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
#19951
Christopher Peacocke
#19962
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Christopher Arthur Bruce Peacocke is a British philosopher known for his work in philosophy of mind and epistemology. His recent publications, in the field of epistemology, have defended a version of rationalism. His daughter, Antonia Peacocke, is also a philosopher, now at Stanford University, specialising in philosophy of mind.
Go to Profile#19952
Ernie Banks
#19963
Overall Influence
1931 - 2015 (84 years)
Ernest Banks , nicknamed "Mr. Cub" and "Mr. Sunshine", was an American professional baseball player who starred in Major League Baseball as a shortstop and first baseman for the Chicago Cubs between 1953 and 1971. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.
Go to Profile#19953
Lee Bontecou
#19964
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Lee Bontecou was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bontecou made abstract sculptures in the 1960s and 1970s and created vacuum-formed plastic fish, plants, and flower forms in the 1970s. Rich, organic shapes and powerful energy appear in her drawings, prints, and sculptures. Her work has been shown and collected in many major museums in the United States and in Europe.
Go to Profile#19954
Bernard de Wit
#19965
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Bernard Quirinus Petrus Joseph de Wit is a Dutch theoretical physicist specializing in supergravity and particle physics. Bernard de Wit studied theoretical physics at Utrecht University, where he got his PhD under supervision of Nobel Prize laureate Martinus Veltman in 1973. After postdoc stints in Stony Brook, Utrecht and Leiden, he became a staff member at National Institute for Nuclear and High Energy Physics in 1978, where became head of the theory group in 1981. In 1984 he became professor of theoretical physics at Utrecht University where he has stayed for the rest of his career. During the years, de Wit spent several periods at CERN as a visiting scientist in the Theory Division.
Go to Profile#19955
Debra Wong Yang
#19966
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Debra Wong Yang is the former United States Attorney for the Central District of California. She was appointed in May 2002 by President George W. Bush, who made her the first Asian American woman to serve as a United States Attorney. In 2009, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated Yang to a vacancy on the Los Angeles Police Commission. In 2016, she was listed as the potential choice for SEC Chief in Donald Trump's cabinet.
Go to Profile#19956
Barbara Stoler Miller
#19967
Overall Influence
1940 - 1993 (53 years)
Barbara Stoler Miller was a scholar of Sanskrit literature. Her translation of the Bhagavad Gita was extremely successful and she helped popularize Indian literature in the U.S. She was the president of the Association for Asian Studies in 1990.
Go to Profile#19957
Sam Hawgood
#19968
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Samuel Hawgood is a pediatrician, researcher, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished professor, and the tenth chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Queensland and completed residency at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane. Previously, he served as the Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#19958
Ry Cooder
#19969
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ryland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
Go to Profile#19959
Ghostface Killah
#19970
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Dennis David Coles , better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapper and a member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of Enter the Wu-Tang , the members went on to pursue solo careers to varying levels of success. Ghostface Killah debuted his solo career with Ironman, which was well-received by music critics, in 1996. He has enjoyed continued success in the years that have followed, releasing critically acclaimed albums such as Supreme Clientele and Fishscale . His stage name was taken from one of the characters in the 1979 kung fu film The Mystery of Chess Boxing.
Go to Profile#19960
Arne Sølvberg
#19971
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Arne Sølvberg is a Norwegian computer scientist, professor in computer science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, and an expert in the field of information modelling.
Go to Profile#19961
Chad Smith
#19972
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Chad Gaylord Smith is an American musician who has been the drummer of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers since 1988. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Smith is also the drummer of the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot, formed in 2008, and of the all-instrumental outfit Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats, formed in 2007. He worked with the Chicks on Taking the Long Way, an album that won five Grammy Awards in 2007.
Go to Profile#19962
Hans Clevers
#19973
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Johannes Carolus Clevers is a Dutch molecular geneticist, cell biologist and stem cell researcher. He became the Head of Pharma, Research and Early Development, and a member of the Corporate Executive Committee, of the Swiss healthcare company Roche in 2022. Previously, he headed a research group at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research and at the ; he remained as an advisor and guest scientist or visiting researcher to both groups. He is also a Professor in Molecular Genetics at the University of Utrecht.
Go to Profile#19963
Garrick Utley
#19974
Overall Influence
1939 - 2014 (75 years)
Clifton Garrick Utley was an American television journalist. He established his career reporting about the Vietnam War and has the distinction of being the first full-time television correspondent covering the war on-site.
Go to Profile#19964
Jean-François Mattéi
#19975
Overall Influence
1941 - 2014 (73 years)
Jean-François Mattéi was a French philosopher and professor of Greek philosophy and political philosophy at the University of Nice.
Go to Profile#19965
János Komlós
#19976
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
János Komlós is a Hungarian-American mathematician, working in probability theory and discrete mathematics. He has been a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University since 1988. He graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University, then became a fellow at the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Between 1984–1988 he worked at the University of California, San Diego.
Go to Profile#19966
Jennifer Rexford
#19977
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Jennifer Rexford is an American computer scientist who is currently the Provost, Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor in Engineering, Professor of Computer Science, and formerly the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University. Her research focuses on analysis of computer networks, and in particular network routing, performance measurement, and network management.
Go to Profile#19967
Karen Vogtmann
#19978
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Karen Vogtmann is an American mathematician working primarily in the area of geometric group theory. She is known for having introduced, in a 1986 paper with Marc Culler, an object now known as the Culler–Vogtmann Outer space. The Outer space is a free group analog of the Teichmüller space of a Riemann surface and is particularly useful in the study of the group of outer automorphisms of the free group on n generators, Out. Vogtmann is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University and the University of Warwick.
Go to Profile#19968
Theodore L. Brown
#19979
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Theodore Lawrence Brown is an American scientist known for research, teaching, and writing in the field of physical inorganic chemistry, a university administrator, and a philosopher of science. In addition to his research publications, Brown has written textbooks on general chemistry and science communication which have been published in multiple languages and used in multiple countries. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has also held the administrative positions of vice chancellor for research and dean of the graduate college . He is the ...
Go to Profile#19969
Nicolas Gisin
#19980
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Nicolas Gisin is a Swiss physicist and professor at the University of Geneva, working on the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum information, and communication. His work includes both experimental and theoretical physics. He has contributed work in the fields of experimental quantum cryptography and long-distance quantum communication over standard telecom optical fibers. He also co-founded ID Quantique, a company that provides quantum-based technologies.
Go to Profile#19970
S. N. Balagangadhara
#19981
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
S. N. Balagangadhara is a professor emeritus of the Ghent University in Belgium, and was director of the India Platform and the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cutuurwetenschap . Early life and education Balagangadhara was a student of National College, Bangalore and moved to Belgium in 1977 to study philosophy at Ghent University, where he obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Etienne Vermeersch. His doctoral thesis was entitled Comparative Science of Cultures and the Universality of Religion: An Essay on Worlds without Views and Views without the World.
Go to Profile#19971
John Anthony West
#19982
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
John Anthony West was an American author and lecturer and a proponent of the Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. His early career was as a copywriter in Manhattan and science fiction writer. He received a Hugo Award Honorable Mention in 1962. After recovering from cancer, West died from pneumonia at the age of 85.
Go to Profile#19972
Michael Nyman
#19983
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer, pianist, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film scores , and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. He has written a number of operas, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Letters, Riddles and Writs; Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs; Facing Goya; Man and Boy: Dada; Love Counts; and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond. He has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band. He is also a performing pianist. Nyman prefers to write op...
Go to Profile#19973
Robert Byrd
#19984
Overall Influence
1917 - 2010 (93 years)
Robert Carlyle Byrd was an American politician and musician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. A Democrat, Byrd also served as a U.S. representative for six years, from 1953 until 1959. He remains the longest-serving U.S. Senator in history; he was the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress until surpassed by Representative John Dingell of Michigan. Byrd is the only West Virginian to have served in both chambers of the state legislature and in both chambers of Congress.
Go to Profile#19974
Oussama Khatib
#19985
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Oussama Khatib is a roboticist and a professor of computer science at Stanford University, and a Fellow of the IEEE. He is credited with seminal work in areas ranging from robot motion planning and control, human-friendly robot design, to haptic interaction and human motion synthesis. His work's emphasis has been to develop theories, algorithms, and technologies, that control robot systems by using models of their physical dynamics. These dynamic models are used to derive optimal controllers for complex robots that interact with the environment in real-time.
Go to Profile#19975
Herbert Kleber
#19986
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Herbert David Kleber was an American psychiatrist and substance abuse researcher. His career, centered on the evidence-based treatment of addiction, focused on scientific approaches in place of punishment and moralisms. His career focused on pathology of addiction to help patients reduce the severe discomforts of withdrawal, avoid relapse and stay in recovery.
Go to Profile#19976
Ulrich Kutschera
#19987
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ulrich Kutschera is a former German professor of biology who works as an academic advisor at I-Cultiver, Inc. in San Francisco and as a visiting scientist in Stanford/Palo Alto, California, US. He is the founder and head of "AK Evolutionbiologie", an association of evolutionary biologists in Germany. Starting in the 2000s, Kutschera started engaging with the public, first as a critic of creationism and intelligent design. Since the mid-2010s, his public statements and popular books focused on climate skepticism and criticism of gender studies.
Go to Profile#19977
Jean L. Cohen
#19988
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jean Louise Cohen is the Nell and Herbert Singer Professor of Political Thought at Columbia University. She specializes in contemporary political and legal theory with particular research interests in democratic theory, critical theory, civil society, gender and the law.
Go to Profile#19978
Seal
#19989
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel , better known by his stage name Seal, is a British musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has sold over 20 million records worldwide. These include hit songs "Crazy" and "Killer", the latter of which went to number one in the UK, and his most celebrated song, "Kiss from a Rose", which was released in 1994. Seal is renowned for his distinctive soulful singing voice.
Go to Profile#19979
Aise Johan de Jong
#19990
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Aise Johan de Jong is a Dutch mathematician born in Belgium. He currently is a professor of mathematics at Columbia University. His research interests include arithmetic geometry and algebraic geometry.
Go to Profile#19980
Tsering Shakya
#19991
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Tsering Wangdu Shakya is a historian and scholar on Tibetan literature and modern Tibet and its relationship with China. He is currently Canadian Research Chair in Religion and Contemporary Society in Asia at the Institute of Asian Research at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia where he teaches in the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs program, and also works for Radio Free Asia.
Go to Profile#19981
Amanda Feilding
#19992
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Amanda Claire Marian Charteris, Countess of Wemyss and March , also known as Amanda Feilding, is an English drug policy reformer, lobbyist, and research coordinator. In 1998, she founded the Foundation to Further Consciousness, later renamed to the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust which initiates, directs, and supports neuroscientific and clinical research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and cognition. She has also co-authored over 50 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, according to the Foundation. The central aim of her research is to investigate new ave...
Go to Profile#19982
Jonathan Demme
#19993
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
Robert Jonathan Demme was an American film and television director, producer and screenwriter whose career spanned more than 30 years. Beginning his career under B-movie producer Roger Corman, Demme made his directorial debut with the 1974 women-in-prison film Caged Heat, before becoming known for his casually humanist films such as Melvin and Howard , Swing Shift , Something Wild , and Married to the Mob . His 1991 psychological horror film The Silence of the Lambs won five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture.
Go to Profile#19983
Simon Colton
#19994
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Simon Colton is an English computer scientist, currently working as Professor of Computational Creativity in the Game AI Research Group at Queen Mary University of London and in the Sensilab at Monash University, Australia.
Go to Profile#19984
Sheila Kitzinger
#19995
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
Sheila Helena Elizabeth Kitzinger MBE was a British natural childbirth activist and author on childbirth and pregnancy. She wrote more than 20 books and had a worldwide reputation as a passionate and committed advocate for change.
Go to Profile#19985
Richard Meier
#19996
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Richard Meier is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings including the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and San Jose City Hall. In 2018, some of Meier's employees accused him of sexual assault, which led to him resigning from his firm in 2021.
Go to Profile#19986
Chakradhar Swami
#19997
Overall Influence
Chakradhara , also known as Sarvadnya Shri Chakradhar Swami or Kunwar Haripaladeva was an Indian saint and philosopher, who is considered as an avatara of Krishna by his disciples and one of the most important exponents of the Dvaita tradition within Hinduism. He is the founder of Mahanubhava Sampradaya of Krishnaism. Shri Chakradhar Swami advocated worship of Lord Krishna and preached a distinct philosophy based on Bhakti. He did not recognize caste distinctions, and like Buddha had only two others viz the householder and recluses. Some sources claim that Chakrapani Prabhu and Govinda Prabhu ...
Go to Profile#19987
Edgar Davids
#19998
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Edgar Steven Davids is a Dutch former professional footballer. After beginning his career with Ajax, winning several domestic and international titles, he subsequently played in Italy for AC Milan, and later enjoyed a successful spell with Juventus, before being loaned out to Barcelona in 2004. He went on to play for Inter Milan and Tottenham Hotspur before returning to Ajax. Having struggled with injuries for two years, Davids returned to competitive football during a brief spell with Crystal Palace before retiring at the age of 37. In 2012, he was appointed player-manager at the English League Two club Barnet.
Go to Profile#19988
Cornelis H. A. Koster
#19999
Overall Influence
1943 - 2013 (70 years)
Cornelis Hermanus Antonius "Kees" Koster was a Dutch computer scientist who was a professor in the Department of Informatics at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Born in Haarlem, his family moved to Jakarta after the war. At the age of 11 he returned to the Netherlands on his own. After his study at the University of Amsterdam he worked at the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam under Adriaan van Wijngaarden.
Go to Profile#19989
Bobby Heenan
#20000
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
Raymond Louis Heenan was an American professional wrestling manager, color commentator, and wrestler. He performed with the American Wrestling Association , the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling under the ring name Bobby "the Brain" Heenan.
Go to Profile#19990
Melina Abdullah
#20001
Overall Influence
Melina Abdullah is an American academic and civic leader. She is the former chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and is a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, where she is also the co-director.
Go to Profile#19991
Lars Ljungqvist
#20002
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Lars Ljungqvist is a Swedish economist probably best known as the author of Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, a standard graduate level textbook of modern macroeconomics, with Thomas J. Sargent. Ljungqvist is a macro economist with seminal papers on labour: European unemployment, wage structures, information asymmetries and international trade. He held teaching positions at SUNY and was senior economist at Fed Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Go to Profile#19992
John Victor Murra
#20003
Overall Influence
1916 - 2006 (90 years)
John Victor Murra was a Ukrainian-American professor of anthropology and a researcher of the Inca Empire. Early life and education Born Isak Lipschitz in Odesa, Ukraine, Russian Empire, in 1916, Murra emigrated to the United States in 1934 and completed an undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Chicago in 1936. In 1937, he sailed to Europe and fought in the Spanish Civil War as a foreign volunteer on the side of the Second Spanish Republic. Serving as a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, he initially worked as a smuggler out of Perpignan, France. He then entered Spain and was wounded in battle during the Battle of the Ebro.
Go to Profile#19993
Shabtai Rosenne
#20004
Overall Influence
1917 - 2010 (93 years)
Shabtai Rosenne was a Professor of International Law and an Israeli diplomat. Rosenne was awarded the 1960 Israel Prize for Jurisprudence, the 1999 Manley O. Hudson Medal for International Law and Jurisprudence, the 2004 Hague Prize for International Law and the 2007 Distinguished Onassis Scholar Award. He was the leading scholar of the World Court - the PCIJ and ICJ and had a widely recognized expertise in treaty law, state responsibility, self-defence, UNCLOS and other issues of international law.
Go to Profile#19994
Gernot Heiser
#20005
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Gernot Heiser is a Scientia Professor and the John Lions Chair for operating systems at UNSW Sydney, where he leads the Trustworthy Systems group . Life In 1991, Heiser joined the School of Computer Science and Engineering of UNSW Sydney, originally as a lecturer, reaching the rank of full professor in 2002, a position he retains to date.
Go to Profile#19995
Cale Yarborough
#20006
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough is an American former NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner, businessman, and farmer. He is one of only two drivers in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, winning in 1976, 1977, and 1978. He was one of the preeminent stock car drivers from the 1960s to the 1980s and also competed in IndyCar events. His fame was such that a special model of the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II was named after him.
Go to Profile#19996
Bella Abzug
#20007
Overall Influence
1920 - 1998 (78 years)
Bella Savitzky Abzug , nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, politician, social activist, and a leader in the women's movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus. She was a leading figure in what came to be known as eco-feminism.
Go to Profile#19997
Robert A. J. Gagnon
#20008
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Robert A. J. Gagnon is an American theological writer, professor of New Testament Theology at Houston Baptist University , former associate professor of the New Testament at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary , an expert on biblical homosexuality, and an elder in the Presbyterian Church . He holds a BA from Dartmouth, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD from the Princeton Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#19998
Carl Wood
#20009
Overall Influence
1929 - 2011 (82 years)
Edwin Carlyle "Carl" Wood, , FRANZCOG was a prominent Australian gynaecologist, best known for his pioneering work developing and commercialising the technique of in-vitro fertilisation . He gained considerable international and national attention for his wide-ranging contributions in the field of women's health over a period of almost 50 years, although not all of it was positive given the controversial nature of many of his endeavours.
Go to Profile#19999
Terry Frost
#20010
Overall Influence
1915 - 2003 (88 years)
Sir Terence Ernest Manitou Frost RA was a British abstract artist, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. Frost was renowned for his use of the Cornish light, colour and shape to start a new art movement in England. He became a leading exponent of abstract art and a recognised figure of the British art establishment.
Go to Profile#20000
Berthold K.P. Horn
#20011
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Berthold Klaus Paul Horn is an American scientist working in the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision. He is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He is also Principal Investigator at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT.
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