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
#20601
Marc Almond
#20612
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond is an English singer best known from the synthpop/new wave duo Soft Cell and for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. He has also had a diverse career as a solo artist. His collaborations include a duet with Gene Pitney on the 1989 UK number one single "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart". Almond's career spanning over four decades has enjoyed critical and commercial acclaim, and he has sold over 30 million records worldwide. He spent a month in a coma after a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2004 and later became a patron of the brain trau...
Go to Profile#20602
Patrick Kluivert
#20613
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Patrick Stephan Kluivert is a Dutch former football player, coach and sporting director. He played as a striker, most notably for Ajax, Barcelona and the Netherlands national team. He is currently the manager of Süper Lig club Adana Demirspor.
Go to Profile#20603
Nalini Joshi
#20614
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Nalini Joshi is an Australian mathematician. She is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney, the first woman in the School to hold this position, and is a past-president of the Australian Mathematical Society. Joshi is a member of the School's Applied Mathematics Research Group. Her research concerns integrable systems. She was awarded the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship in 2012. Joshi is also the Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union, and is the first Australian to hold this position.
Go to Profile#20604
Alonzo Hamby
#20615
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Alonzo L. Hamby is an American historian and academic. He is distinguished professor of history emeritus at Ohio University and the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Harry S. Truman Library Institute Senior Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship, and the Ohio Academy of History Distinguished Service Award.
Go to Profile#20605
Andrew Lambert
#20616
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Andrew Lambert is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Academic career After completing his doctoral research, Lambert was lecturer in modern international history at Bristol Polytechnic from 1983 until 1987; consultant in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, from 1987 until 1989; senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, from 1989 until 1991; senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King'...
Go to Profile#20606
George W. Whitehead
#20617
Overall Influence
1918 - 2004 (86 years)
George William Whitehead, Jr. was an American professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is known for his work on algebraic topology. He invented the J-homomorphism, and was among the first to systematically calculate the homotopy groups of spheres. He is also central to the study of Stable homotopy theory, in particular making concrete the connections between Spectra and Generalized homology/cohomology theories.
Go to Profile#20607
Patrick McGuinness
#20618
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Patrick McGuinness FRSL FLSW is a British academic, critic, novelist, and poet. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College.
Go to Profile#20608
Göran K. Hansson
#20619
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Göran K. Hansson , is a Swedish physician and scientist. Hansson was awarded his doctorate in 1980 at the University of Gothenburg. He has been a research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, professor of cell biology at the University of Gothenburg, and visiting professor at Harvard Medical School. Since 1995, he is professor of experimental cardiovascular research at the Karolinska Institute.
Go to Profile#20609
Etta Zuber Falconer
#20620
Overall Influence
1933 - 2002 (69 years)
Etta Zuber Falconer was an American educator and mathematician the bulk of whose career was spent at Spelman College, where she eventually served as department head and associate provost. She was one of the earlier African-American women to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.
Go to Profile#20610
Jean-Pierre Raffarin
#20621
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Jean-Pierre Raffarin is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005. He resigned after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Union draft constitution. However, after Raffarin resigned, he said that his decision was not based on the outcome of the vote. Opinion polls following his resignation suggested that Raffarin was one of France's least popular Prime Ministers since the Fifth Republic was established in 1958. However, according to the book France: 1815–2003, written by Martin Evans and Emmanuel Godwin, Raffarin was "a remarkably...
Go to Profile#20611
Tom Colbjørnsen
#20622
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Tom Colbjørnsen is a Norwegian economist and sociologist, and was the President of the BI Norwegian Business School from 2006 to 2014. Colbjørnsen graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a siv.øk. degree in 1976 and received his dr.philos. degree from the University of Bergen in 1984. He was a professor at NHH when he in 2006 was appointed as the new President at BI Norwegian Business School.
Go to Profile#20612
Fred Rogers
#20623
Overall Influence
1928 - 2003 (75 years)
Fred McFeely Rogers , better known as Mister Rogers, was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001.
Go to Profile#20613
Alan Cooper
#20624
Overall Influence
Alan Cooper is an American religious scholar and former musician who was the provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , an academic institution that teaches Jewish studies and one of the centers for Conservative Judaism. He is also the Elaine Ravich Professor of Jewish Studies at JTS.
Go to Profile#20614
David Rosner
#20625
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
David Rosner is the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and professor of history in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He is also co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in 2010.
Go to Profile#20615
George Stephanopoulos
#20626
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television host, political commentator, and former Democratic advisor. Stephanopoulos currently is a coanchor with Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, and host of This Week, ABC's Sunday morning current events news program.
Go to Profile#20616
Jack Antonoff
#20627
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Jack Michael Antonoff is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. Antonoff is the lead singer of rock band Bleachers, and is the guitarist and drummer in the pop rock band Fun. He was previously the lead singer of the indie rock band Steel Train. Aside from his work with Bleachers and Fun, Antonoff has worked as a songwriter and record producer with various artists, including Taylor Swift, the 1975, Lorde, St. Vincent, Florence and the Machine, Lana Del Rey, Fifth Harmony, Kevin Abstract, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Chicks, Tegan and Sara and Clairo. Antonoff has often been cr...
Go to Profile#20617
Steve Earle
#20628
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Stephen Fain Earle is an American country, rock and folk singer-songwriter. He began his career as a songwriter in Nashville and released his first EP in 1982. Earle's breakthrough album was the 1986 debut album Guitar Town; the eponymous lead single peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Since then, he has released 20 more studio albums and received three Grammy awards each for Best Contemporary Folk Album; he has four additional nominations in the same category. "Copperhead Road" was released in 1988 and is his bestselling single; it peaked on its initial release at number 1...
Go to Profile#20618
Samuel L. Braunstein
#20629
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Samuel Leon Braunstein is a professor at the University of York, UK. He is a member of a research group in non-standard computation, and has a particular interest in quantum information, quantum computation and black hole thermodynamics.
Go to Profile#20619
A. P. Balachandran
#20630
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Aiyalam Parameswaran Balachandran is an Indian theoretical physicist known for his extensive contributions to the role of classical topology in quantum physics. He is currently an emeritus professor in the Department of Physics, Syracuse University, where he was previously the Joel Dorman Steele Professor of Physics between 1999 and 2012. He has also been a fellow of the American Physical Society since 1988 and was awarded a prize by the U.S. Chapter of the Indian Physics Association in recognition of his outstanding scientific contributions.
Go to Profile#20620
John W. Fisher
#20631
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
John William Fisher is a professor emeritus of civil engineering. Biography John W. Fisher served from 1951 to 1953 in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he attained the rank of 2nd lieutenant. After graduating with a B.S. in civil engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1956, he became a graduate student in civil engineering at Lehigh University, where he graduated in 1958 with an M.S. From 1958 to 1961 he worked as assistant bridge research engineer working for the National Academy of Sciences in Ottawa, Illinois at the facility of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Road Test.
Go to Profile#20621
Eugene Kennedy
#20632
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Eugene Cullen Kennedy was a psychologist, writer, columnist, and professor emeritus of Loyola University Chicago. Kennedy was a laicized Catholic priest and a long-time observer of the Catholic Church, but his work spans many genres. He published over 50 books, including two biographies, three novels, and a play, as well as books on psychology, the Roman Catholic Church, and the relationship between psychology and religion. In the early 1970s, inspired by Vatican II, he emerged as a voice for reform and modernization of the Roman Catholic Church.
Go to Profile#20622
Manuchehr Shahrokhi
#20633
Overall Influence
Manuchehr Shahrokhi is a professor of Global Business-Finance at California State University, Fresno, founding editor of the Global Finance Journal and Executive Director of the Global Finance Association/Conference. He has authored over 80 published journal articles, proceedings, books, and manuals on finance topics. He was a visiting professor at Harvard University from 1993 to 1999. His hobbies include: Family, Soccer, Travel, Reading, Writing, and Professional/Community Services.
Go to Profile#20623
Ernest Courant
#20634
Overall Influence
1920 - 2020 (100 years)
Ernest Courant was an American accelerator physicist and a fundamental contributor to modern large-scale particle accelerator concepts. His most notable discovery was his 1952 work with Milton S. Livingston and Hartland Snyder on the Strong focusing principle, a critical step in the development of modern particle accelerators like the synchrotron, though this work was preceded by that of Nicholas Christofilos.
Go to Profile#20624
Pavan Sukhdev
#20635
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Pavan Sukhdev is an Indian environmental economist whose field of studies include green economy and international finance. He was the Special Adviser and Head of UNEP's Green Economy Initiative, a major UN project suite to demonstrate that greening of economies is not a burden on growth but rather a new engine for growing wealth, increasing decent employment, and reducing persistent poverty. Pavan was also the Study Leader for the ground breaking TEEB study commissioned by G8+5 and hosted by UNEP. Under his leadership, TEEB sized the global problem of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradati...
Go to Profile#20625
Nathalie de Vries
#20636
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nathalie de Vries is a Dutch architect, lecturer and urbanist. In 1993 together with Winy Maas and Jacob van Rijs she set up MVRDV. MVRDV In 1993, together with Winy Maas and Jacob van Rijs, she founded the MVRDV studio , which produces designs and studies in the fields of architecture, urban studies and landscape design.
Go to Profile#20626
Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit
#20637
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit is a German Japanologist and translator. In 1992 she was awarded Germany's most prestigious prize for distinction in research, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. Life From 1967 to 1969 she studied Japanology, Sinology, Philosophy and Sociology at Hamburg University. She then studied at the Ruhr University in Bochum , and in the same year took up a scholarship to study at Waseda University and Tokyo University. On her return, she completed her doctorate summa cum laude at the Department of Oriental Studies of the Ruhr University in Bochum, combining Japanology, German Studies and the Communication Science.
Go to Profile#20627
Robert Kanigel
#20638
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Robert Kanigel is an American biographer and science writer, known as the author of seven books and more than 400 articles, essays, and reviews. Early life Born in Brooklyn, Kanigel graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Go to Profile#20628
Barry Sears
#20639
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Barry Sears is an American biochemist and author best known for creating and promoting the Zone diet, a low-carbohydrate fad diet that is not supported by good medical evidence. Biography As stated in several of his books, the Zone diet was born of his desire to avoid an early death from a premature heart attack, a fate of which all other men in his family had been early victims. In more recent years, Sears has popularized the use of high-dose Omega-3 fatty acids and polyphenols to further reduce inflammation. He began studying lipids primarily because their difficulty to study made them an u...
Go to Profile#20629
Selim Al Deen
#20640
Overall Influence
1949 - 2008 (59 years)
Mohammad Mainuddin Ahmed was a Bangladeshi playwright and theatre artist. He was the founder chairperson of the Department of Drama and Dramatics at Jahangirnagar University. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1984 and Ekushey Padak in 2007 by the Government of Bangladesh for his contribution to theatre and won the Independence Award in 2023 for his contribution to the field of literature.
Go to Profile#20630
Orval Faubus
#20641
Overall Influence
1910 - 1994 (84 years)
Orval Eugene Faubus was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1957, he refused to comply with a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, and ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. This event became known as the Little Rock Crisis.
Go to Profile#20631
Hussain al-Shahristani
#20642
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani is an Iraqi politician who served in different cabinet posts, including as Iraq's Minister of Higher Education. Early life and education al-Shahristani was born in 1942 in Karbala, Iraq. He hails from the al-Shahristani family. In addition to his native Arabic he has strong command of English and Persian as second languages. Shahristani showed an exceptional aptitude for science in Secondary School, al-Shahristani received a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London in 1965, and an MSc from the University of Toronto in 1967, from where he also received a PhD in Chemical Engineering in 1970.
Go to Profile#20632
Ingo Titze
#20643
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ingo R. Titze is a voice scientist and executive director of the National Center for Voice and Speech and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He also teaches at the Summer Vocology Institute, also housed at the University of Utah. He is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Iowa and has written several books relating to the human voice.
Go to Profile#20633
Bernard Sumner
#20644
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Bernard Sumner is an English musician and record producer. He is a founding member of the bands Joy Division, New Order, Electronic and Bad Lieutenant. Sumner was an early force in several areas, including the post-punk, synthpop, and techno music scenes, as well as their various related genres, and was an early influence on the Manchester music scene that presaged the "Madchester" movement of the late 1980s centred on Factory Records and The Haçienda club in Manchester.
Go to Profile#20634
Moshe Koppel
#20645
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Moshe Koppel is an American-Israeli computer scientist, Talmud scholar and political activist. Koppel was born and raised in New York, where he received a traditional Jewish education. He studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion, received a B.A. from Yeshiva University and in 1979 completed his doctorate in mathematics under the supervision of Martin Davis at the Courant Institute of New York University. He spent a post-doctoral year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton before moving to Israel in 1980. He has been a member of the Department of Computer Science in Bar-Ilan University since t...
Go to Profile#20635
Michelle Kwan
#20646
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michelle Wingshan Kwan is a retired competitive figure skater and diplomat serving as United States Ambassador to Belize. In figure skating Kwan is a two-time Olympic medalist , a five-time World champion and a nine-time U.S. champion . She is tied with Maribel Vinson for the all-time National Championship record.
Go to Profile#20636
Sean Hannity
#20647
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Sean Patrick Hannity is an American broadcast news analyst, conservative political commentator, talk show host, and writer. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a commentary program, Hannity, on Fox News, since 2009.
Go to Profile#20637
Steve Coogan
#20648
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Stephen John Coogan is an English comedian, actor and screenwriter. He is most known for creating original characters such as Alan Partridge, a socially inept and politically incorrect media personality, which he developed while working with Armando Iannucci on On the Hour and The Day Today. Partridge has featured in several television series and the 2013 film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. In 1999, he co-founded the production company Baby Cow Productions with Henry Normal. For his work he has garnered numerous accolades including four BAFTA Awards and three British Comedy Awards as well as nom...
Go to Profile#20638
Bee Scherer
#20649
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Bee Scherer is a professor of Buddhist studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Previously, Scherer was professor of gender studies and religious studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. Scherer is the director of INCISE , which facilitates social justice research, and founded Queering Paradigms.
Go to Profile#20639
Thurston Moore
#20650
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moore was ranked 34th in Rolling Stones 2004 edition of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Go to Profile#20640
Michel Kazatchkine
#20651
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Michel Kazatchkine is a French physician, diplomat and advocate who is best known for his work in international AIDS treatment issues. From February 2007 to March 2012 he was director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. On July 20, 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed him as his United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Go to Profile#20641
Gene Siskel
#20652
Overall Influence
1946 - 1999 (53 years)
Eugene Kal Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. He is best known for co-hosting various movie review television series with colleague Roger Ebert. Siskel started writing for the Chicago Tribune in 1969, becoming its film critic soon after. In 1975, he was paired with Roger Ebert to co-host a monthly show called Opening Soon at a Theater Near You airing locally on PBS member station WTTW. In 1978, the show, renamed Sneak Previews, was expanded to weekly episodes and aired on PBS affiliates all around the United States. In 1982, Siskel and Ebert both left Sneak Previews to create the syndicated show At the Movies.
Go to Profile#20642
Walter Womacka
#20653
Overall Influence
1925 - 2010 (85 years)
Walter Womacka was a German Socialist Realist artist. His work was pioneering early German Democratic Republic aesthetics. Biography Walter Womacka was born on 22 December 1925 in Horní Jiřetín, Czechoslovakia. He lived in East Berlin for most of his life. During World War II he did military service. Between 1946 and 1951, he studied art in Braunschweig, Weimar, and Dresden in Germany.
Go to Profile#20643
David Cortright
#20654
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
David Cortright is an American scholar and peace activist. He is a Vietnam veteran who is currently Professor Emeritus and special adviser for policy studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 22 books. Cortright has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war.
Go to Profile#20644
Peter J. Gomes
#20655
Overall Influence
1942 - 2011 (69 years)
Peter John Gomes was an American preacher and theologian, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School and Pusey Minister at Harvard's Memorial Church — in the words of Harvard's president "one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and conviction."
Go to Profile#20645
Piara Singh Gill
#20656
Overall Influence
1911 - 2002 (91 years)
Piara Singh Gill was an Indian nuclear physicist and a pioneer in cosmic ray nuclear physics. He was the first Director of Central Scientific Instruments Organisation of India. He was research fellow of University of Chicago . He was research Professorship fellow of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , Officer-on-Special Duty with the Atomic Energy Commission in New Delhi. Professor and head of the Department of Physics at Aligarh University , Director of Central Scientific Instruments Organization and Professor Emeritus at Punjab Agricultural University .
Go to Profile#20646
Andrew Miller
#20657
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Andrew Brooke Miller FRSL is an English novelist. Life and career Miller was born in Bristol. He grew up in the West Country and has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France. He was educated at Dauntsey's School, and after gaining a first-class degree in English at Middlesex Polytechnic, completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in 1991. In 1995 he wrote a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. For his first book Ingenious Pain he received three awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Award for Fiction, the International Dublin Literary Award; and the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy.
Go to Profile#20647
Jeff Goodwin
#20658
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Jeffrey Roger Goodwin is a professor of sociology at New York University. He holds a BA, MA and PhD from Harvard University. His research interests include social movements, revolutions, political violence, and terrorism. He is a past chair of the Comparative and Historical Sociology Section, and the Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section of the American Sociological Association .
Go to Profile#20648
Gary Wamsley
#20659
Overall Influence
Gary L. Wamsley is public administration specialist and professor emeritus at Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy. He is perhaps best known as the coordinating editor of Refounding Public Administration, a work that followed from a well-known public administration paper called the Blacksburg Manifesto. He has also for many years edited the journal Administration & Society.
Go to Profile#20649
Allan McCollum
#20660
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s he became especially well known for his series, Surrogate Paintings.
Go to Profile#20650
Takeshi Amemiya
#20661
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Takeshi Amemiya is an economist specializing in econometrics and the economy of ancient Greece. Amemiya is the Edward Ames Edmonds Professor of Economics and a Professor of Classics at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Statistical Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
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