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
#20051
Shigeko Kubota
#20062
Overall Influence
1937 - 2015 (78 years)
was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it to a "new paintbrush." Kubota is known for constructing sculptural installations with a strong DIY aesthetic, which include sculptures with embedded monitors playing her original videos. She was a key member and influence on Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centered on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group since witnessing John Cage perform in Tokyo in 1962 and subsequently moving to New York in 1964.
Go to Profile#20052
Jim Nantz
#20063
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
James William Nantz III is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League , NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA, and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has anchored CBS's coverage of the Masters Tournament since 1989 and been the lead play-by-play announcer on CBS's NFL coverage since 2004. He was also the lead broadcaster for the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 1990 to 2023.
Go to Profile#20053
Nikolay Krasovsky
#20064
Overall Influence
1924 - 2012 (88 years)
Nikolay Nikolayevich Krasovsky was a Soviet and Russian mathematician who worked in the mathematical theory of control, the theory of dynamical systems, and the theory of differential games. He was the author of Krasovskii-LaSalle principle and the chief of the Ural scientific school in mathematical theory of control and the theory of differential games.
Go to Profile#20054
Gene Ball
#20065
Overall Influence
Gene Ball is a computer science researcher and computer programmer. Ball obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Oklahoma, and attended graduate school at the University of Rochester, completing a master's degree and finishing his doctorate in 1982. While at Rochester, he met Rick Rashid, and together they created Alto Trek, one of the earlier networked multiplayer computer games.
Go to Profile#20055
Francis Andersen
#20066
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Francis Ian Andersen was an Australian scholar in the fields of biblical studies and Hebrew. Together with A. Dean Forbes , he pioneered the use of computers for the analysis of biblical Hebrew syntax. He taught Old Testament, History, and Religious Studies at various institutions in Australia and the United States, including Macquarie University, the University of Queensland, and Fuller Theological Seminary. His published works include the Tyndale commentary on Job, and Anchor Bible commentaries on Hosea, Amos, Habakkuk and Micah, and over 90 papers .
Go to Profile#20056
Ladislav Hejdánek
#20067
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Ladislav Hejdánek was a Czech philosopher and a proponent of Charter 77. He was born in Prague and graduated from the Charles University in Prague. In 1952 he attained a degree in philosophy with his dissertation "Truth and its ontological premises". From 1956 to 1968 he worked at the Prague Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. Then he took a position at the Institute for Philosophy of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, but was expelled in 1971.
Go to Profile#20057
Andrew Pettigrew
#20068
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Andrew Marshall Pettigrew is Professor of Strategy and Organisation at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. A British professor, he was formerly dean of the University of Bath School of Management. He received his training in sociology and anthropology at Liverpool University and received his Ph.D. from Manchester Business School in 1970. He has held academic appointments at Yale University, Harvard University, London Business School and Warwick Business School.
Go to Profile#20058
Damien Doligez
#20069
Overall Influence
Damien Doligez is a French academic and programmer. He is best known for his role as a developer of the OCaml system, especially its garbage collector. He is a research scientist at the French government research institution INRIA.
Go to Profile#20059
Sung-Mo Kang
#20070
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Sung-Mo “Steve” Kang is an American electrical engineering scientist, professor, writer, inventor, entrepreneur and 15th president of KAIST. Kang was appointed as the second chancellor of the University of California, Merced in 2007. He was the first department head of foreign origin at the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kang teaches and has written extensively in the field of computer-aided design for electronic circuits and systems; he is recognized and respected worldwide for his outstanding research contributions. Kang has ...
Go to Profile#20060
Andrzej Szczeklik
#20071
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
Andrzej Szczeklik was a Polish immunologist working at the Jagiellonian University School of Medicine in Kraków. Having received numerous distinctions for his research, Szczeklik was also well known as a writer.
Go to Profile#20061
Sanjeev Kulkarni
#20072
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Sanjeev Ramesh Kulkarni is an Indian-born American academic. He is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean of the Faculty at Princeton University, where he teaches and conducts research in a broad range of areas including statistical inference, pattern recognition, machine learning, information theory, and signal/image processing. He is also affiliated with the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering and the Department of Philosophy. His work in philosophy is joint with Gilbert Harman. Kulkarni served as Associate Dean for Princeton University School of Engineering...
Go to Profile#20062
Henning Eichberg
#20073
Overall Influence
1942 - 2017 (75 years)
Henning Eichberg was a German sociologist and historian, teaching at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. He became notable by his contributions to the philosophy of body culture and by his political radical writings on folk and nation.
Go to Profile#20063
Yael Tauman Kalai
#20074
Overall Influence
Yael Tauman Kalai is a cryptographer and theoretical computer scientist who works as a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and as an adjunct professor at MIT in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Go to Profile#20064
Robert Wise
#20075
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Robert Earl Wise was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films West Side Story and The Sound of Music . He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for Citizen Kane and directed and produced The Sand Pebbles , which was nominated for Best Picture.
Go to Profile#20065
Roger A. Pielke
#20076
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Roger A. Pielke Sr. is an American meteorologist with interests in climate variability and climate change, environmental vulnerability, numerical modeling, atmospheric dynamics, land/ocean – atmosphere interactions, and large eddy/turbulent boundary layer modeling. He particularly focuses on mesoscale weather and climate processes but also investigates on the global, regional, and microscale. Pielke is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.
Go to Profile#20066
David Bressoud
#20077
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
David Marius Bressoud is an American mathematician who works in number theory, combinatorics, and special functions. As of 2019 he is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College, Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences and a former President of the Mathematical Association of America.
Go to Profile#20067
Mike Walker
#20078
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Mike Walker is a radio dramatist and feature and documentary writer. His radio work includes both original plays and adaptations of novels, classical and modern. He has won Sony Radio Awards for his play Alpha and for his script for Different States , and a Silver Community Award for Oxford Road on BBC Radio Berkshire, as well the British Writers' Guild award for best dramatisation for his 1996 adaptation of The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. He was also part of the writing team for BBC Radio 4's The Dark House, which won a BAFTA Interactive Award.
Go to Profile#20068
Richard Rose
#20079
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Richard Rose is an American political scientist who has been a professor of politics in Scotland since 1966. His research has included the Northern Ireland conflict, enlargement of the European Union, democratisation, policy transfer, elections and voting.
Go to Profile#20069
John Keith Irwin
#20080
Overall Influence
1929 - 2010 (81 years)
John Keith Irwin was an American sociologist and criminologist who was known internationally as an expert on the American prison system. He published dozens of scholarly articles and seven books on the topic.
Go to Profile#20070
Thomas Naylor
#20081
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
Thomas Herbert Naylor was an American economist and professor. From Jackson, Mississippi, he was a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University, the author of thirty books, and a founder of the Second Vermont Republic . Naylor authored ten academic books and three books advocating secession.
Go to Profile#20071
Mikhail Strikhanov
#20082
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Mikhail Nikolaevich Strikhanov is a Russian physicist. Since 2007 he has been the rector of National Research Nuclear University MEPhI . Early life and career Mikhail Strikhanov was born on July 18, 1952, in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1974 he graduated from MEPhI, where he studied theoretical nuclear physics. From 1974 to 1997 he worked in MEPhI as an assistant researcher, a senior teacher, associate professor and professor. In 1972–1997 Strikhanov served as Institute's prorector.
Go to Profile#20072
Uri Milstein
#20083
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Uri Milstein is an Israeli historian and philosopher, specializing in military history. Biography Uri Milstein was born in Tel Aviv to Avraham Milstein, a volunteer in the British army in World War II, and Sarah Milstein, a kindergarten teacher. His parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Afikim, and his father was a member of David Ben-Gurion's party; the Mapai, and on the "Haganah" . His older brother was a member of the "Palmach". Uri himself was a member of Mapai's youth party, HaTnuah HaMe'uchedet .
Go to Profile#20073
Takao Suzuki
#20084
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
was a Japanese sociolinguist, He was the author of ことばと文化, translated into English as Words in Context. Suzuki argued that:Sociolinguists do not pay enough attention to the subtle differences between word usage in different cultures.Japanese linguistss have traditionally been too occupied with Western linguistic categories, which are less than effective in studying Japanese.
Go to Profile#20074
Toby Hemenway
#20085
Overall Influence
1952 - 2016 (64 years)
Toby Hemenway was an American author and educator who wrote extensively on permaculture and ecological issues. He was the author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture and The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience. He served as an adjunct professor at Portland State University, Scholar-in-Residence at Pacific University, and field director at the Permaculture Institute .
Go to Profile#20075
Frank Gibney
#20086
Overall Influence
1924 - 2006 (82 years)
Frank Bray Gibney was an American journalist, editor, writer and scholar. He learned Japanese while in the US Navy during World War II when it was stationed in Japan. As a journalist in Tokyo, he wrote Five Gentlemen of Japan, a popular book about the Japanese that was welcomed for its humanism and for transcending the bitterness of war. A half dozen more books followed on Japan and East Asia. He also wrote on communism in Europe. At the Encyclopædia Britannica, he directed translations. He was also the founder of the Pacific Basin Institute.
Go to Profile#20076
Kurt Heinrich Wolff
#20087
Overall Influence
1912 - 2003 (91 years)
Kurt Heinrich Wolff was a German-born American sociologist. A major contributor to the sociology of knowledge and to qualitative and phenomenological approaches in sociology, he also translated from German and from French into English many important works by Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim and Karl Mannheim. While carrying out anthropological field research in the 1940s in a small community in the southwestern United States, Wolff initially discovered, and began to articulate and to advocate, a new qualitative methodological approach for the study of human society. The approach later proved applicable in any field of inquiry or area of human endeavor.
Go to Profile#20077
Gerald Horne
#20088
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Gerald Horne is an American historian who holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Background Gerald Horne was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. After his undergraduate education at Princeton University, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#20078
Douglas Gough
#20089
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Douglas Owen Gough FRS is a British astronomer, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Astrophysics in the University of Cambridge, and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow. Life Gough was educated at Hackney Downs School before attending the University of Cambridge where he studied at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics . He subsequently worked with John Cox at JILA from 1966 to 1967, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and with Edward Spiegel at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York from 1967 to 1969. He returned to Cambridge in 1969 to join the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy and DAMTP.
Go to Profile#20079
Wu-Chung Hsiang
#20090
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Wu-Chung Hsiang is a Chinese-American mathematician, specializing in topology. Hsiang served as chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University from 1982 to 1985 and was one of the most influential topologists of the second half of the 20th century.
Go to Profile#20080
James D. Hollan
#20091
Overall Influence
James D. Hollan is professor of cognitive science and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego. In collaboration with Professor Edwin Hutchins, he directs the Distributed Cognition and Human–Computer Interaction Laboratory at UCSD, and co-directs the Design Lab. Hollan has also spent time working at Xerox PARC and at Bellcore. He was elected to the CHI Academy in 2003 and received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award in 2015.
Go to Profile#20081
Nick Foles
#20092
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (37 years)
Nicholas Edward Foles is an American football quarterback who is a free agent. Foles previously played in the National Football League for 11 seasons. He played college football at the University of Arizona and was selected in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. Foles had a breakout season in 2013 when he set the NFL season record for the best touchdown–interception ratio and led the Eagles to a division title, earning him Pro Bowl honors. Unable to duplicate his success the following year, Foles was traded to the St. Louis Rams, where he also struggled during h...
Go to Profile#20082
Richard Kadison
#20093
Overall Influence
1925 - 2018 (93 years)
Richard Vincent Kadison was an American mathematician known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras. Work Born in New York City in 1925, Kadison was a Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#20083
Paul Harris
#20094
Overall Influence
1945 - 2023 (78 years)
Paul Harris was an American keyboard player, multi-instrumentalist and arranger. Harris appears on several albums of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s by leading artists such as Stephen Stills, B. B. King, Judy Collins, Grace Slick, Al Kooper, ABBA, Eric Andersen, Rick Derringer, Nick Drake, John Martyn, John Sebastian, John Mellencamp, Joe Walsh, Seals & Crofts, Bob Seger and Dan Fogelberg. He provided the orchestral arrangements for The Doors' 1969 album The Soft Parade. In the 1970s, he was a member of Stephen Stills' band Manassas and later the Souther–Hillman–Furay Band.
Go to Profile#20084
Geoff Johns
#20095
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Geoffrey Johns is an American comic book writer, screenwriter, and film and television producer. Johns's work on the DC Comics characters Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash, and Superman has drawn critical acclaim. He co-created the DC character Courtney Whitmore based on his deceased sister. He also expanded the Green Lantern mythology, adding in new concepts and co-creating numerous characters. Among the DC characters and concepts he co-created are Larfleeze, the Sinestro Corps, the Indigo Tribe, the Red Lantern Corps, Atrocitus, the Black Lantern Corps, Jessica Cruz, Hunter Zolomon, Tar Pit, Si...
Go to Profile#20085
Anthony W. Knapp
#20096
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Anthony W. Knapp is an American mathematician at the State University of New York, Stony Brook working on representation theory, who classified the tempered representations of a semisimple Lie group.
Go to Profile#20086
E. Thomas Lawson
#20097
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Ernest Thomas Lawson is an honorary professor at the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen's University Belfast. He is the executive editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture and co-founder of the North American Association for the Study of Religion . He is a founding member and has served as the first President of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion .
Go to Profile#20087
Peter Watson
#20098
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Peter Frank Patrick Watson is a British intellectual historian and former journalist, now perhaps best known for his work in the history of ideas. His journalistic work includes detailed investigations of auction houses and the international market in stolen antiquities.
Go to Profile#20088
Ali Shariatmadari
#20099
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Ali Shariatmadari was an Iranian academic and educationist who was minister of culture in the interim government of Mehdi Bazargan in 1979. He was president of the Iranian Academy of Sciences from 1990 until 1998. He was also a professor of education at the Teacher Training University in Tehran and a member of High Council of the Cultural Revolution from 1982 until his death.
Go to Profile#20089
Christoph Wolff
#20100
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Christoph Wolff is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty since 1976, and former director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig from 2001 to 2014.
Go to Profile#20090
Andrei Arlovski
#20101
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Andrei Arlovski is a Belarusian-American professional mixed martial artist, actor and former UFC Heavyweight Champion. He currently competes in the Heavyweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and holds the record for most wins in UFC heavyweight history. Arlovski has also competed for Strikeforce, WSOF, Affliction, EliteXC, ONE FC and M-1 Challenge.
Go to Profile#20091
Jermaine Jackson
#20102
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jermaine La Juane Jackson is an American singer, songwriter and bassist. He is best known for being a member of the Jackson family. From 1964 to 1975, Jermaine was second vocalist after his brother Michael of the Jackson 5, and played bass guitar. Since 1983 he rejoined the group, now known as the Jacksons.
Go to Profile#20092
Martin J. Klein
#20103
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
Martin Jesse Klein , usually cited as M. J. Klein, was a science historian of 19th and 20th century physics. Biography Klein was born in the Bronx, New York City. He was an only child and both his parents were schoolteachers. After graduating from James Monroe High School at the age of 14, he attended Columbia University, where he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1942 and a master's degree in physics in 1944. In 1948, he received a Ph.D. in physics under László Tisza at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#20093
William G. Young
#20104
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
William Glover Young is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Early life and career Born in Huntington, New York, Young received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Harvard University in 1962. He received a Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1967. He was a Captain in the United States Army from 1962 to 1964. He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Raymond S. Wilkins of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1967 to 1968.
Go to Profile#20094
Norman Gowar
#20105
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Professor Norman William Gowar is an academic from the United Kingdom who served as the Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London, from 1990 to 2000. Prior to that he had served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Open University.
Go to Profile#20095
Yakov Smirnoff
#20106
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Yakov Naumovich Pokhis , better known as Yakov Smirnoff , is an American comedian, actor and writer. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in the Soviet Union, then immigrated to the United States in 1977 in order to pursue an American show business career, not yet knowing any English.
Go to Profile#20096
David Seyfort Ruegg
#20107
Overall Influence
1931 - 2021 (90 years)
David Seyfort Ruegg was an eminent American-British Buddhologist with a long career, extending from the 1950s to the present. His specialty was Madhyamaka philosophy, a core doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism.
Go to Profile#20097
William E. Gordon
#20108
Overall Influence
1918 - 2010 (92 years)
William Edwin Gordon was an electrical engineer, physicist and astronomer. He was referred to as the "father of the Arecibo Observatory". Biography William E. Gordon was an Electrical Engineer. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on January 8, 1918, and attended public schools in Totowa, New Jersey. Gordon worked his way through Montclair State Teachers College, graduating with a B.A. degree. Before World War II, he taught junior high schools in Mendham and Oradell, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#20098
Sean Solomon
#20109
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Sean Carl Solomon is the director of the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, where he is also the William B. Ransford Professor of Earth and Planetary Science. Before moving to Columbia in 2012, he was the director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C. His research area is in geophysics, including the fields of planetary geology, seismology, marine geophysics, and geodynamics. Solomon is the principal investigator on the NASA MESSENGER mission to Mercury. He is also a team member on the Gravity Recovery and Interior Labo...
Go to Profile#20099
Frigga Haug
#20110
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Frigga Haug is a German socialist-feminist sociologist and philosopher. Life Frigga Langenberger was born in Mülheim. She studied sociology and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. In 1963, she interrupted her studies to move to Cologne and give birth to a daughter. In 1965 she married a second time to the philosopher Wolfgang Fritz Haug. She graduated in sociology in 1971, and gained a PhD in sociology and social psychology in 1976.
Go to Profile#20100
Anna Diggs Taylor
#20111
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Anna Katherine Diggs Taylor was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Education and career Born in Washington, D.C. as Anna Katherine Johnston, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College in 1954. She received a Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1957. She was an attorney in the Office of Solicitor of the United States Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. from 1957 to 1960. She was an assistant prosecutor in Wayne County, Michigan, from 1961 to 1962. She was an Assistant United States Attorney of the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, Michigan, in 1966.
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