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
#19601
Hans-Dieter Sues
#19612
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Hans-Dieter Sues is a German-born American paleontologist who is Senior Scientist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Go to Profile#19602
Dan Castellaneta
#19613
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Daniel Louis Castellaneta is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series The Simpsons . Castellaneta is also known for voicing Grandpa in Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!, and has had voice roles in several other programs, including Futurama, Sibs, Darkwing Duck, The Adventures of Dynamo Duck, The Batman, Back to the Future: The Animated Series, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, and Taz-Mania.
Go to Profile#19603
Ngaiming Mok
#19614
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ngaiming Mok is a Hong Kong mathematician specializing in complex differential geometry and algebraic geometry. He is currently a professor at the University of Hong Kong. After graduating from St. Paul's Co-educational College in Hong Kong in 1975, Mok studied at the University of Chicago and Yale University, obtaining his M.A. in Mathematics from Yale in 1978. He obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University under the guidance of Yum-Tong Siu. He taught at Princeton University, Columbia University and the University of Paris-Saclay before joining the faculty of the University of Hong Kong in 1994.
Go to Profile#19604
Charlie Bean
#19615
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Sir Charles Richard Bean is a British economist and Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. He was previously Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy at the Bank of England from 1 July 2008 until 30 June 2014. From 2000 to 2008, he served as Chief Economist at the Bank.
Go to Profile#19605
Arun Majumdar
#19616
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Arunava Majumdar is a materials scientist, engineer, and the inaugural dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He was nominated for the position of Under Secretary of Energy in the United States between November 30, 2011 and May 15, 2012. He was previously the director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , where he was also deputy director of LBNL as well as professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He was nominated to be the first director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Re...
Go to Profile#19606
Susumu Nishibe
#19617
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
was a Japanese critic, conservative and economist. He was a professor of Socioeconomics at University of Tokyo. He criticized modern economics, progressivism, and rationalism, and advocated theories on mass society, conservatism, and the independence of Japan from the United States.
Go to Profile#19607
John Medina
#19618
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
John J. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist with special research interests in the isolation and characterization of genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders. Medina has spent most of his professional life as an analytical research consultant, working primarily in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries on research issues related to mental health.
Go to Profile#19609
Eyal Weizman
#19620
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Eyal Weizman MBE FBA is a British Israeli architect. He is the director of the research agency Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London where he is Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures and a founding director there of the Centre for Research Architecture at the department of Visual Cultures. In 2019 he was elected Fellow of the British Academy.
Go to Profile#19610
Bernard Bachrach
#19621
Overall Influence
1939 - 2023 (84 years)
Bernard Stanley Bachrach was an American historian. He taught history at the University of Minnesota from 1967 until his retirement in 2020. He specialized in the Early Middle Ages, mainly on the topics of medieval warfare, medieval Jewry, and early Angevin history . He also wrote an important article about the treatment of Jews in the Visigothic kingdom.
Go to Profile#19611
Emi Nakamura
#19622
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Emi Nakamura is a Canadian-American economist. She is the Chancellor's Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Nakamura is a research associate and co-director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-editor of the American Economic Review.
Go to Profile#19612
Tom Jones
#19623
Overall Influence
1928 - 2023 (95 years)
#19613
Louis Lusky
#19624
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Louis Lusky was an American legal scholar. Considered a pioneer in the field of civil rights law, he was the Betts Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he taught from 1963 to 1986. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Lusky graduated from Louisville Male High School in 1931. He later attended the University of Louisville and Columbia Law School and graduated as the highest-ranking member of the Columbia Law School Class of 1937. Lusky began his legal career as the clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone. During that time he helped draft the famous "Footnote 4" of United States v.
Go to Profile#19614
Joe Sakic
#19625
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Joseph Steven Sakic is a Canadian professional ice hockey executive and former player. He played his entire 21-year National Hockey League career, which lasted from 1988 to 2009, with the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche franchise. Named captain of the team in 1992 , Sakic is regarded as one of the greatest team leaders in league history and was able to consistently motivate his team to play at a winning level. Nicknamed "Burnaby Joe", Sakic was named to play in 13 NHL All-Star Games and selected to the NHL First All-Star Team at centre three times. Sakic led the Avalanche to Stanley Cup ...
Go to Profile#19615
Nigel Biggar
#19626
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Nigel John Biggar is a British Anglican priest, theologian, and ethicist. From 2007 to 2022, he was the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford. Early life Biggar was born on 14 March 1955 in Castle Douglas, Scotland. He was educated at Monkton Combe School, a private school near Bath, Somerset. He studied modern history at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976. As per tradition, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts degree in 1988. He attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in re...
Go to Profile#19616
Ian Ritchie
#19627
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ian Ritchie is a British architect who founded Ian Ritchie Architects in 1981. His projects include the RIBA Award-winning Susie Sainsbury Theatre and Angela Burgess Recital Hall for the Royal Academy of Music, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, University College London and the American Institute of Architects Award-winning Royal Shakespeare Company Courtyard Theatre. Ritchie was the first foreign architect to receive the French Academie d'Architecture Grand Silver Medal for Innovation.
Go to Profile#19617
Dennis Lillee
#19628
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Dennis Keith Lillee, is a retired Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation". Lillee formed a new ball partnership with Jeff Thomson which is recognised as one of the greatest bowling pairs of all time.
Go to Profile#19618
Abraham Neyman
#19629
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Abraham Neyman is an Israeli mathematician and game theorist, Professor of Mathematics at the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality and the Einstein Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He served as president of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society .
Go to Profile#19619
Kenneth Falconer
#19630
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Kenneth John Falconer FRSE is a British mathematician working in mathematical analysis and in particular on fractal geometry. He is Regius Professor of Mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St Andrews.
Go to Profile#19620
Lisa Zunshine
#19631
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Lisa Zunshine is an American scholar of literature and cognitive science, who publishes in eighteenth-century British literature, comparative literature, film/media studies, and cognitive psychology. She came to the United States as a refugee, from Latvia, when she was twenty-one, and became a U.S. citizen in 1998. She is professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington; a Guggenheim fellow ; and author or editor of twelve books, including Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture ,The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies , and The...
Go to Profile#19621
Joseph L. Badaracco
#19632
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Joseph L. Badaracco is an American author, and the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School. He has taught courses on business ethics, strategy and management in the School's MBA and executive programs.
Go to Profile#19622
Yisrael Friedman
#19633
Overall Influence
1923 - 2017 (94 years)
Yisrael Friedman was known as the Pashkaner Rebbe . He was a lecturer at the Tel Aviv University and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the rosh yeshiva of a hesder yeshiva in Netivot. Friedman was a sixth-generation descendant of Rebbe Yisrael of Rizhin. He resided in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. He was married to Rebbetzin Tziporah, a daughter of the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz. One of his sons is Hoshea Friedman, a brigadier general in the IDF. The Rebbe's grandsons study in various hesder yeshivos. On Monday, May 1, 2017, Rebbi Friedman died at the age of 93, leaving b...
Go to Profile#19623
Marjorie Grene
#19634
Overall Influence
1910 - 2009 (99 years)
Marjorie Glicksman Grene was an American philosopher. She wrote on existentialism and the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology. She taught at the University of California at Davis from 1965 to 1978. From 1988 until her death, she was Honorary University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech.
Go to Profile#19624
Daryl Hall
#19635
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Daryl Franklin Hohl , known professionally as Daryl Hall, is an American rock, R&B and soul singer and musician, best known as the co-founder and principal lead vocalist of Hall & Oates, with guitarist and songwriter John Oates. Outside of his work in Hall & Oates, he has also released five solo albums, including the 1980 progressive rock collaboration with guitarist Robert Fripp titled Sacred Songs and the 1986 album Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine, which provided his best selling single, "Dreamtime", that peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. He has also collaborated on ...
Go to Profile#19625
Nili Rachel Scharf Gold
#19636
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Nili Rachel Scharf Gold is an Israeli-American professor of modern Hebrew language and literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the study of modern Hebrew literature, she draws in her research on approaches from psychoanalysis, urban history, diaspora and migration studies, and studies of collective and individual memory. She has published prize-winning books on the Israeli Hebrew poet, Yehuda Amichai, and on the cultural, social, and architectural aspects of the city of Haifa. She ha...
Go to Profile#19626
Matthias Egger
#19637
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Matthias Egger is professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Bern in Switzerland, as well as professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.
Go to Profile#19627
Lou Piniella
#19638
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Louis Victor Piniella is a former professional baseball player and manager. An outfielder, he played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees. During his playing career, he was named AL Rookie of the Year in 1969 and captured two World Series championships with the Yankees .
Go to Profile#19628
Christopher Ahlberg
#19639
Overall Influence
Christopher Ahlberg, born 1968, is a Swedish/American computer scientist and executive. Ahlberg is the co-founder and CEO of Recorded Future, as well as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Hult International Business School.
Go to Profile#19629
Neil Genzlinger
#19640
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic who frequently writes for The New York Times. Family Genzlinger is a grandson of the late The Philadelphia Bulletin columnist Don Rose. He has two daughters: Abby, who has Rett syndrome, and Emily. Abby has appeared in Julia Roberts' documentary "Silent Angels." Emily is a law student and recipient of the prestigious Gideon's Promise fellowship for aspiring public defenders.
Go to Profile#19630
Robinho
#19641
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Robson de Souza , known as Robinho , is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a winger. In 1999, at 15 years of age, Robinho was picked by Brazil legend Pelé as his heir apparent and, in 2002, went on to lead Santos to their first Campeonato Brasileiro title since Pelé himself played for the club. Afterwards he went on to win a second title with Santos, two more with Spanish club Real Madrid, and the Italian Serie A title in his first season at Milan. At international level, Robinho has won one Copa América title and two FIFA Confederations Cups with the Brazil national team...
Go to Profile#19631
Alan Hastings
#19642
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Alan Matthew Hastings is a mathematical ecologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. In 2005 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2006 he won the Robert H. MacArthur Award.
Go to Profile#19632
Ellen Gilchrist
#19643
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Ellen Gilchrist is an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. She won a National Book Award for her 1984 collection of short stories, Victory Over Japan. Life Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and spent part of her childhood on a plantation owned by her maternal grandparents. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and studied creative writing under renowned writer Eudora Welty at Millsaps College. Later in life, Gilchrist enrolled in the creative writing program at the University of Arkansas, but she never completed her MFA. Gilchrist has been married and divorced four times and has three children, fourteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Go to Profile#19633
Michael E. Rosen
#19644
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Michael Eric Rosen is a British political philosopher active in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental European intellectual thought. He is best known for his work on Hegel and the Frankfurt School. He is currently the Senator Joseph S. Clark Professor of Government at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#19634
Fred B. Schneider
#19645
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Fred Barry Schneider is an American computer scientist, based at Cornell University, where he is the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Computer Science. He has published in numerous areas including science policy, cybersecurity, and distributed systems. His research is in the area of concurrent and distributed systems for high-integrity and mission-critical applications.
Go to Profile#19635
Lars-Hendrik Röller
#19646
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Lars-Hendrik Röller is a German economist who served as the Director General for Economic and Financial Policy at the German Chancellery from 2011 to 2022, a position that made him Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief economic advisor. He previously was the president of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. In 2002, he was awarded the Gossen Prize in recognition for his contributions to empirical industrial economics.
Go to Profile#19636
Matthew J. Bruccoli
#19647
Overall Influence
1931 - 2008 (77 years)
Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was an American professor of English at the University of South Carolina. He was the preeminent expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald. He also wrote about other writers, notably Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and John O'Hara, and was editor of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Go to Profile#19637
Alfred R. Lindesmith
#19648
Overall Influence
1905 - 1991 (86 years)
Alfred Ray Lindesmith was an Indiana University professor of sociology. He was among the early scholars providing a rigorous and thoughtful account of the nature of addiction. He was a critic of legal prohibitions against addictive drugs, arguing that such prohibitions had adverse societal effects. Lindesmith's work in drug policy and addiction at Indiana U. was an element of progressivism, along with the landmark work of Alfred Kinsey and his associates at The Kinsey Institute, under the supervision of IU President Herman Wells .
Go to Profile#19638
Leon Morris
#19649
Overall Influence
1914 - 2006 (92 years)
Leon Lamb Morris was an Australian New Testament scholar. Born in Lithgow, New South Wales, Morris was ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1938. He earned Bachelor of Divinity in 1943 and Master of Theology, both from University of London external system. He later received his PhD at the University of Cambridge in England on the subject which became his first major book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. He served as warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge ; principal of Ridley College in Melbourne , Australia ; and Visiting Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Go to Profile#19639
Ekaterina Makarova
#19650
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Ekaterina Valeryevna Makarova is a Russian former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in doubles, and world No. 8 in singles. She is a four-time Grand Slam champion, having won the 2013 French Open, 2014 US Open and 2017 Wimbledon Championships in women's doubles, all alongside compatriot Elena Vesnina, as well as the 2012 US Open in mixed doubles with Bruno Soares. Makarova and Vesnina also finished runners-up at the 2014 and 2018 Australian Opens, 2015 Wimbledon Championships and 2016 French Open. She and Jaroslav Levinský reached the mixed doubles final at the 2010 Australian Open.
Go to Profile#19640
C. F. D. Moule
#19651
Overall Influence
1908 - 2007 (99 years)
Charles Francis Digby "Charlie" Moule , known professionally as C. F. D. Moule, was an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was a leading scholar of the New Testament and was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge for 25 years, from 1951 to 1976.
Go to Profile#19641
Danyel Smith
#19652
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Danyel Smith Wilson is an American magazine editor, journalist, and novelist . Smith is the former and first African-American editor of Billboard and Vibe magazine, respectively. She is author of two novels and a history of African-American women in pop music.
Go to Profile#19642
Harbans Mukhia
#19653
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Harbans Mukhia is an Indian political historian whose principal area of study is medieval India. Biography He received his Bachelors in Arts in history in 1958 from Kirori Mal College, Delhi University and then earned his doctorate from Department of History, Delhi University in 1969. Mukhia worked at Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi as Professor of Medieval History at the Centre for Historical Studies. He was rector of JNU from 1999 to 2002 and retired in February 2004..
Go to Profile#19643
Roland Littlewood
#19654
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Roland Littlewood FRAI is a British anthropologist and psychiatrist, and Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at University College London. He is the co-author of the book Aliens and Alienists, now in its third edition. During his career, he was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1994 to 1997.
Go to Profile#19644
Virginia Abernethy
#19655
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Virginia Deane Abernethy is an American anthropologist and activist. She is professor emerita of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She has published research on population demography and immigration. She ran for Vice President of the United States in 2012 alongside Merlin Miller for the American Third Position, a party that promotes white nationalism.
Go to Profile#19645
Ginger Baker
#19656
Overall Influence
1939 - 2019 (80 years)
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker was an English drummer. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer", for a style that melded jazz and African rhythms and pioneered both jazz fusion and world music.
Go to Profile#19646
Bibha Chowdhuri
#19657
Overall Influence
1913 - 1991 (78 years)
Bibha Chowdhuri was an Indian physicist. She worked on particle physics and cosmic rays. The IAU has re-christened the star HD 86081 as Bibha after her. Early life and education Chowdhuri was born in Kolkata. Her father, Banku Behari Chowdhuri, was a doctor and her mother Urmila Devi was daughter of a Brahmo Samaj Missionary. She was the third eldest child, and had four sisters and a brother. Her aunt, Nirmala Devi, was married to Sir Nilratan Sircar. Her mother's family were adherents of the Brahmo Samaj movement. Her sister, Roma Chowdhuri, went on to become a teacher at Brahmo Balika Shik...
Go to Profile#19647
Kunal Basu
#19658
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Kunal Basu is an Indian author of English fiction who has written five novels – The Opium Clerk , The Miniaturist , Racists , The Yellow Emperor's Cure Kalkatta and Sarojini’s Mother . The title story of his only collection of short stories, The Japanese Wife , was made into a film by the Indian filmmaker Aparna Sen. Basu has also written four Bengali novels – Rabi-Shankar , Bairer Dorja , Tejoswini O Shabnam and Angel
Go to Profile#19648
Geraldine L. Richmond
#19659
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Geraldine Lee Richmond is an American chemist and physical chemist who is serving as the Under Secretary of Energy for Science in the US Department of Energy. Richmond was confirmed to her DOE role by the United States Senate on November 5, 2021. Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon . She conducts fundamental research to understand the chemistry and physics of complex surfaces and interfaces. These understandings are most relevant to energy production, atmospheric chemistry and remediation of the environment. Throughout her career she has worked to increase the number and success of women scientists in the U.S.
Go to Profile#19649
Sean J. Morrison
#19660
Overall Influence
Sean J. Morrison is a Canadian-American stem cell biologist and cancer researcher. Morrison is the director of Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern, a nonprofit research institute established in 2011 as a joint venture between Children’s Health System of Texas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. The CRI was established in 2011 by Morrison with the mission to perform transformative biomedical research at the interface of stem cell biology, cancer, and metabolism to better understand the biological basis of disease. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#19650
Henrik Svensmark
#19661
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Henrik Svensmark is a physicist and professor in the Division of Solar System Physics at the Danish National Space Institute in Copenhagen. He is known for his work on the hypothesis that fewer cosmic rays are an indirect cause of global warming via cloud formation.
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