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
#19651
Mikhail Zelikin
#19662
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Mikhail Il'ich Zelikin is a Russian mathematician, who works on differential equations , optimal control theory, differential games , the theory of fields of extremals for multiple integrals, the geometry of Grassmannians. He proposed an explanation of ball lightning based on the hypothesis of plasma superconductivity.
Go to Profile#19652
Ricky Hatton
#19663
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Richard John Hatton is a British former professional boxer who competed between 1997 and 2012, and has since worked as a boxing promoter and trainer. During his boxing career he held multiple world championships at light-welterweight and one at welterweight. BoxRec ranks Hatton as the 11th greatest European boxer of all time and 5th greatest British boxer of all time, pound for pound. In 2005 he was named Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America, and ESPN.
Go to Profile#19653
Ilana B. Witten
#19664
Overall Influence
Ilana B. Witten is an American neuroscientist and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. Witten studies the mesolimbic pathway, with a focus on the striatal neural circuit mechanisms driving reward learning and decision making.
Go to Profile#19654
Khoo Kay Kim
#19665
Overall Influence
1937 - 2019 (82 years)
Khoo Kay Kim was a Malaysian historian and academic of Chinese descent. He was honoured with Emeritus Professor title by the University of Malaya in 2001. In January 2011, Khoo was appointed Chancellor of KDU University College.
Go to Profile#19655
Adrian Belew
#19666
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to his guitar tones which, rather than relying on standard instrumental tones, often resemble sound effects or noises made by animals and machines.
Go to Profile#19656
Stefan Schaal
#19667
Overall Influence
Stefan Schaal is a German-American computer scientist specializing in robotics, machine learning, autonomous systems, and computational neuroscience. Education and career Schaal was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, Schaal grew up in the North Bavarian town of Nürnberg. After graduating from school, he served in the German army in the Ski Patrol Division of Bad Reichenhall, where he honorably discharged with the rank of a Lieutenant. Schaal studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich, graduating in 1987 with a Diploma degree . Subsequently, Schaal did his Ph.D. in...
Go to Profile#19657
Rahul Mehrotra
#19668
Overall Influence
Rahul Mehrotra is Founder Principal of architecture firm RMA Architects of Mumbai + Boston, and is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#19658
Adrian Lewis
#19669
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Adrian Stephen Lewis is a British-Canadian mathematician, specializing in variational analysis and nonsmooth optimization. Education and career At the University of Cambridge he graduated with B.A. in mathematics in 1983, M.A. in 1987, and Ph.D. in engineering in 1987. His doctoral dissertation is titled Extreme point methods for infinite linear programming. Lewis was a postdoc at Dalhousie University. In Canada he was a faculty member at the University of Waterloo from 1989 to 2001 and at Simon Fraser University from 2001 to 2004. Since 2004 he has been a full professor at Cornell University and since 2018 has been the Samuel B.
Go to Profile#19659
Dick Grune
#19670
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Dick Grune is a Dutch computer scientist and university lecturer best known for inventing and developing the first version of the Concurrent Versions System . Grune was involved in the construction of Algol 68 compilers in the 1970s and the Amsterdam Compiler Kit in the 1980s.
Go to Profile#19660
Dario Argento
#19671
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror".
Go to Profile#19661
Wasim Akram
#19672
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Wasim Akram is a Pakistani cricket commentator, coach, and former cricketer and captain of the Pakistan national cricket team. Akram is regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, as well as one of the greatest left-arm fast bowlers in cricket history. He is often revered as The Sultan of Swing. In October 2013, Wasim Akram was the only Pakistani cricketer to be named in an all-time Test World XI to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. As captain, he led Pakistan to the finals of the 1999 Cricket World Cup, where they lost to Australia by 8 wickets.
Go to Profile#19662
Walid Raad
#19673
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Walid Raad is a contemporary media artist. The Atlas Group is a fictional collective, the work of which is produced by Walid Raad. He lives and works in New York, where he is currently a professor at the School of Art at the Cooper Union School of Art.
Go to Profile#19663
Antoine Danchin
#19674
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Antoine Danchin is a French geneticist. He is best known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of adenylate cyclase, to modelling of learning in the nervous system and the early development of genomics and bioinformatics. He is the Chairman of the startup AMAbiotics which specialises in metabolic bioremediation and synthetic biology. He was the director of the Department Genomes and Genetics at the Institut Pasteur in Paris where he headed the Genetics of Bacterial Genomes Unit.
Go to Profile#19664
Antonio Cañizares Llovera
#19675
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Antonio Cañizares Llovera is a Spanish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who was the Archbishop of Valencia from 2014 to 2022. He was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2008 to 2014, and archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain from 2002 to 2008. He was made a cardinal in 2006.
Go to Profile#19665
Rebecca Bace
#19676
Overall Influence
1955 - 2017 (62 years)
Rebecca "Becky" Gurley Bace was an American computer security expert and pioneer in intrusion detection. She spent 12 years at the US National Security Agency where she created the Computer Misuse and Anomaly Detection research program. She was known as the "den mother of computer security". She was also influential in the early stages of intelligence community venture capital and was a major player in Silicon Valley investments in cyber security technology.
Go to Profile#19666
Peter Weir
#19677
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Peter Lindsay Weir is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock , Gallipoli , Witness , Dead Poets Society , Fearless , The Truman Show , Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World , and The Way Back . He has received six Academy Award nominations, ultimately being awarded the Academy Honorary Award in 2022 for his lifetime achievement career.
Go to Profile#19667
Vili Lehdonvirta
#19678
Overall Influence
Vili Lehdonvirta is Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is also a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, an associate member of the Department of Sociology, Oxford and a former Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, London. Lehdonvirta is an economic sociologist, whose research draws on theories and approaches from economic sociology, new institutional economics, labour sociology, and science and technology studies. His research focuses on digital technologies—such as apps, platforms, and marketplaces—a...
Go to Profile#19668
Raekwon
#19679
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Corey Woods , better known by his stage name Raekwon , is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as a founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, which achieved mainstream success following the release of their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang , in 1993. Raekwon would subsequently pursue a solo career, releasing his first solo album, entitled Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., in 1995. The album received critical acclaim, and is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, as well as a staple of 1990s rap.
Go to Profile#19669
Richard Bausch
#19680
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Richard Bausch is an American novelist and short story writer, and Professor in the Writing Program at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has published twelve novels, eight short story collections, and one volume of poetry and prose.
Go to Profile#19670
Michel Lazdunski
#19681
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Michel Lazdunski is a French biologist specializing in biochemistry, physiology, pathophysiology, molecular pharmacology and neuroscience. Biography Michel Lazdunski is a chemical engineer , graduate of the École nationale supérieure de chimie de Clermont-Ferrand, PhD in Chemistry-Physics from Laval University in Quebec City in Canada in the laboratory of Ludovic Ouellet, then PhD in Biochemistry . He began his career at the CNRS in 1962 in Marseille where he became Professor of Biochemistry in 1965.He accepted the Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Nice in 1968. He founded the CNR...
Go to Profile#19671
Ruth Wedgwood
#19682
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ruth Wedgwood is an American legal scholar who holds the Edward B. Burling Chair in International Law and Diplomacy at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#19672
Ray Fair
#19683
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ray Clarence Fair is the John M. Musser Professor of Economics at Yale University. Fair received his B.A. from Fresno State College in 1964 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1968. He spent several years at Princeton University before moving to Yale. He is now a professor within the Cowles Foundation and the International Center for Finance.
Go to Profile#19673
Theo Colborn
#19684
Overall Influence
1927 - 2014 (87 years)
Theodora Emily Colborn was Founder and President Emerita of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange , based in Paonia, Colorado, and Professor Emerita of Zoology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She was an environmental health analyst, and best known for her studies on the health effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals. She died in 2014.
Go to Profile#19674
Billy Connolly
#19685
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Sir William Connolly is a Scottish actor, retired comedian, artist, writer, musician, and television presenter. He is sometimes known by the Scots nickname the Big Yin . Known for his idiosyncratic and often improvised observational comedy, frequently including strong language, Connolly has topped many UK polls as the greatest stand-up comedian of all time. In 2022 he received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Go to Profile#19675
Priyamvada Gopal
#19686
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Priyamvada Gopal is an Indian-born academic and writer who is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her primary teaching and research interests are in colonial and postcolonial studies, South Asian literature, critical race studies, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation. She has written three books on these subjects: Literary Radicalism in India , The Indian English Novel and Insurgent Empire .
Go to Profile#19676
Robert W. Young
#19687
Overall Influence
1912 - 2007 (95 years)
Robert W. Young , professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of New Mexico, was an American linguist known for his work on the Navajo language. From the late 1930s, Young cooperated with the Navajo linguist and scholar William Morgan, publishing a "practical orthography" in 1937.
Go to Profile#19677
Atiur Rahman
#19688
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Atiur Rahman is a Bangladeshi development economist, writer and banker. He served as the 10th Governor of Bangladesh Bank, which is the central bank of Bangladesh. He has also been called "the banker of the poor" for his contributions in developing the economy of Bangladesh. Atiur Rahman is credited for instituting changes in the banking industry of Bangladesh that greatly increased the foreign exchange reserves of the country and brought massive automation and digitization in the banking sector of Bangladesh. Achievements during his tenure include the creation of the National Payment Switch ...
Go to Profile#19678
Jean-Luc Brylinski
#19689
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jean-Luc Brylinski is a French-American mathematician. Educated at the Lycée Pasteur and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, after an appointment as researcher with the C. N. R. S., he became a Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. He proved the Kazhdan–Lusztig conjectures with Masaki Kashiwara. He has also worked on gerbes, cyclic homology, Quillen bundless, and geometric class field theory, among other geometric and algebraic topics.
Go to Profile#19679
Manolis Kellis
#19690
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Manolis Kellis is a professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of Computational Biology and a member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is the head of the Computational Biology Group at MIT and is a Principal Investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT.
Go to Profile#19680
Friedrich Achleitner
#19691
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
Friedrich Achleitner was an Austrian poet and architecture critic. As a member of the Wiener Gruppe, he wrote concrete poems and experimental literature. His magnum opus is a multi-volume documentation of 20th-century Austrian architecture. Written over several decades, Achleitner made a personal visit to each building described. He was a professor of the history and theory of architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Go to Profile#19681
Eric Hargan
#19692
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Eric David Hargan is an American lawyer and government official who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services from October 2017 to January 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Hargan previously acted in this role in 2007 under the George W. Bush administration.
Go to Profile#19682
Gregory Cajete
#19693
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Gregory Cajete is a Tewa author and professor from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. Cajete earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and sociology from New Mexico Highlands University, with a minor in secondary education. His Masters of Arts degree is from the University of New Mexico, and his doctorate is from the International College, Los Angeles’s New Philosophy Program. His Doctorate of Philosophy is in social science Education with an emphasis in Native American Studies. Currently he is director of the Native American Studies program and associate professor of education at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Go to Profile#19683
A. C. Spearing
#19694
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Anthony Colin Spearing is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia, specialising in medieval literature. He translated The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works for Penguin Classics.
Go to Profile#19684
Alberto Contador
#19695
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Alberto Contador Velasco is a Spanish former professional cyclist. He is one of the most successful riders of his era, winning the Tour de France twice , the Giro d'Italia twice , and the Vuelta a España three times . He is one of only seven riders to have won all three Grand Tours of cycling, and one of only two riders to have won all three more than once. He has also won the Vélo d'Or a record 4 times.
Go to Profile#19685
David A. B. Miller
#19696
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David A. B. Miller is the W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where he is also a professor of Applied Physics by courtesy. His research interests include the use of optics in switching, interconnection, communications, computing, and sensing systems, physics and applications of quantum well optics and optoelectronics, and fundamental features and limits for optics and nanophotonics in communications and information processing.
Go to Profile#19686
Jan Denef
#19697
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jan Denef is a Belgian mathematician. He is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven . Denef obtained his PhD from KU Leuven in 1975 with a thesis on Hilbert's tenth problem; his advisors were Louis Philippe Bouckaert and Willem Kuijk.
Go to Profile#19687
Willie McCovey
#19698
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
Willie Lee McCovey , nicknamed "Stretch", "Mac" and "Willie Mac", was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from 1959 to 1980, most notably as a member of the San Francisco Giants for whom he played for 19 seasons. McCovey also played for the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics in the latter part of his MLB career.
Go to Profile#19688
Stuart Woods
#19699
Overall Influence
1938 - 2022 (84 years)
Stuart Woods was an American novelist, known best for his first novel Chiefs and his series of novels featuring the Stone Barrington character. Early life Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia, and graduated in 1959 from the University of Georgia, with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. After graduation, he enrolled in the Air National Guard, spending two months in basic training before moving to New York City, where he began a career in the advertising industry. Towards the end of the 1960s, Woods emigrated to England and lived in Knightsbridge, London while continuing to work in advertising.
Go to Profile#19689
H. Gregg Lewis
#19700
Overall Influence
1914 - 1992 (78 years)
Harold Gregg Lewis was an American economist notable for his contributions in labor economics. He was considered a principal member of the monetarist, free-market-oriented Chicago school of economics.
Go to Profile#19690
Doron Swade
#19701
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Doron Swade MBE, born 1944, is a museum curator and author, specialising in the history of computing. He is especially known for his work on the computer pioneer Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine.
Go to Profile#19691
Roh Moo-hyun
#19702
Overall Influence
1946 - 2009 (63 years)
Roh Moo-hyun was a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the ninth president of South Korea between 2003 and 2008. Roh's pre-presidential political career was focused on human rights advocacy for student activists in South Korea. His electoral career later expanded to a focus on overcoming regionalism in South Korean politics, culminating in his election to the presidency. He achieved a large following among younger internet users, which aided his success in the presidential election. Roh's election was notable for the arrival in power of a new generation of Korean politicians, the so-called 386 Generation .
Go to Profile#19692
Androkli Kostallari
#19703
Overall Influence
1922 - 1992 (70 years)
Androkli Kostallari was an Albanian linguist and scholar. He was one of the central figures of the Albanian language studies and founding member and director of the Albanian Institute of History and Linguistics, and later Institute of Linguistics and Literature . Kostallari is remembered for being one of the key expert contributor to the present Albanian language orthography established by the Congress of Orthography of 1972.
Go to Profile#19693
David Warren
#19704
Overall Influence
1925 - 2010 (85 years)
David Ronald de Mey Warren was an Australian scientist, best known for inventing and developing the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder . Early life Warren was born to Rev Hubert and Ellie Warren and had three siblings. He was born on a remote mission station on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory, the first white child born on the island. He was educated at Launceston Church Grammar School and Trinity Grammar School, New South Wales. His father died in the crash of the de Havilland D.H.86 Miss Hobart over the Bass Strait in 1934.
Go to Profile#19694
Jean Ladrière
#19705
Overall Influence
1921 - 2007 (86 years)
Jean Ladrière was a Belgian logician and philosopher, born in Nivelles. He was professor at the University of Louvain from 1959 to 1986, where he was chair of the Higher Institute of Philosophy from 1977 to 1985.
Go to Profile#19695
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
#19706
Overall Influence
1928 - 2012 (84 years)
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti was an Indian linguist, specialized in Dravidian languages. He was born in Ongole . He was Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University from 1986 to 1993 and founded the Department of Linguistics at Osmania University where he served as professor from 1962 to 1986. His magnum opus The Dravidian Languages is considered a landmark volume in the study of Dravidian linguistics.
Go to Profile#19696
J. Michael Lennon
#19707
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
J. Michael Lennon is an American academic and writer who is the Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University and the late Norman Mailer’s archivist and authorized biographer. He published Mailer's official biography Norman Mailer: A Double Life in 2013. He edited Mailer's selected letters in 2014 and the Library of America's two-volume set Norman Mailer: The Sixties in 2018.
Go to Profile#19697
Steve Waugh
#19708
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Stephen Rodger Waugh is an Australian former international cricketer and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman and a medium-pace bowler, Waugh is considered one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Waugh was a part of the Australian team that won their first world title during the 1987 Cricket World Cup. As Australian captain from 1997 to 2004, he led Australia to fifteen of their record sixteen consecutive Test wins, and to victory in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Waugh is considered the most successful Test captain in history with 41 victories and a winning ratio of...
Go to Profile#19698
Jean-Marie Hullot
#19709
Overall Influence
1954 - 2019 (65 years)
Jean-Marie Hullot was a French computer scientist and programmer who authored important programs for the original Macintosh, NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X platforms. These include the SOS Interface for the Mac, which later became Interface Builder for NeXTSTEP , and later still evolved into an important part of Mac OS X. He also came up with the idea of the iPhone and lead the iCal and iSync development teams for Mac OS X .
Go to Profile#19699
Lou Brock
#19710
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Louis Clark Brock was an American professional baseball left fielder. He began his 19-year Major League Baseball career with the 1961 Chicago Cubs but spent most of it as a left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. An All-Star for six seasons, Brock was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 1985 and was inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2014.
Go to Profile#19700
Garrison Keillor
#19711
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion , which he hosted from 1974 to 2016. Keillor created the fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, the setting of many of his books, including Lake Wobegon Days and Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories. Other creations include Guy Noir, a detective voiced by Keillor who appeared in A Prairie Home Companion comic skits. Keillor is also the creator of the five-minute daily radio/podcast program The Writer's Al...
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