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
#18801
Mogens Herman Hansen
#18812
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Mogens Herman Hansen FBA is a Danish classical philologist and classical demographer who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis. Academic career Hansen finished his masters at University of Copenhagen in 1967. The following year he was engaged to work at the same university. He has written many books about the Athenian Democracy. From 1993 to 2005 he was the director of the Copenhagen Polis Centre.
Go to Profile#18802
Monika Kostera
#18813
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Monika Maria Kostera is a Polish sociologist of management. She is known for her contribution to organization theory, organizational archetypes and myths, storytelling and narrative analysis in organizational anthropology. She holds professorships at University of Warsaw, Södertörn University in Sweden and Institut Mines-Télécom Business School in France.
Go to Profile#18803
Mark N. Wegman
#18814
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Mark N. Wegman is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to algorithms and compiler optimization. Wegman received his B.A. from New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined IBM Research in 1975, where he currently serves as head of Computer Science. He is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He became an IBM Fellow in 2007. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2010.
Go to Profile#18804
Menahem Max Schiffer
#18815
Overall Influence
1911 - 1997 (86 years)
Menahem Max Schiffer Biography Schiffer studied physics from 1930 at the University of Bonn and then at the Humboldt University of Berlin with a number of famous physicists and mathematicians including Max von Laue, Erwin Schrödinger, Walter Nernst, Erhard Schmidt, Issai Schur and Ludwig Bieberbach. In Berlin he worked closely with Issai Schur. In 1934 Schiffer had his first mathematical publication. After the National Socialist regime removed Schur and many others from their academic posts, Schiffer, as a Jew, immigrated to British-controlled Palestine. On the basis of his 1934 mathematical publication, Schiffer received from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem his master's degree in 1934.
Go to Profile#18805
Irving Biederman
#18816
Overall Influence
1939 - 2022 (83 years)
Irving Biederman was an American vision scientist specializing in the study of brain processes underlying humans' ability to quickly recognize and interpret what they see. While best known for his Recognition by Components Theory that focuses on volumetric object recognition, his later work tended to examine the recognition of human faces. Biederman argued that face recognition is separate and distinct from the recognition of objects.
Go to Profile#18806
Ioannis Pallikaris
#18817
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ioannis G. Pallikaris is a Greek ophthalmologist who in 1989 performed the first LASIK procedure on a human eye. Pallikaris also developed Epi-LASIK. Professor Palikaris was the rector of the University of Crete between 2003 and 2011. He is also the founder and director of the Institute of Vision and Optics in the same university.
Go to Profile#18807
J. B. Schneewind
#18818
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Jerome Borges Schneewind is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. Life He received his B.A. from Cornell University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University. Schneewind taught at the University of Chicago, Princeton, Yale University, the University of Pittsburgh and Hunter College CUNY where he was also Provost before coming to Hopkins as chair of the philosophy department in 1981. He has also taught at Leicester, Stanford, and Helsinki. He taught courses on the history of ethics, types of ethical theory, the British empiricists, Kant's ethics, and utopian t...
Go to Profile#18808
Leonid Sedov
#18819
Overall Influence
1907 - 1999 (92 years)
Leonid Ivanovich Sedov was a Russian physicist who worked as an engineer in the former Soviet space program. In 1930 Sedov graduated from the Moscow State University, where he had been a student of Sergey Chaplygin, with the degree of Doctor of Physics and Mathematical Sciences. He later became a professor at the university.
Go to Profile#18809
F. W. Walbank
#18820
Overall Influence
1909 - 2008 (99 years)
Frank William Walbank, was a scholar of ancient history, particularly the history of Polybius. He was born in Bingley, Yorkshire, and died in Cambridge. Early life and education Born at Bingley, Yorkshire, son of schoolmaster Albert Joseph David Walbank and Clarice , née Fletcher, Walbank attended Bradford Grammar School and went on to study Classics at Peterhouse, Cambridge. His father was the son of a cobbler, but had left the family business on winning a scholarship and became a teacher.
Go to Profile#18810
Brian Michael Bendis
#18821
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Brian Michael Bendis is an American comic book writer and artist. Starting with crime and noir comics, Bendis eventually moved to mainstream superhero work. While at Marvel Comics, Bendis worked with Bill Jemas and Mark Millar as the writer on the first book of the Ultimate Marvel imprint, Ultimate Spider-Man, which debuted in 2000. He relaunched the Avengers franchise with New Avengers in 2004, wrote the Marvel storylines "Avengers Disassembled" , "Secret War" , "House of M" , "Secret Invasion" , "Siege" and "Age of Ultron" , and co-created the characters Riri Williams, Miles Morales, and J...
Go to Profile#18811
Biff Watson
#18822
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Fletcher Bangs "Biff" Watson is an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. His musicianship has been a part of recording sessions for many artists. Biography Early years Raised in Chatham, Virginia, Watson learned how to play guitar at age 11. Upon graduation from high school, he hitchhiked to Nashville where he played on demos and showcases, and backing up touring artists Crystal Gayle, Tracy Nelson, and Don Williams.
Go to Profile#18812
Gary Moore
#18823
Overall Influence
1952 - 2011 (59 years)
Robert William Gary Moore was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal and jazz fusion.
Go to Profile#18813
Gardner Ackley
#18824
Overall Influence
1915 - 1998 (83 years)
Hugh Gardner Ackley was an American economist and diplomat. Ackley served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President John F. Kennedy, and as the chairman under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1964 to 1968. He also served as ambassador to Italy from 1968 to 1969. Ackley was a member of the University of Michigan faculty for 43 years and served as chair of its economics department. Upon returning to the university following his ambassadorship, he was named the Henry Carter Adams Professor of Political Economy. In 1982 he served as president of the American Economic Associa...
Go to Profile#18814
Frank Sinatra
#18825
Overall Influence
1915 - 1998 (83 years)
Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of the mid-20th century. Sinatra is among the world's best-selling music artists with an estimated 150 million record sales.
Go to Profile#18815
Xavier Delamarre
#18826
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Xavier Delamarre is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language. With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing editor of Wékwos, a journal founded in 2014 and devoted to Indo-European comparative linguistics.
Go to Profile#18816
John L. Heilbron
#18827
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
John Lewis Heilbron was an American historian of science best known for his work in the history of physics and the history of astronomy. He was Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, senior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and visiting professor at Yale University and the California Institute of Technology. He edited the academic journal Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences for twenty-five years.
Go to Profile#18817
Peter S. Beagle
#18828
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Peter Soyer Beagle is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018.
Go to Profile#18818
Brad Evans
#18829
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Brad Evans is a British academic, and Professor of Political Violence at the department of Politics, Languages & International Studies at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. He is the founder and director of the Centre for the Study of Violence.
Go to Profile#18819
Jack McDevitt
#18830
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Jack McDevitt is an American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races, and with archaeology or xenoarchaeology. Most of his books follow either superluminal pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins or galactic relic hunters Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath. McDevitt has received numerous nominations for Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell awards. Seeker won the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
Go to Profile#18820
Christopher T. Walsh
#18831
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Christopher T. Walsh was a Hamilton Kuhn professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His research focused on enzymes and enzyme inhibition, and most recently focused on the problem of antibiotic resistance. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989.
Go to Profile#18821
Donald E. Ingber
#18832
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Donald E. Ingber is an American cell biologist and bioengineer. He is the founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Ac...
Go to Profile#18822
Stefan Wolff
#18833
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Stefan Wolff is a German political scientist. He is a specialist in international security, particularly in the management, settlement and prevention of ethnic conflicts. He is currently Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Born in 1969, He studied as an undergraduate at the University of Leipzig and holds a Master's degree from Magdalene College, Cambridge, and a PhD from the London School of Economics, where he studied under the supervision of Brendan O'Leary. His doctoral thesis, dated 2000, was titled Managing disputed territories, exte...
Go to Profile#18823
Nathan Salmon
#18834
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Nathan U. Salmon is an American philosopher in the analytic tradition, specializing in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of logic. Life and career Salmon was born January 2, 1951, in Los Angeles to a working-class family of Sephardi Jews of Spanish-Turkish heritage. He is the grandson of archivist Emily Sene and oud player Isaac Sene. Salmon attended Lincoln Elementary School in Torrance, California through eighth grade, where he was a classmate and friend of the child prodigy, James Newton Howard. Salmon graduated from North High School in 1969.
Go to Profile#18824
Mark Taimanov
#18835
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Mark Evgenievich Taimanov was one of the leading Soviet and Russian chess players, among the world's top 20 players from 1946 to 1971. A prolific chess author, Taimanov was awarded the title of Grandmaster in 1952 and in 1956 won the USSR Chess Championship. He was a World Championship Candidate in 1953 and 1971, and several opening variations are named after him. Taimanov was also a world-class concert pianist.
Go to Profile#18825
Geoffrey Rush
#18836
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Geoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor. He is known for his eccentric leading man roles on stage and screen. He is among 24 people who have won the Triple Crown of Acting, having received an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award. He also received three British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Rush is the founding president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and was named the 2012 Australian of the Year.
Go to Profile#18826
Alexander Skrinsky
#18837
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Alexander Nikolayevich Skrinsky is a Russian nuclear physicist. He was born in Orenburg and was educated at the high school in the city of Gorky and then at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1957 he joined the laboratory of Gersh Budker, which was a part of the I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy . Since 1962, Skrinsky has been connected with the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, where he was director from 1977 to 2015.
Go to Profile#18827
Christopher Reeve
#18838
Overall Influence
1952 - 2004 (52 years)
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, author, and activist, best known for playing the title character in the film Superman and three sequels. Born in New York City and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Reeve discovered a passion for acting and theater at the age of nine. He studied at Cornell University and the Juilliard School making his Broadway debut in 1976. After his acclaimed performances in Superman and Superman II, Reeve declined many roles in action movies, choosing instead to work in small films and plays with more complex characters. He later appeared in ...
Go to Profile#18828
Tricia Rose
#18839
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Tricia Rose is an American sociologist and author who pioneered scholarship on hip hop. Her studies mainly probe the intersectionality of pop music and gender. Now at Brown University, she is a professor of Africana Studies and is the director of the Center for Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. Rose also co-hosts a podcast, The Tight Rope, with Cornel West.
Go to Profile#18829
Bapsi Sidhwa
#18840
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Bapsi Sidhwa is a Pakistani novelist of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent who writes in English and is a resident in the United States. She is best known for her collaborative work with Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta: Sidhwa wrote both the 1991 novel Ice Candy Man which served as the basis for Mehta's 1998 film Earth as well as the 2006 novel Water: A Novel on which Mehta's 2005 film Water is based. A documentary about Sidhwa's life called "Bapsi: Silences of My Life" is released on the official YouTube channel of " The Citize Archive of Pakistan" on 28 October 2022 with title " First ...
Go to Profile#18830
Zoë Quinn
#18841
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Zoë Tiberius Quinn is an American video game developer, programmer, and writer. Quinn developed the interactive fiction game Depression Quest, which was released in 2013. In 2014, a defamatory blog post by their ex-boyfriend sparked the online harassment campaign known as Gamergate, during which Quinn was subjected to extensive harassment including doxing, rape threats, and death threats. The following year, Quinn co-founded Crash Override, a crisis hotline and resource center for victims of online harassment.
Go to Profile#18831
Mark Hoppus
#18842
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Mark Allan Hoppus is an American musician, songwriter and producer who is known as the bassist and co-lead vocalist for the rock band Blink-182, being the only member to appear on every one of their albums. He is also part of the pop rock duo Simple Creatures.
Go to Profile#18832
Clifford May
#18843
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Clifford D. May is an American journalist, editor, political activist, and podcast host. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank created shortly after the 9/11 attacks, where he hosts the podcast Foreign Podicy. He is the weekly "Foreign Desk" columnist for The Washington Times.
Go to Profile#18833
Nanni Loy
#18844
Overall Influence
1925 - 1995 (70 years)
Nanni Loy was an Italian film, theatre and TV director. Specifically, Nanni Loy was Sardinian, and one of several notable Sardinian film makers, including Franco Solinas. Biography Loy was born in Cagliari, Sardinia: his father was Guglielmo Loy-Donà, a lawyer issue from a distinguished Sardinian-Venetian family, and his mother was the noblewoman Donna Anna Sanjust of the Marquesses of Neoneli. Rosetta Loy, an Italian novelist, is his sister-in-law.
Go to Profile#18834
Leonard I. Garth
#18845
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
Leonard I. Garth was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#18835
Angela Jurdak Khoury
#18846
Overall Influence
1915 - 2011 (96 years)
Angela Jurdak Khoury was a Lebanese diplomat and college professor based in Washington, D.C. Early life Khoury was born in Dhour El Choueir, in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate the daughter of Mansur Hanna Jurdak , a mathematician and astronomer on the faculty of the American University of Beirut, and Leah Abs Jurdak. Khoury attended the American Junior College for Women and then the American University of Beirut, completing undergraduate studies in 1937 and a master's degree in 1938, in sociology. Later in life, she earned a PhD in international relations, from American University in Washing...
Go to Profile#18836
Robert L. Wilkins
#18847
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Robert Leon Wilkins is an American lawyer and jurist serving as United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He previously served as a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2010 to 2014.
Go to Profile#18837
Errol Morris
#18848
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Errol Mark Morris is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects. In 2003, his documentary film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His film The Thin Blue Line placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of the greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist and a naked mole rat specialist.
Go to Profile#18838
E. F. Bleiler
#18849
Overall Influence
1920 - 2010 (90 years)
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called "the foundation of modern SF bibliography". Among his other scholarly works are two Hugo Award–nominated volumes concerning early science fiction—Science-Fiction: The Early Years and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years—and the massive Guide to Supernatural Fiction.
Go to Profile#18839
Derk Bodde
#18850
Overall Influence
1909 - 2003 (94 years)
Derk Bodde was an American sinologist and historian of China known for his pioneering work on the history of the Chinese legal system. Bodde received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1930. He spent six years studying in China on a fellowship. He earned a doctorate in Chinese Studies from the University of Leiden March 3, 1938. When the Fulbright scholarship program was initiated in 1948, Bodde was the first American recipient of a one-year fellowship, which he spent studying in Beijing.
Go to Profile#18840
Michael F. Ashby
#18851
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Michael Farries Ashby is a British metallurgical engineer. He served as Royal Society Research Professor, and a Principal Investigator at the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge. He is known for his contributions in Materials Science in the field of material selection.
Go to Profile#18841
Dmitry Okhotsimsky
#18852
Overall Influence
1921 - 2005 (84 years)
Dmitry Yevgenyevich Okhotsimsky was a Russian engineer in the former Soviet space program who pioneered the studies in robotics, controls, and space ballistics. He wrote fundamental works in applied celestial mechanics, spaceflight dynamics and robotics.
Go to Profile#18842
Hollis Robbins
#18853
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Hollis Robbins is an American academic and essayist; Robbins currently serves as dean of humanities at University of Utah. Her scholarship focuses on African-American literature. Education and early career Robbins was born and raised in New Hampshire. She entered Johns Hopkins University at the age of 16 and received her B.A. in 1983. From 1986 to 1988 Robbins worked at The New Yorker magazine in the marketing and promotions department. She received a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1990, and subsequently enrolled as a doctoral student in the de...
Go to Profile#18843
Michael R. Cunningham
#18854
Overall Influence
Michael R. Cunningham is chancellor of the National University System. He previously also served as president of the university between 2013 and 2016. Prior to this he was dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University. For most of his career, Cunningham was a business executive. He was the founder of Cunningham Graphics International, which was listed on the NASDAQ in 1998.
Go to Profile#18844
Michel Bitbol
#18855
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michel Bitbol is a French researcher in philosophy of science. He is "Directeur de recherche" at CNRS, previously in the Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée of École polytechnique . He is now a member of Archives Husserl, École Normale Superieure .
Go to Profile#18845
Anthony Burgess
#18856
Overall Influence
1917 - 1993 (76 years)
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was a British writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel. In 1971, it was adapted into a controversial film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers. He wrote librettos and screenplays, including the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic for sev...
Go to Profile#18846
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar
#18857
Overall Influence
1920 - 2020 (100 years)
Javier Felipe Ricardo Pérez de Cuéllar de la Guerra was a Peruvian diplomat and politician who served as the fifth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1982 to 1991. He later served as Prime Minister of Peru from 2000 to 2001.
Go to Profile#18847
E. Premkumar Reddy
#18858
Overall Influence
E. Premkumar Reddy is a molecular biologist specialising in molecular oncology. He is the Director of Experimental Cancer Therapeutics program and Professor in the Departments of Oncological Sciences and Structural and Chemical Biology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#18848
Sylvie Weil
#18859
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Sylvie Weil is a French professor and writer. She is known for her novels for children and her writing about her prominent intellectual family, which includes André Weil and Simone Weil. Biography Weil was born in the United States in 1942. Her family moved to Brazil when she was three and then to Chicago when she was five. Much of her education took place in Paris.
Go to Profile#18849
Joel H. Silbey
#18860
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Joel Henry Silbey was an American historian. Joel H. Silbey was born on August 16, 1933, to parents Sidney R. and Estelle Silbey. He attended Brooklyn College in his hometown, graduating in 1955, before pursuing graduate study at the University of Iowa, earning his master's and doctoral degrees in 1956 and 1963, respectively. He taught at San Francisco State College, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Maryland before joining the Cornell University faculty in 1966. Two years later, Silbey became a full professor and received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was appointed President White Professor of History in 1986, serving until retirement in 2002.
Go to Profile#18850
Jan Pen
#18861
Overall Influence
1921 - 2010 (89 years)
Jan Pen was a Dutch economist, professor and columnist. He is author of several books on economics. Life and work Pen studied at the University of Amsterdam, where in 1950 he received his PhD with a thesis concerning the theory of collective wage negotiations. He was Director General Economic Policy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In 1956 he was appointed professor of political economy and the theory of public finance at the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics of the University of Groningen. He published in 1959 Moderne Economie , for years the general introduction to macroeconomics in the Netherlands.
Go to Profile