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
#20251
John Terborgh
#20262
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
John Whittle Terborgh is a James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science at Duke University and Co-Director of the Center for Tropical Conservation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and for the past thirty-five years, has been actively involved in tropical ecology and conservation issues. An authority on avian and mammalian ecology in Neotropical forests, Terborgh has published numerous articles and books on conservation themes. Since 1973, he has operated the Cocha Cashu Biological Station, a tropical ecology research station in Manú National Park, Peru.
Go to Profile#20252
Alice McDermott
#20263
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. McDermott is Johns Hopkins University's Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities.
Go to Profile#20253
The Ultimate Warrior
#20264
Overall Influence
1959 - 2014 (55 years)
Warrior was an American professional wrestler and bodybuilder. Best known by his ring name The Ultimate Warrior, he wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation from 1987 to 1992, as well as a short stint in 1996. He also notably spent a few months in World Championship Wrestling in 1998, in which he was known as The Warrior.
Go to Profile#20254
Owen Lovejoy
#20265
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Claude Owen Lovejoy is an evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist at Kent State University Ohio. He is best known for his work on Australopithecine locomotion and the origins of bipedalism. "The origin of man", which he published in Science in January 1981, is cited as among his best-known articles. The 'C' of his name stands for Claude, but he never uses the name and is known only as Owen.
Go to Profile#20255
Louis Sachar
#20266
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Louis Sachar is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes. Holes won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". In 2013, it was ranked sixth among all children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.
Go to Profile#20256
Kuzhikalail M. Abraham
#20267
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Kuzhikalail M. Abraham is an American scientist, a recognized expert on lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer batteries and is the inventor of the ultrahigh energy density lithium–air battery. Abraham is the principal of E-KEM Sciences in Needham, Massachusetts and a professor at the Northeastern University Center for Renewable Energy Technologies, Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#20257
Stanisław Wielgus
#20268
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Stanisław Wojciech Wielgus is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church, who resigned his position as Archbishop of Warsaw on 6 January 2007, just one day after being installed in that post in a private ceremony, just before the start of his public installation, because of revelations that he cooperated with the Polish communist secret police decades earlier. He was Bishop of Płock from 1999 to 2007.
Go to Profile#20258
Nancy Tuana
#20269
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Nancy Tuana is an American philosopher who specializes in feminist philosophy. She holds the DuPont/Class of 1949 Professorship in Philosophy and Women's Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She came to Penn State from the University of Oregon in 2001 to serve as the founding director of the Rock Ethics Institute. She won the 2022 Victoria Davion Award.
Go to Profile#20259
Sirhan Sirhan
#20270
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Palestinian-Jordanian man who was convicted of murdering Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the younger brother of American president John F. Kennedy. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan shot and mortally wounded Robert Kennedy shortly after 12 a.m. at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. The circumstances surrounding the attack, which took place five years after John's assassination, have led to numerous conspiracy theories.
Go to Profile#20260
Peter Koellner
#20271
Overall Influence
Peter Koellner is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D from MIT in 2003. His main areas of research are mathematical logic, specifically set theory, and philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, analytic philosophy, and philosophy of language.
Go to Profile#20261
Elizabeth Abbott
#20272
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Elizabeth Louise Abbott is a Canadian writer, historian and animal rights activist. She is the former dean of women for St. Hilda's College at the University of Toronto and is currently a senior research associate at Trinity College, University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#20262
Charles Derber
#20273
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Charles Derber is an American Professor of Sociology at Boston College. His work focuses on the crises of capitalism, globalization, corporate power, neo-fascism, American militarism, the culture of hegemony, the climate crisis, and the new peace and global justice movements.
Go to Profile#20263
Leo Beenhakker
#20274
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Leo Beenhakker CM is a Dutch football coach. He has had an extensive and successful career both at club and international level. He led both Ajax and Feyenoord to Dutch championships and also had domestic success with Real Madrid. At international level, he led Trinidad and Tobago to the 2006 FIFA World Cup and Poland to UEFA Euro 2008, both firsts for each nation. His role in Spanish football has earned him the nickname Don Leo, largely due to his fondness of cigars and dry humour.
Go to Profile#20264
Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz
#20275
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz is an American constitutional law scholar, professor, and Broadway producer. He writes and teaches in the fields of constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and federal jurisdiction. He is the son of billionaire investor and philanthropist Robert Rosenkranz.
Go to Profile#20265
Mary Tyler Moore
#20276
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Mary Tyler Moore was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show , which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People. Moore had a supporting role in the musical film Thoroughly Modern Millie. Moore was an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism and di...
Go to Profile#20266
Chris Sheldon
#20277
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Chris Sheldon is an English record producer, particularly of rock music based in London, England. He has produced or mixed records for the Foo Fighters, Garbage, Big Country, Feeder, Therapy?, Biffy Clyro, Oceansize, Pixies and Shed 7. He lives in London, is married and has two daughters.
Go to Profile#20267
Paul J. Griffiths
#20278
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Paul J. Griffiths is an English-born American theologian. He was the Warren Professor of Catholic Thought at Duke Divinity School. Life and career Griffiths was born in London, England, on 12 November 1955. Griffiths has held appointments at the University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago. A scholar of Augustine of Hippo, Griffiths' main interests and pursuits are philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion – particularly Christianity and Buddhism. He received a doctorate in Buddhist studies in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Madi...
Go to Profile#20268
Steven Balbus
#20279
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Steven Andrew Balbus is an American-born astrophysicist who is the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford. In 2013, he shared the Shaw Prize for Astronomy with John F. Hawley.
Go to Profile#20269
Suzanne Eaton
#20280
Overall Influence
1959 - 2019 (60 years)
Suzanne Eaton was an American scientist and professor of molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. Early life and education Eaton was born on December 23, 1959, in Oakland, California. One of Eaton's self-confessed role models as a child was Spock, due to his rational approach to problem solving. She was also a talented pianist, having played since the age of eight.
Go to Profile#20270
Mahinda Rajapaksa
#20281
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Mahinda Rajapaksa is a Sri Lankan politician. He served as the President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015; the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 2004 to 2005, 2018, and 2019 to 2022; the Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2004 and 2018 to 2019, and the Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2015 and 2019 to 2021. He has been a Member of Parliament for Kurunegala since 2015.
Go to Profile#20271
David Tannor
#20282
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
David Joshua Tannor is a theoretical chemist, who is the Hermann Mayer Professorial Chair in the department of chemical physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Biography Tannor has a BA from Columbia University , and a PhD with Eric Heller from UCLA . He did his post-doc work with Stuart Rice and David W. Oxtoby at the University of Chicago. He is a black belt in karate.
Go to Profile#20272
Agnès Bénassy-Quéré
#20283
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Agnès Bénassy-Quéré is a French economist who has been serving as Deputy Governor of the Banque de France since 2023. From 2020 to 2023, Bénassy-Quéré was the chief economist at the Direction générale du Trésor . She is also a professor of economics at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and at the Paris School of Economics.
Go to Profile#20273
Kenny G
#20284
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Kenneth Bruce Gorelick , known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album Duotones brought him commercial success. Kenny G is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with global sales totaling more than 75 million records.
Go to Profile#20274
Robert W. Brooks
#20285
Overall Influence
1952 - 2002 (50 years)
Robert Wolfe Brooks was a mathematician known for his work in spectral geometry, Riemann surfaces, circle packings, and differential geometry. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977; his thesis, The smooth cohomology of groups of diffeomorphisms, was written under the supervision of Raoul Bott. He worked at the University of Maryland , then at the University of Southern California, and then, from 1995, at the Technion in Haifa.
Go to Profile#20275
Patrick McGorry
#20286
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Patrick Dennistoun McGorry FAA FASSA FAHMS FRCP FRANZCP is an Irish-born Australian psychiatrist known for his development of the early intervention services for emerging mental disorders in young people.
Go to Profile#20276
Graeme Barker
#20287
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Graeme William Walter Barker, is a British archaeologist, notable for his work on the Italian Bronze Age, the Roman occupation of Libya, and landscape archaeology. Early life and education Barker was born on 23 October 1946. He was educated at Alleyn's School, then a direct grant grammar school in Dulwich. He studied for the classical tripos at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree; as per tradition, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts degree. He remained at Cambridge to take his Doctor of Philosophy degree, which he completed in 1973 with a doctoral ...
Go to Profile#20277
Olivia Judson
#20288
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Olivia P. Judson is a British evolutionary biologist and science writer. She is a former journalist for The Economist, a former online columnist for The New York Times and has published in a number of other publications, including National Geographic, The Atlantic and the Financial Times. Judson was a fellow of the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study in 2010–2011, and a Guggenheim fellow in 2020.
Go to Profile#20278
Gustave Malécot
#20289
Overall Influence
1911 - 1998 (87 years)
Gustave Malécot was a French mathematician whose work on heredity had a strong influence on population genetics. Biography Malécot grew up in L'Horme, a small village near St. Étienne in the Loire département, the son of a mine engineer.
Go to Profile#20279
Bruce Chorpita
#20290
Overall Influence
Bruce F. Chorpita , is an American researcher and clinical psychologist who has worked in multiple academic and government leadership positions addressing youth mental health and improvement of clinical practice. He currently is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is widely published in the areas of children's mental health services, with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Hawaii Departments of Education and Health, the John D. and Catherine T.
Go to Profile#20280
Elizabeth Povinelli
#20291
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University, where she has also been the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Law and Culture. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University in 1991. She is the author of books and essays of critical theory as well as a former editor of the academic journal Public Culture.
Go to Profile#20281
Gad Saad
#20292
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Gad Saad is a Canadian marketing professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He is known for applying evolutionary psychology to marketing and consumer behaviour. He wrote a blog for Psychology Today and hosts a YouTube channel titled "The Saad Truth".
Go to Profile#20282
Yevgeny Kafelnikov
#20293
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Kafelnikov is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. He won two Grand Slam singles titles, the 1996 French Open and the 1999 Australian Open, and a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He also won four Grand Slam doubles titles, and is the most recent man to have won both the men's singles and doubles titles at the same Grand Slam tournament . In 2019, Kafelnikov was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#20283
Philip Elman
#20294
Overall Influence
1918 - 1999 (81 years)
Philip Elman was an American lawyer at the United States Department of Justice and former member of the Federal Trade Commission . Elman is best known for writing the government's brief in Brown v. Board of Education. Elman is also notable for being one of just three political independents to have ever served on the FTC.
Go to Profile#20284
Joseph Gabel
#20295
Overall Influence
1912 - 2004 (92 years)
Joseph Gabel was a French Hungarian-born sociologist and philosopher. His work was always strongly influenced by Marxism; he was against Stalinism and critical of the work of Louis Althusser. He left Hungary because of a Numerus Clausus for Jewish citizens and first studied Psychopathology with Eugène Minkowski, then he turned to Sociology . He taught at the Mohammed-V University of Rabat from 1965 to 1971, and at Amiens University from 1971 to 1980.
Go to Profile#20285
Edward Luck
#20296
Overall Influence
1948 - 2021 (73 years)
Edward C. Luck was an American professor, author, and expert in international relations. He served as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect between 2008 and 2012, appointed at the Assistant Secretary-General level. He was replaced by Jennifer Welsh of Canada. Previously he was Vice President of the International Peace Institute as well as the director of the Center on International Organization of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He also served as Dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego between 2012 and 2013.
Go to Profile#20286
Douglas Hanahan
#20297
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Douglas Hanahan is an American biologist, professor and director emeritus of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is currently member of the Lausanne branch of the Ludwig Institute.
Go to Profile#20287
Patrick Heron
#20298
Overall Influence
1920 - 1999 (79 years)
Patrick Heron was a British abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Heron was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation. Influenced by Cézanne, Matisse, Braque and Bonnard, Heron made a significant contribution to the dissemination of modernist ideas of painting through his critical writing and primarily his art.
Go to Profile#20288
Scorpia
#20299
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Scorpia is the pseudonym of a video game journalist who was active from the early 1980s through the late 1990s. She wrote for Computer Gaming World, reviewing role-playing video games and adventure games. Scorpia was known for her harsh criticism of video games she disliked. She was fired after CGW was sold to Ziff-Davis in 1999, and subsequently retired from games journalism. Her pseudonym is based on a character she created in a role-playing game.
Go to Profile#20289
Peter Ucko
#20300
Overall Influence
1938 - 2007 (69 years)
Peter John Ucko FRAI FSA was an influential English archaeologist. He served as Director of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London , and was a Fellow of both the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Society of Antiquaries. A controversial and divisive figure within archaeology, his life's work focused on eroding western dominance by broadening archaeological participation to developing countries and indigenous communities.
Go to Profile#20290
Henry F. Dobyns
#20301
Overall Influence
1925 - 2009 (84 years)
Henry Farmer Dobyns, Jr. was an anthropologist, author and researcher specializing in the ethnohistory and demography of native peoples in the American hemisphere. He is most well known for his groundbreaking demographic research on the size of indigenous American populations before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
Go to Profile#20291
M. Cecil Mackey
#20302
Overall Influence
1929 - 2018 (89 years)
Maurice Cecil Mackey Jr. was president of University of South Florida from 1971 to 1976, president of Texas Tech University from 1976 to 1979, and president of Michigan State University from 1979 to 1985.
Go to Profile#20292
Jack White
#20303
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
John Anthony White is an American musician who served as the lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of rock duo the White Stripes. White is widely credited as one of the key artists in the garage rock revival of the 2000s. He has won 12 Grammy Awards, and three of his solo albums have reached number one on the Billboard 200. Rolling Stone ranked him number 32 on its 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. David Fricke's 2010 list ranked him at number 17. In 2012, The New York Times called White "the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time".
Go to Profile#20293
Nicholas Sparks
#20304
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an American romance novelist, screenwriter, and film producer. He has published twenty-three novels, all New York Times bestsellers, and two works of non-fiction, with over 115 million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 languages. Among his works are The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Message in a Bottle which, along with eight other books, have been adapted as feature films.
Go to Profile#20294
Steve Perry
#20305
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Steve Perry is an American television writer and science fiction author. Biography Perry is a native of the Deep South. His residences have included Louisiana, California, Washington, and Oregon. Prior to working full-time as a freelance writer, he worked as a swimming instructor, lifeguard, assembler of toys, a clerk in a hotel gift shop and car rental agency, aluminum salesman, martial art instructor, private detective, and nurse. His wife is Dianne Waller, a Port of Portland executive. They have two children and five grandsons. One of their children is science fiction author S. D. Perry.
Go to Profile#20295
Wilfred M. McClay
#20306
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Wilfred M. McClay is an American academic currently on the faculty of Hillsdale College. Early life and education McClay graduated from St. John's College, and received a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1987.
Go to Profile#20296
Barry Sautman
#20307
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Barry Victor Sautman is a professor emeritus with the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He holds both Canadian and American nationalities and he speaks both English and Cantonese.
Go to Profile#20297
Charles Larmore
#20308
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Charles Larmore is an American philosopher. He is the W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Brown University, noted for his writings on political liberalism as well as on various topics in moral philosophy and the history of philosophy.
Go to Profile#20298
Tobias Frere-Jones
#20309
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Tobias Frere-Jones is an American type designer who works in New York City. He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program. Among his typefaces are Gotham which was used by the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, and Archer which has been used by Martha Stewart Living and Wells Fargo.
Go to Profile#20299
Rachel Weisz
#20310
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Rachel Hannah Weisz is a British actress. She began acting in stage and television productions in the early 1990s, and made her film debut in Death Machine . She won a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for her role in the 1994 revival of Noël Coward's play Design for Living, and went on to appear in the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams' drama Suddenly, Last Summer. Her film breakthrough came with her starring role as Evelyn Carnahan in the Hollywood action films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns . Weisz went on to star in several films of the 2000s, including Enemy at the Gat...
Go to Profile#20300
Margaret Barker
#20311
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Margaret Barker is a British Methodist preacher and biblical scholar. She studied theology at the University of Cambridge, after which she has devoted her life to research in ancient Christianity. She has developed an approach to biblical studies known as Temple Theology.
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