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
#19101
Stanley E. Porter
#19112
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Stanley E. Porter is a Canadian–American academic and New Testament scholar, specializing in the Koine Greek grammar and linguistics of the New Testament. Life and career Porter was born in Long Beach, California, on November 23, 1956. He studied at Point Loma College, San Diego , Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California , Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois , and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, in 1988, in both the biblical studies and linguistics departments. He began his teaching career at Biola University, where he taught New Testament, Greek, and English, then taught at Trinity Western University.
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Paul C. Bishop
#19113
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Paul C. Bishop is a British scholar and William Jacks Chair in Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. Books The Archaic: the Past in the Present. Routledge: London. 2012. A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche, Life and Works. Camden House: New York, NY, USA. 2012. Reading Goethe at Midlife : Ancient Wisdom, German Classicism, and Jung. Spring Journal Books: New Orleans, Louisiana. 2011. Analytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller and Jung, 2 vols. Routledge: London, UK.
Go to Profile#19103
Ron McClamrock
#19114
Overall Influence
Ronald Albert McClamrock is an associate professor of philosophy at the University at Albany, The State University of New York. His primary areas of research are the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and cognitive science.
Go to Profile#19104
Timothy Caulfield
#19115
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Timothy Allen Caulfield is a Canadian professor of law at the University of Alberta, the research director of its Health Law Institute, and current Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. He specializes in legal, policy and ethical issues in medical research and its commercialization. In addition to professional publications, he is the author of several books aimed at the general reader and host of a television documentary series debunking pseudoscientific myths. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Go to Profile#19105
Kim Lane Scheppele
#19116
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Kim Lane Scheppele is an American scholar of law and politics. She is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#19106
Steven Yearley
#19117
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Steve Yearley is a British sociologist. He is Professor of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge at the University of Edinburgh, a post he has held since 2005. He has been designated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is currently Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.
Go to Profile#19107
Ian Paice
#19118
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Ian Anderson Paice is an English musician, best known as the drummer and last remaining original member of the rock band Deep Purple. He remains the only member of Deep Purple who has served in every line-up since the band’s inception in 1968, as well as having played on every album and at every live appearance.
Go to Profile#19108
Clément Rosset
#19119
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Clément Rosset was a French philosopher and writer. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, and the author of books on 20th-century philosophy and postmodern philosophy.
Go to Profile#19109
Val Kilmer
#19120
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer found fame after appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! and Real Genius , as well as the military action film Top Gun and the fantasy film Willow . Kilmer gained acclaim for his portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors . He was cast as a main character in critically acclaimed films such as the western Tombstone , and the crime dramas True Romance and Heat . He portrayed Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever , and continued to star in films such as The Ghost and the Darkness , The Saint , The Prince of Egypt , Alexander , Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , and The Snowman .
Go to Profile#19110
Heidi Li Feldman
#19121
Overall Influence
Heidi Li Feldman is an American professor of law at Georgetown Law. Her areas of research are torts, ethics, political philosophy, and legal theory. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
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Mike Sandbothe
#19122
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Mike Sandbothe is a German intellectual, philosopher and professor of culture and media at University of Applied Sciences Jena. He is co-founder of the new branch of media philosophy and one of the main proponents of philosophical pragmatism in Europe. He held professorships for Media Culture Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena as well as for Media Philosophy at Berlin University of the Arts and at Aalborg University Copenhagen. The certified trainer in Mindfulness-based stress reduction is one of the two founders of the German Network of Mindful Universities "Achtsame Hochschulen".
Go to Profile#19112
Derek Denton
#19123
Overall Influence
1924 - 2022 (98 years)
Derek Ashworth Denton was an Australian scientist who elucidated the regulation of electrolytes in extracellular fluid, the hormones controlling this regulation, particularly aldosterone, and the instinctive behaviours controlling intake of water and salts. He was cited in 1995 at election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as the world’s leading authority on the regulation of salt and water metabolism and relevant endocrine control mechanisms. He was one of Australia’s most eminent scientists.
Go to Profile#19113
Carolyn Korsmeyer
#19124
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Carolyn Korsmeyer is an author and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buffalo in New York. She is generally recognized for her study and research on aesthetics, feminism, and emotion theory.
Go to Profile#19114
Cab Calloway
#19125
Overall Influence
1907 - 1994 (87 years)
Cabell Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.
Go to Profile#19115
Rüdiger Lautmann
#19126
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Rüdiger Lautmann is a German professor of sociology and one of the most prominent LGBT scholars in Germany. Biography Born in Koblenz, Lautmann lived during his childhood in Düsseldorf, where he went to school. He first studied German law. After he finished his law studies, he started a second study in sociology. Lautmann worked after university studies first in Münster and then in Bielefeld . In 1971 he became then professor in sociology at University of Bremen. In 2001 Lautmann retired as professor.
Go to Profile#19116
James E. Bowman
#19127
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
James Edward Bowman Jr. was an American physician and specialist in pathology, hematology, and genetics. He was a professor of pathology and genetics at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He published more than ninety works across the fields of human genetics; population genetics; and ethical, legal and public policy issues in human genetics. He received many awards, including the Chicago African American History Makers Award and recognition from the Hastings Center and Stanford’s Kaiser Family Foundation, and Howard University.
Go to Profile#19117
John Wrench
#19128
Overall Influence
1911 - 2009 (98 years)
John William Wrench, Jr. was an American mathematician who worked primarily in numerical analysis. He was a pioneer in using computers for mathematical calculations, and is noted for work done with Daniel Shanks to calculate the mathematical constant pi to 100,000 decimal places.
Go to Profile#19118
Michael Jackson
#19129
Overall Influence
1942 - 2007 (65 years)
Michael James Jackson was an English writer and journalist. He was the author of many influential books about beer and whisky. He was a regular contributor to a number of broadsheets, particularly The Independent and The Observer.
Go to Profile#19119
Flea
#19130
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Michael Peter Balzary , known professionally as Flea, is an American musician and actor. He is best known as the co-founder and bassist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers . He and vocalist Anthony Kiedis are the only two constant members across every album.
Go to Profile#19120
Martin Kitchen
#19131
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Martin Kitchen is a British-Canadian historian, who has specialized in modern European history, with an emphasis on Germany. He is internationally regarded as a key author for the study of contemporary history.
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Jeffrey Weeks
#19132
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Jeffrey Renwick Weeks is an American mathematician, a geometric topologist and cosmologist. Weeks is a 1999 MacArthur Fellow. Biography Weeks received his BA from Dartmouth College in 1978, and his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1985, under the supervision of William Thurston. Since then he has taught at Stockton State College, Ithaca College, and Middlebury College, but has spent much of his time as a free-lance mathematician.
Go to Profile#19122
Winfried Hassemer
#19133
Overall Influence
1940 - 2014 (74 years)
Winfried Hassemer was a German criminal law scholar. He was vice president of the Federal Constitutional Court. Born in Gau-Algesheim, Hassemer was from 1964 to 1969 a scientific assistant at the Institut for laws and social philosophy of the university of Saarland. His widow Kristiane Weber Hassemer was a judge and state secretary to Rupert von Plottnitz. His brother Volker Hassemer was a senator in Berlin.
Go to Profile#19123
Gloria Origgi
#19134
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Gloria Origgi is an Italian philosopher at the CNRS in Paris who works on the theory of mind, epistemology and social sciences applied to new technology. She is the founder and director of the innovative project, a portal where many international virtual conferences in the social and cognitive sciences are being organized.
Go to Profile#19124
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
#19135
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli philologist, professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, translator, and activist. She is a 2001 co-laureate of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament. She is known for her research on the portrayal of Palestinians in Israeli textbooks, which she has criticized as being anti-Palestinian. Elhanan supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and has made highly controversial statements, including equivocating between Zionism and ISIS, as well as criticizing Israeli laureate and peace activist AB Yehoshua for being an obstacle to peace.
Go to Profile#19125
Bill Withers
#19136
Overall Influence
1938 - 2020 (82 years)
William Harrison Withers Jr. was an American singer and songwriter. He had several hits over a career spanning 18 years, including "Ain't No Sunshine" , "Grandma's Hands" , "Use Me" , "Lean on Me" , "Lovely Day" and "Just the Two of Us" . Withers won three Grammy Awards and was nominated for six more.
Go to Profile#19126
J. Matthew Gallman
#19137
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
J. Matthew Gallman, also known as Matt Gallman, is an American educator and author of books about nineteenth-century history, particularly relating to the American Civil War. Education Gallman received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1979 and his Ph.D. in American History from Brandeis University in 1986.
Go to Profile#19127
Len Doyal
#19138
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Len Doyal FRSA FRSocMed is emeritus professor of medical ethics at Queen Mary, University of London and a medical ethicist. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1944 and studied philosophy and sociology at Georgia State University, earning his undergraduate degree in 1966. That same year he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Karl Popper at the London School of Economics.
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Walter Payton
#19139
Overall Influence
1954 - 1999 (45 years)
Walter Jerry Payton was an American professional football running back who played in the National Football League for 13 seasons with the Chicago Bears. Nicknamed "Sweetness", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time. A nine-time Pro Bowl selection, Payton is remembered as a prolific rusher, once holding records for career rushing yards, touchdowns, carries, yards from scrimmage, all-purpose yards, and many other categories. Payton also retired with the most receptions by a non-receiver, and he had eight career touchdown passes.
Go to Profile#19129
Anthony Aguirre
#19140
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Anthony Aguirre is a theoretical cosmologist. Aguirre is a professor and holds the Faggin Presidential Chair for the Physics of Information at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the co-founder and associate scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute and is also a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute. In 2015, he co-founded the aggregated prediction platform Metaculus with Greg Laughlin. In 2019, he published the pop science book Cosmological Koans.
Go to Profile#19130
Duncan Odom
#19141
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Duncan Odom is a research group leader at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge. Previously he was as an associate faculty member at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute from 2011 to 2018.
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Donald Jacobs
#19142
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Donald Jacobs was an American academic administrator who was dean of Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University from 1975 to 2001. Early life Jacobs was born in the west side of Chicago, and attended Austin High School.
Go to Profile#19132
Victor Reppert
#19143
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Victor Reppert is an American philosopher best known for his development of the "argument from reason". He is the author of C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea and numerous academic papers in journals such as Christian Scholars' Review, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Philo, and Philosophia Christi. He is also a philosophy blogger, with two blogs.
Go to Profile#19133
Benson Farb
#19144
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Benson Stanley Farb is an American mathematician at the University of Chicago. His research fields include geometric group theory and low-dimensional topology. Early life A native of Norristown, Pennsylvania, Farb earned his bachelor's degree from Cornell University. In 1994, he obtained his doctorate from Princeton University, under supervision of William Thurston.
Go to Profile#19134
Christine Van Broeckhoven
#19145
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Christine Van Broeckhoven is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor in Molecular genetics at the University of Antwerp . She is also leading the VIB Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Antwerp of the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology . Christine Van Broeckhoven does research on Alzheimer dementia, bipolar mental disorders and other neurological diseases. Since 1983 she has had her own laboratory for molecular genetics at the University of Antwerp, and since 2005 is focussing her research on neurodegenerative brain diseases. She is an associate editor of the scientific jour...
Go to Profile#19135
Mamoru Oshii
#19146
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer , Angel's Egg , Patlabor 2: The Movie , and Ghost in the Shell . He also holds the distinction of having created the first ever OVA, Dallos . As a writer, Oshii has worked as a screenwriter, and occasionally as a manga writer and novelist. His most notable works as a writer include the manga Kerberos Panzer Cop and its feature film adaptation Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade .
Go to Profile#19136
Roger Nicole
#19147
Overall Influence
1915 - 2010 (95 years)
Roger R. Nicole was a native Swiss Reformed Baptist theologian and proponent of Christian egalitarianism and biblical inerrancy. He was an associate editor for the New Geneva Study Bible, assisted in the translation of the New International Version, and was a founding member of both the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and the Evangelical Theological Society, serving as president of the latter in 1956.
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Zoltan Istvan
#19148
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, professionally known as Zoltan Istvan , is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, political candidate, and futurist. Formerly a reporter for the National Geographic Channel, Istvan now writes futurist, transhumanist, secular and political-themed articles for major media, including The New York Times. He believes transhumanism will grow into a mainstream social movement in the 2020s. Istvan is the author of The Transhumanist Wager, a philosophical science fiction novel.
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Kathryn Beers
#19149
Overall Influence
Kathryn L. Beers is an American polymer chemist. Beers is Leader of the Polymers and Complex Fluids group in the Materials Science and Engineering Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research interests include microreactors and microfluidics, advances in polymer synthesis and reaction monitoring, macromolecular separations, integrated and high throughput measurements of polymeric materials, degradable and renewable polymeric materials, and sustainable materials.
Go to Profile#19139
Bobby Riggs
#19150
Overall Influence
1918 - 1995 (77 years)
Robert Larimore Riggs was an American tennis champion who was the world No. 1 amateur in 1939 and world No. 1 professional in 1946 and 1947. He played his first professional tennis match on December 26, 1941.
Go to Profile#19140
Peter J. Olver
#19151
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Peter John Olver is a British-American mathematician working in differential geometry. Education and career After moving to the USA in 1961, Olver obtained a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics at Brown University in 1973 and a PhD in Mathematics at Harvard University in 1976. His PhD thesis was entitled "Symmetry Groups of Partial Differential Equations" and has been written under the supervision of Garrett Birkhoff.
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Fredric J. Harris
#19152
Overall Influence
Fredric Joel Harris was a professor of Electrical engineering and was CUBIC signal processing chair at San Diego State University. He is now Adjunct professor at University of California San Diego. He is an internationally renowned expert on DSP and Communication Systems. He is also the co-inventor of the Blackman-Harris window. He also has extensively published many technical papers, the most famous being the seminal 1978 paper "On the use of Windows for Harmonic Analysis with the Discrete Fourier Transform." He is also the author of the textbook Multi-rate Signal Processing for Communicatio...
Go to Profile#19142
Eric Widmer
#19153
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Dr. Eric Widmer is an American scholar and educator. He was born in Lebanon where his American mother was on the faculty of the American University in Beirut. He was educated at Deerfield, Williams, and Harvard. After finishing his Ph.D, he joined the faculty at Brown teaching Chinese History and would then go on to spend much of his career there as a dean. He then served as Deerfield Academy's 54th Headmaster from 1994 to 2006, and was succeeded in that post by Margarita O'Byrne Curtis. He left the school to assume the position of founding headmaster at King's Academy in Madaba, Jordan, which began its first academic year in fall 2007.
Go to Profile#19143
Freddie Ljungberg
#19154
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Karl Fredrik "Freddie" Ljungberg is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a winger. He is also a former manager, and was most recently an assistant coach, and interim head coach of Arsenal.
Go to Profile#19144
Juan José Sebreli
#19155
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Juan José Pérez Sebreli is an Argentine sociologist, essayist and philosopher. Throughout his intellectual work, he concentrated on the notions of reason, city and everyday life. Life Inspired by Gay Power movement, he was co-founder of Frente de Liberación Homosexual along with Manuel Puig and Néstor Perlongher, in the last years of the self-called Argentine Revolution. The organization of the group was an adaptation of the democratic centralist partisan model. In years that followed the last coup d'état he directed study groups that were called "Universidad de las Sombras" . As suggested b...
Go to Profile#19145
Bob Graham
#19156
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Daniel Robert Graham is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
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Agnetha Fältskog
#19157
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Agneta Åse Fältskog , known as Agnetha Fältskog and Anna Fältskog, is a Swedish singer, songwriter and a member of the pop group ABBA. She first achieved success in Sweden with the release of her 1968 self-titled debut album. She rose to international stardom in the 1970s as a member of ABBA, which is one of the best-selling music acts in history. She is the youngest member of ABBA, and the only one born in the 1950s.
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Luis Britto García
#19158
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Luis Britto García is a Venezuelan writer, playwright and essayist. His fiction has been recognised twice with the Casa de Las Américas Prize, for his works Rajatabla and Abrapalabra . In 2002, he was the winner of Venezuela's National Prize for Literature, given as a lifetime achievement award. In 2005 he was recognized with the Ezequiel Martínez Estrada honorary award of Casa de Las Américas. In May 2012, he was appointed by President Hugo Chávez to the Venezuelan Council of State, "the highest circle of advisers to the president" provided for in the Venezuelan Constitution.
Go to Profile#19148
Eric Lindros
#19159
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Eric Bryan Lindros is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Lindros was born in London, Ontario, but grew up in Toronto. He played junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League for the Oshawa Generals prior to being chosen first overall in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft by the Quebec Nordiques. He refused to play for the Nordiques and was eventually traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in June 1992 in exchange for a package of players and draft picks including Peter Forsberg. During his OHL career, Lindros led the Generals to a Memorial Cup victory in 1990. Prior to being drafted in 1991, L...
Go to Profile#19149
Peter Janich
#19160
Overall Influence
1942 - 2016 (74 years)
Peter Janich was a professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg. He was born in Munich. Janich studied physics, philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Erlangen and Hamburg. He attained a doctorate in philosophy in 1969 and during 1969/70 was a guest lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. From 1973 to 1980 he was a professor for philosophy of science of the accurate sciences at the University of Konstanz. Since 1980 he has held the chair for systematic philosophy with an emphasis on theoretical philosophy at the Philipps University of Marburg.
Go to Profile#19150
Vladimir Platonov
#19161
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Vladimir Petrovich Platonov is a Soviet, Belarusian and Russian mathematician. He is an expert in algebraic geometry and topology and member of the Russian Academy of Science. From 1992–2004 he worked at research centers in the United States, Canada and Germany.
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