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
#20951
Masayoshi Esashi
#20962
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Masayoshi Esashi is an engineer. He is a global authority of Microelectromechanical systems and serves as the professor of the Tohoku University graduate school engineering graduate course. Born in Sendai, Japan, in 1949, Masayoshi Esashi received his B.E. degree in electronic engineering in 1971 and a Doctor of Engineering degree in 1976 at Tohoku University.
Go to Profile#20952
R. W. Johnson
#20963
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
R. W. Johnson is a British journalist, political scientist, and historian who lives in South Africa. Born in England, he was educated at Natal University and Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar. He was a fellow in politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, for 26 years and remains an emeritus fellow. His 2015 book Look Back in Laughter: Oxford's Postwar Golden Age is a memoir of his years at Magdalen, including his work with college president Keith Griffin to rescue the college's finances and buildings. In reviewing his memoirs, The Economist described Johnson as a "romantic contrarian liberal"...
Go to Profile#20953
Robert G. Sachs
#20964
Overall Influence
1916 - 1999 (83 years)
Robert G. Sachs was an American theoretical physicist, a founder and a director of the Argonne National Laboratory. Sachs was also notable for his work in theoretical nuclear physics, terminal ballistics, and nuclear power reactors. Sachs was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Academy's Physics Section, chairman of the Academy's Class I , and director of the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago. Sachs was the author of the standard textbook Nuclear Theory .
Go to Profile#20954
David Merritt
#20965
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
David Roy Merritt is an American astrophysicist. Education and career He received in 1982 his PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University with thesis advisor Jeremiah P. Ostriker and held postdoctoral positions at the University of California, Berkeley and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto. Merritt's fields of specialization include dynamics and evolution of galaxies, supermassive black holes, and computational astrophysics.
Go to Profile#20955
Jacek Leociak
#20966
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jacek Leociak is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw.
Go to Profile#20956
Corey Taylor
#20967
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Corey Todd Taylor is an American musician, songwriter, author and actor. He is the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Slipknot, in which he is designated #8, as well as the lead vocalist, guitarist, lyricist, and sole continuous member of the rock band Stone Sour.
Go to Profile#20957
Nora Ephron
#20968
Overall Influence
1941 - 2012 (71 years)
Nora Ephron was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing romantic comedy films and received numerous accolades including a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award and three Writers Guild of America Awardss.
Go to Profile#20958
Bryan Danielson
#20969
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Bryan Lloyd Danielson is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling , where he performs under his real name and is a member of the Blackpool Combat Club. He rose to fame for his time in WWE, where he performed under the ring name Daniel Bryan from 2009 to 2021. Noted for his technical wrestling style, ability to transform his on-screen character with ease, and popularity with fans, he is widely considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.
Go to Profile#20959
Paul Lambert
#20970
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Paul Lambert is a Scottish professional football manager and former player, who was most recently the manager of Ipswich Town. Lambert played as a midfielder and won the Scottish Cup in 1987 with St Mirren as a 17-year-old, the UEFA Champions League with Borussia Dortmund and all the Scottish domestic honours with Celtic. In his international career, Lambert earned 40 caps for Scotland and played in the 1998 FIFA World Cup finals.
Go to Profile#20960
Ian Diamond
#20971
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Sir Ian David Diamond is a British statistician, academic, and administrator, who served as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen until 2018. He became the UK's National Statistician in October 2019.
Go to Profile#20961
Jean-Denis Bredin
#20972
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Jean-Denis Bredin was a French attorney and founding partner of the firm Bredin Prat. He was widely admired as an author-commentator, both for his novels and for his non-fiction works, with a particular focus on recent and contemporary history. On 15 June 1989, he was elected to membership of the Académie Française, becoming the twentieth occupant of seat 3, which had been vacated through the death of Marguerite Yourcenar. His daughter, Frédérique Bredin, served between 2013 and 2019 as President of the French National Center of Cinematography and the moving image.
Go to Profile#20962
Mike Mills
#20973
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Michael Edward Mills is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as the bass guitarist and backing vocalist of R.E.M., his musical repertoire also includes keyboards and occasional lead vocals. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions and is the only member to have had formal musical training.
Go to Profile#20963
Janet E. Smith
#20974
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Janet Elizabeth Smith is an American classicist and philosopher, and former professor of moral theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. Life Education Smith studied Classics at Grinnell College, earning the B.A. degree in 1972. She also received the M.A. in Classical Languages at the University of North Carolina in 1975, and a Ph.D. in Classical Languages at the University of Toronto in 1982. Her doctoral dissertation, under the supervision of Timothy Barnes, was titled "Plato's Use of Myth as a Pedagogical Device".
Go to Profile#20964
Lily Jan
#20975
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Lily Yeh Jan is a Taiwanese-American neuroscientist. She is the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, where she collaborates with her husband Yuh Nung Jan as co-PIs of the Jan Lab.
Go to Profile#20965
William H. Starbuck
#20976
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
William Haynes Starbuck graduated from Harvard University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology . He is an organizational scientist who has held professorships in social relations , sociology , business administration , and management .
Go to Profile#20966
I. Howard Marshall
#20977
Overall Influence
1934 - 2015 (81 years)
Ian Howard Marshall was a Scottish New Testament scholar. He was Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He was formerly the chair of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research; he was also president of the British New Testament Society and chair of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians. Marshall identified as an Evangelical Methodist. He was the author of numerous publications, including 2005 Gold Medallion Book Award winner New Testament Theology.
Go to Profile#20967
Sigmar Gabriel
#20978
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 2009 to 2017, which made him the party's longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. He was the Federal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel was Minister-President of Lower Saxony.
Go to Profile#20968
Graham Teasdale
#20979
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Sir Graham Michael Teasdale is an English neurosurgeon and the co-developer of the neurologic assessment tool known as the Glasgow Coma Scale. He is an Honorary Professor in Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow Medical School.
Go to Profile#20969
Luc Anselin
#20980
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Luc E. Anselin is one of the developers of the field of spatial econometrics. Life and contributions Luc Anselin was previously the Regents' Professor, Walter Isard Chair and Director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University where he attracted some of the leading spatial econometrics scholars. He also founded and directed the GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation at ASU to develop, implement, apply, and disseminate spatial analysis methods. In 2016, the GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis relocated to the University of Chicago. He ...
Go to Profile#20970
Stephen J. Benkovic
#20981
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Stephen James Benkovic is an American chemist known for his contributions to the field of enzymology. He holds the Evan Pugh University Professorship and Eberly Chair in Chemistry at The Pennsylvania State University. He has developed boron compounds that are active pharmacophores against a variety of diseases. Benkovic has concentrated on the assembly and kinetic attributes of the enzymatic machinery that performs DNA replication, DNA repair, and purine biosynthesis.
Go to Profile#20971
Michael M. Watkins
#20982
Overall Influence
Michael M. Watkins is an American engineer, scientist, and a Professor of Aerospace and Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology . He previously served as the 9th director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and as a vice president of Caltech, which staffs and manages JPL for NASA. His directorial position was effective from July 1, 2016 to August 20, 2021.
Go to Profile#20972
Michiel de Vaan
#20983
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Michiel Arnoud Cor de Vaan is a Dutch linguist and Indo-Europeanist. He taught comparative Indo-European linguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology at the University of Leiden until 2014, when he moved to the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. De Vaan had been at the University of Leiden since 1991, first as a student and later as a teacher.
Go to Profile#20973
Hans Werner Henze
#20984
Overall Influence
1926 - 2012 (86 years)
Hans Werner Henze was a German composer. His large oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".
Go to Profile#20974
Ann Richards
#20985
Overall Influence
1933 - 2006 (73 years)
Dorothy Ann Richards was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. A Democrat, she first came to national attention as the Texas State Treasurer, when she gave the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Richards was the second female governor of Texas , and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners.
Go to Profile#20975
Robert E. Scott
#20986
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Robert E. Scott is a Law Professor at Columbia Law School. Scott graduated from Oberlin College and received his J.D. degree in 1968 from William and Mary Law School where he was editor-in-chief of the William and Mary Law Review. Scott earned an S.J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1973, after which he joined the law faculty at William & Mary.
Go to Profile#20976
Loretta Lees
#20987
Overall Influence
Loretta Lees is a university professor, urbanist, author, and scholar-activist. She is the Director of the Initiative on Cities and professor of sociology at Boston University. Prior to moving to Boston, she was Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leicester in the UK and served as Chair of the London Housing Panel working with the Mayor of London and Trust for London. Since 2009, she has co-organized The Urban Salon, a London forum and seminar series for architecture, cities, and international urbanism, which examines urban experiences using an international and comparative frame.
Go to Profile#20977
Randall Stone
#20988
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Randall Warren Stone is an American political scientist and a professor at the University of Rochester, notable for his studies on international political economy, international relations, and Russian and European politics.
Go to Profile#20978
Erik Grønseth
#20989
Overall Influence
1925 - 2005 (80 years)
Erik Grønseth was a Norwegian sociologist, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo from 1971 to 1989, and "one of the post-war pioneers of sociology" in Norway. He is regarded as one of the founders of men's studies. Together with Harriet Holter, he is also considered the founder of Norwegian family sociology.
Go to Profile#20979
Eileen McDonagh
#20990
Overall Influence
Eileen McDonagh is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science at Northeastern University. She has published works on topics like women's participation in politics, gender imbalances in sport, and abortion law.
Go to Profile#20980
Gennadi Sardanashvily
#20991
Overall Influence
1950 - 2016 (66 years)
Gennadi Sardanashvily was a theoretical physicist, a principal research scientist of Moscow State University. Biography Gennadi Sardanashvily graduated from Moscow State University in 1973, he was a Ph.D. student of the Department of Theoretical Physics in 1973–76, where he held a position in 1976.
Go to Profile#20981
Rosemarie Tong
#20992
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Rosemarie "Rosie" Tong is an American feminist philosopher. The author of 1998's Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, an overview of the major traditions of feminist theory, she is the emeritus distinguished professor of health care ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Go to Profile#20982
Cheris Kramarae
#20993
Overall Influence
Cheris Kramarae is a scholar in the area of women's studies and communication, with her research primarily focusing on gender, language and communication, technology, and education. She is mostly known for her contributions to muted group theory, as well as A Feminist Dictionary, in which she was a co-author.
Go to Profile#20983
Georges Abi-Saab
#20994
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Georges Michel Abi-Saab is an Egyptian lawyer, professor of international law, and an international judge. He is well known for his defense of the interests of Third World countries in and within international law.
Go to Profile#20984
Jean-Pierre Roth
#20995
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jean-Pierre Roth is a Swiss banker who served as chairman of the Swiss National Bank from 1 January 2001 until 31 December 2009. He joined the Swiss National Bank in 1979, working in Zürich and Bern. He became vice-chairman of the governing board in 1996. In 2001, he became chairman of the governing board.
Go to Profile#20985
Greg Kuperberg
#20996
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Greg Kuperberg is a Polish-born American mathematician known for his contributions to geometric topology, quantum algebra, and combinatorics. Kuperberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis.
Go to Profile#20986
Pei Gang
#20997
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Pei Gang is a Chinese molecular biologist and pharmacologist, and a former president of Tongji University. Early life Pei was born in Shenyang, Liaoning in 1953. Education In 1977, Pei attended Shenyang Pharmaceutical University. He acquired his bachelor's degree and master's degree in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Pei enrolled at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for doctoral studies, and received his PhD degree in 1991.
Go to Profile#20987
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya
#20998
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright. She began her career writing short stories and plays, which were often censored by the Soviet government, and following perestroika, published a number of well-respected works of prose.
Go to Profile#20988
E. Allan Farnsworth
#20999
Overall Influence
1928 - 2005 (77 years)
Edward Allan Farnsworth was one of America's most renowned legal scholars on contracts. His writings were standard reference in courtrooms and law schools. Biography Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he received a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1948 and a master's degree in physics from Yale University in 1949. He earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1952. After serving in the U.S. Air Force JAG and briefly working in private practice, he began teaching at Columbia Law. Starting his career as the school's youngest professor, Farnswo...
Go to Profile#20989
Paul Rudd
#21000
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor and comedian. He studied theater at the University of Kansas and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making his acting debut in 1991. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in July 2015, and was included on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2019. In 2021, he was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive".
Go to Profile#20990
Ed Bullins
#21001
Overall Influence
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Edward Artie Bullins , sometimes publishing as Kingsley B. Bass Jr, was an American playwright. He won awards including the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several Obie Awards. Bullins was associated with the Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party, for which he was the minister of culture in the 1960s.
Go to Profile#20991
Dennis DeTurck
#21002
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Dennis M. DeTurck is an American mathematician known for his work in partial differential equations and Riemannian geometry, in particular contributions to the theory of the Ricci flow and the prescribed Ricci curvature problem. He first used the DeTurck trick to give an alternative proof of the short time existence of the Ricci flow, which has found other uses since then.
Go to Profile#20992
Patrick Higginbotham
#21003
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is an American judge and lawyer who serves as a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Background and education Judge Higginbotham was born in McCalla, Alabama to George and Ann Higginbotham . The youngest of three, Higginbotham showed academic promise early in life.
Go to Profile#20993
Mike McCready
#21004
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Michael David McCready is an American musician known for being a founding member and lead guitarist of Pearl Jam. McCready was also a member of the side project bands Flight to Mars, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, and The Rockfords. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a part of Pearl Jam in 2017 alongside the three other founding members , and former member Dave Krusen.
Go to Profile#20994
Klaas Bom
#21005
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Nicolaas "Klaas" Bom is a Dutch engineer. He was a professor of medical technology in cardiology at the Erasmus MC. His 1970s research on ultrasound technology provided several new medical devices, including the portable ultrasound scanner.
Go to Profile#20995
Kah Kyung Cho
#21006
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
Kah Kyung Cho was a Korean-American philosopher. He specialized in phenomenology, hermeneutics, contemporary German philosophy, and east–west comparative philosophy. He had worked with continental philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. He taught at State University of New York from 1971 to 2017 and took retirement as a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor. Cho's seminars have traditionally centered on discussions anchored in close textual and hermeneutical readings of works in the phenomenological tradition, including Heidegger's Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, ...
Go to Profile#20996
William Gallas
#21007
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
William Eric Gallas is a French former professional footballer who played as a defender. He played most of his footballing career in France and England before finishing his career in Australia with A-League club Perth Glory. Gallas began his career in France, before being signed by English club Chelsea in 2001. He transferred to Arsenal as part of an exchange deal in 2006. He then signed for rivals Tottenham Hotspur in 2010.
Go to Profile#20997
Danny Elfman
#21008
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Daniel Robert Elfman is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead singer and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.
Go to Profile#20998
Euphrase Kezilahabi
#21009
Overall Influence
1944 - 2020 (76 years)
Euphrase Kezilahabi was a Tanzanian novelist, poet, and scholar. Born in Ukerewe, Tanganyika , he last worked at the University of Botswana, as an associate professor at the Department of African Languages .
Go to Profile#20999
Raymond Burr
#21010
Overall Influence
1917 - 1993 (76 years)
Raymond William Stacy Burr was a Canadian actor known for his lengthy Hollywood film career and his title roles in television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. Burr's early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television, and film, usually as the villain. His portrayal of the suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window is his best-known film role, although he is also remembered for his role in the 1956 film Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which he reprised in the 1985 film Godzilla 1985. He won Emmy Awards for acting in 1959 and 1961 for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons and reprised in a series of 26 Perry Mason TV movies .
Go to Profile#21000
Edward Belbruno
#21011
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Edward Belbruno is an artist, mathematician and scientist whose interests are in celestial mechanics, dynamical systems, dynamical astronomy, and aerospace engineering. His artistic media is paintings, and his artwork in the NASA collection, Charles Betlach II collection, and exhibited in Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City, Minneapolis, Shanghai, WeiHai, and Princeton.
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