22, 1951. He received his BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD from Boston University. Ophir is married to Ariella Azoulay.
Go to Profile#18289
Steve Vickers
#18300
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Steve Vickers is a British mathematician and computer scientist. In the early 1980s, he wrote ROM firmware and manuals for three home computers, the ZX81, ZX Spectrum, and Jupiter Ace. The latter was produced by Jupiter Cantab, a short-lived company Vickers formed together with Richard Altwasser, after the two had left Sinclair Research. Since the late 1980s, Vickers has been an academic in the field of geometric logic, writing over 30 papers in scholarly journals on mathematical aspects of computer science. His book Topology via Logic has been influential over a range of fields . In October 2018, he retired as senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham.
Go to Profile#18290
Kenneth Davey
#18301
Overall Influence
1932 - 2021 (89 years)
Kenneth Jackson Davey OBE was Emeritus Professor at the International Development Department, University of Birmingham and former Senior Adviser to the Local Government and Public Service reform Initiative of the Open Society Foundations.
Go to Profile#18291
Clarence Seedorf
#18302
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Clarence Clyde Seedorf is a Dutch professional football manager and former player. He is regarded by many as one of the best midfielders of his generation. Seedorf is considered one of the most successful players in UEFA Champions League history, as he is the only player to have won the Champions League with three clubs – once with Ajax, in 1995, once with Real Madrid, in 1998 and twice with AC Milan, in 2003 and 2007.
Go to Profile#18292
Anatoly Perminov
#18303
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Anatoly Nikolayevich Perminov is a Russian rocket scientist and a mechanical engineer. He served as the General Director of Russian Federal Space Agency in 2004–2011. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
Go to Profile#18293
Taras Hunczak
#18304
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Taras Hunczak is a historian, and professor emeritus at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He lectures in Ukrainian, Russian, and East-European history. Hunczak has written extensively on Ukrainian history, the twentieth century in particular. He has also had involvement with the United Nations, notably moderating a discussion panel at an event marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Go to Profile#18294
Robert Sheckley
#18305
Overall Influence
1928 - 2005 (77 years)
Robert Sheckley was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.
Go to Profile#18295
Raymond Suttner
#18306
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Raymond Suttner is South African activist, academic, journalist and public figure. Education and activism Suttner was born in Durban, South Africa. He obtained BA and LLB degrees from the University of Cape Town and an inter-disciplinary doctorate from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Go to Profile#18296
Joe Farman
#18307
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Joseph Charles Farman CBE was a British geophysicist who worked for the British Antarctic Survey. Together with Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin, he published the discovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica, having used Dobson ozone spectrophotometers. Their results were first published on 16 May 1985.
Go to Profile#18297
Chuck Grassley
#18308
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Charles Ernest Grassley is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the senior United States senator from Iowa, having held the seat since 1981. In 2022, he was reelected to his eighth Senate term, having first been elected in 1980. He is the longest-serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, having overtaken Orrin Hatch's record in January 2023, and the sixth-longest-serving U.S. senator in history.
Go to Profile#18298
Valentine Moghadam
#18309
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Valentine Moghadam is a feminist scholar, sociologist, activist, and author whose work focuses on women in development, globalization, feminist networks, and female employment in the Middle East. She has taught and performed research at various institutions of higher education, most recently as professor of sociology and director of international affairs at Northeastern University. Previously she held the position of director of the Women's Studies Program at Purdue University, where she was also a professor of sociology. Prior to that appointment, Moghadam worked for the United Nations Educa...
Go to Profile#18299
Daniel A. Helminiak
#18310
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Daniel A. Helminiak is a Catholic priest, theologian and author in the United States. He is most widely known for his international best-seller What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality. He was a professor in the Department of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta. There from 1995 to 1997 and 2000 until early 2018, he regularly taught Human Sexuality, Statistics for the Social Sciences, Foundations of Neuroscience, and Animal Mind. On the graduate level he has taught courses related to the psychology of spirituality, which is his specia...
Go to Profile#18300
Tony Buon
#18311
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Tony Buon , is a British workplace psychologist, speaker, mediator and author. He is the Managing Partner of Buon Consultancy based in Edinburgh, Scotland Buon has been a Lecturer at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen Scotland, a Senior lecturer at Macquarie University Australia and at the University of Western Sydney, Australia and a Visiting professor at a number of international universities including Harvard , Shanghai Normal University and Trinity College Dublin. His areas of expertise include: Workplace psychology; learning & development, alcohol & other drugs in the workplace; employ...
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