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
#21151
Jan E. Goldstein
#21162
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jan Ellen Goldstein is an American intellectual historian of Modern Europe. She is the Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of History at the University of Chicago, and co-editor of the Journal of Modern History.
Go to Profile#21152
Devendra Singh
#21163
Overall Influence
1938 - 2010 (72 years)
Devendra Singh was a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, known largely for his research regarding the evolutionary significance of human attraction. Biography Singh was born in 1938 in Urai, India. Having first taken degrees in philosophy and psychology , he completed his PhD at Ohio State University in 1966. Singh took up teaching positions at Wright State University and North Dakota State University before moving to the University of Texas at Austin in 1969.
Go to Profile#21153
Dietmar Vestweber
#21164
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dietmar Vestweber is a biochemist and cell biologist. He is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany. Biography Dietmar Vestweber studied biochemistry at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich and at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried. He received his PhD from the University of Tübingen in 1985 for his research conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.
Go to Profile#21154
Aldrich Ames
#21165
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American former CIA counterintelligence officer who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. Ames was known to have compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other officer until Robert Hanssen, who was arrested seven years later in 2001.
Go to Profile#21155
Robert Henry Risch
#21166
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Robert Henry Risch is an American mathematician who worked on computer algebra and is known for his work on symbolic integration, specifically the Risch algorithm. This result was quoted as a milestone in the development of mathematics:
Go to Profile#21156
Eric Schadt
#21167
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Eric Emil Schadt is an American mathematician and computational biologist. He is founder and former chief executive officer of Sema4, a patient-centered health intelligence company, and dean for precision medicine and Mount Sinai Professor in Predictive Health and Computational Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He was previously founding director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Go to Profile#21157
Richard Roeper
#21168
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. He co-hosted the television series At the Movies with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's successor. From 2010 to 2014, he co-hosted The Roe and Roeper Show with Roe Conn on WLS-AM. From October 2015 to October 2017, Roeper served as the host of the FOX 32 morning show Good Day Chicago.
Go to Profile#21158
Andrew Luck
#21169
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (37 years)
Andrew Austen Luck is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for seven seasons with the Indianapolis Colts. One of the most highly touted amateur prospects during his college football career at Stanford University, Luck won the Maxwell, Walter Camp, and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Awards as a senior. He was selected first overall by the Colts in the 2012 NFL Draft.
Go to Profile#21159
Devendra Lal
#21170
Overall Influence
1929 - 2012 (83 years)
Devendra Lal FRS was an Indian geophysicist. Life He was born in Varanasi, India. He graduated from Banaras Hindu University. He graduated from Bombay University; his thesis was on cosmic ray physics; his thesis adviser was Bernard Peters.
Go to Profile#21160
Athalya Brenner
#21171
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Athalya Brenner-Idan is a Dutch-Israeli biblical scholar known for her contribution to feminist biblical studies. Academic career Brenner studied at Haifa University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before doing a PhD at the University of Manchester under the supervision of James Barr. She taught for a time at Oranim Academic College.
Go to Profile#21161
Kenny Chesney
#21172
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Kenneth Arnold Chesney is an American country singer. He has recorded more than 20 albums that included more than 40 Top 10 singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, 32 of which have reached number one. Many of these have also charted within the Top 40 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, making him one of the most successful crossover country artists. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Go to Profile#21162
Ferid Muhić
#21173
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Ferid Muhić is President of the Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is a professor of Philosophy at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia. He started his academic career as Assistant at the Institute for Sociological Research in Skopje in 1970. He entered the Department of Philosophy as Assistant in 1974; Associate Professor 1976-1980; Full-time Professor 1980–present. Visiting Professor at Sorbonne, New York's Syracuse University, Florida State University, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation, and several universities in Southern-East Europe.
Go to Profile#21163
Ann Claire Williams
#21174
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ann Claire Williams is a retired United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She is currently of counsel at Jones Day.
Go to Profile#21164
Nicola Bradbury
#21175
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Nicola Anne Lulham Bradbury is an English literary critic, lecturer, editor, and author, specializing in the 19th century novel. Life Bradbury was born in Weston-super-Mare, the daughter of Robin J. Bradbury and Joan Lulham, who had married in 1949. She was the middle child of a family of three, with an older brother, Peter, and a younger brother, Christopher. She was educated at the University of Oxford and then at McGill, with a Commonwealth Scholarship awarded in 1974. Bradbury later reported that in Canada she "first encountered ‘theory’ and that stood me in good stead at later stages in ...
Go to Profile#21165
Eduardo Missoni
#21176
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Eduardo Missoni is an Italian medical doctor who has been active in numerous social causes. He was appointed as the Secretary General of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from April 1, 2004 through November 30, 2007.
Go to Profile#21166
Kevin Bales
#21177
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Kevin Brian Bales, , is Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the University of Nottingham, co-author of the Global Slavery Index, and was a co-founder and previously president of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International.
Go to Profile#21167
Tom DeLonge
#21178
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Thomas Matthew DeLonge is an American musician best known as the co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and guitarist of the rock band Blink-182. He is also the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Angels & Airwaves, which he formed in 2005 after his first departure from Blink-182. DeLonge is noted for his distinctive nasal singing voice.
Go to Profile#21168
K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar
#21179
Overall Influence
1908 - 1999 (91 years)
Kodaganallur Ramaswami Srinivasa Iyengar , popularly known as K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, was an Indian writer in English, former vice-chancellor of Andhra University. He was given the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1985.
Go to Profile#21169
Alan Arkin
#21180
Overall Influence
1934 - 2023 (89 years)
Alan Wolf Arkin was an American actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning seven decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for six Emmy Awards.
Go to Profile#21170
Rajat Kanta Ray
#21181
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Rajat Kanta Ray is a historian of South Asian history, specializing in Modern Indian history. Background He is the son of Kumud Kanta Ray, ICS who was a Home Secretary of West Bengal in the 1960s. His grandfather, Kamakshya Ray was a contemporary of Rathindranath Tagore in Santiniketan.
Go to Profile#21171
Sandra Steingraber
#21182
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Sandra Steingraber is an American biologist, author, and cancer survivor. Steingraber writes and lectures on the environmentalal factors that contribute to reproductive health problems and environmental links to cancer.
Go to Profile#21172
Helmut Schwarz
#21183
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Helmut Schwarz is a German organic chemist. He has been a professor of chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin since 1978. In 2018, he was elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#21173
Calvin Seerveld
#21184
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Calvin George Seerveld received a BA from Calvin College in 1952 and an MA in English literature and classics from the University of Michigan in 1953. He then went on to study under D. H. Th. Vollenhoven at the Free University in Amsterdam, where his doctoral dissertation dealt with Croce's aesthetics. It was supervised by Vollenhoven and Carlo Antoni. He then taught philosophy and German at Trinity Christian College and went on to teach philosophical aesthetics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.
Go to Profile#21174
Russ Feingold
#21185
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Russell Dana Feingold is an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee in the 2016 election for the same U.S. Senate seat he had previously occupied. From 1983 to 1993, he was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.
Go to Profile#21175
Myron L. Weisfeldt
#21186
Overall Influence
Myron L. Weisfeldt is an American cardiologist and physician-scientist. He was the William Osler Professor of Medicine and chair of the department of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He was the Physician-in-chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Go to Profile#21176
Gerard Unger
#21187
Overall Influence
1942 - 2018 (76 years)
Gerard Unger was a Dutch graphic and type designer. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1963 to 1967, and subsequently worked at Total Design, Prad and Joh. Enschedé. In 1975, he established himself as an independent developer. A long-time guest lecturer at the University of Reading, he mentored many modern typeface designers. He lived and worked in Bussum, Netherlands.
Go to Profile#21177
Awn Alsharif Qasim
#21188
Overall Influence
1933 - 2006 (73 years)
Awn Al-Sharif Qasim was a prolific Sudanese writer, encyclopedist, scholar, community leader, and one of Sudan's leading experts on Arabic language and literature. He was a strong advocate of Arabic/Islamic culture and its interweaving with Sudanese culture. Qasim authored more than 70 books in the area of Islamic history and civilization, Arabic literature, studies in the Sudanese dialect languages.
Go to Profile#21178
Lars Pearson
#21189
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Lars Pearson is an American writer, high school teacher, editor, and journalist. He is the owner/publisher of Mad Norwegian Press, a publishing company specializing in reference guides to television shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Doctor Who, plus the Faction Paradox range of novels and comic books. He is also co-author, with Lance Parkin, of "Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe," which puts every Doctor Who-related story onto a single timeline from the beginning of the universe to its end.
Go to Profile#21179
John Oulton Wisdom
#21190
Overall Influence
1908 - 1993 (85 years)
John Oulton Wisdom , cousin of Cambridge professor John Wisdom was "an important contributor to philosophy and to psychoanalysis" who made "original contributions to the mind-body problem, to philosophy of science, to cybernetics, to the theory of psychosomatic disorder, and to psychoanalytic theory".
Go to Profile#21180
Martin Harris
#21191
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sir Martin Best Harris, is a British academic and former University Vice-Chancellor. Life and career He was born at Ruabon, Wales, the son of William Best Harris, afterwards City Librarian of Plymouth, and educated at Devonport High School for Boys in Plymouth, at Queens' College, Cambridge and at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He began his academic career at the University of Leicester in 1967, where he lectured in French Linguistics.
Go to Profile#21181
Michael Geyer
#21192
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Michael Geyer is a German historian, and Samuel N. Harper Professor Emeritus of German and European History, at University of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 2012 Axel Springer Berlin Prize and Senior Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He graduated from Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg with a D.Phil.
Go to Profile#21182
Marcia Stefanick
#21193
Overall Influence
Marcia L. Stefanick is a Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Director of the Stanford Women's Health and Sex Differences in Medicine Center. Stefanick’s research investigates the role of lifestyle, particularly exercise, diet, weight control, and menopausal hormone therapy, on chronic disease prevention. Her major focus is heart disease, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and dementia.
Go to Profile#21183
Akio Mori
#21194
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
is a Japanese physiologist, sports scientist and writer. He is also the founder and the former head of the Japanese learned society . Mori was originally known for his physiology researches, but began to write books about human neuroscience, coining the term "game brain" in his 2002 book . He claimed that the brains of people who played video games were physically damaged. Game Nō no Kyōfu received much attention from critics such as Tamaki Saitō.
Go to Profile#21184
Harris Mylonas
#21195
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Harris Mylonas is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and the editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers, a peer-reviewed journal published by Cambridge University Press. Mylonas’s research contributes to our understanding of states’ management of diversity that may originate from national minorities, immigrants, diasporas, or refugees. His work emphasizes and explores the importance of international security considerations in domestic policy-making. His book, The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minori...
Go to Profile#21185
Francis Sejersted
#21196
Overall Influence
1936 - 2015 (79 years)
Francis Sejersted was a Norwegian history professor and the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 1991 until 1995. Early life Sejersted was born in Oslo. He performed his military service at the prestigious Russian language program of the Norwegian Armed Forces. He was later educated in history as well as Nordic linguistics and literature at the University of Oslo and achieved a cand.philol. degree in 1965 and a doctorate in 1973. In 1962 Francis Sejersted was president of the Norwegian Students' Association representing the student wing of the Conservative Party of Norway, a party ...
Go to Profile#21186
Steven Heine
#21197
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Steven Heine , is a scholar in the field of Zen Buddhist history and thought, particularly the life and teachings of Zen Master Dōgen . He has also taught and published extensively on Japanese religion and society in worldwide perspectives.
Go to Profile#21187
Toby Moskowitz
#21198
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Tobias Jacob "Toby" Moskowitz is an American financial economist and a professor at the Yale School of Management. He was the winner of the 2007 American Finance Association Fischer Black Prize, awarded to a leading finance scholar under the age of 40.
Go to Profile#21188
Ivan M. Niven
#21199
Overall Influence
1915 - 1999 (84 years)
Ivan Morton Niven was a Canadian-American mathematician, specializing in number theory and known for his work on Waring's problem. He worked for many years as a professor at the University of Oregon, and was president of the Mathematical Association of America. He was the author of several books on mathematics.
Go to Profile#21189
Paul Mahoney
#21200
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Paul G. Mahoney is an American law professor who worked as the dean of the University of Virginia School of Law from July 1, 2008 to July 1, 2016. He succeeded John Calvin Jeffries as Dean, and was succeeded by Risa L. Goluboff.
Go to Profile#21190
Yash Chopra
#21201
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
Yash Raj Chopra was an Indian film director and film producer who worked in Hindi cinema. The founding chairman of the film production and distribution company Yash Raj Films, Chopra was the recipient of several awards, including 6 National Film Awards and 8 Filmfare Awards. He is considered among the best Hindi filmmakers, particularly known and admired for his romantic films with strong female leads. For his contributions to film, the Government of India honoured him with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2001, and the Padma Bhushan in 2005. In 2006, British Academy of Film and Television Arts ...
Go to Profile#21191
Abbe Smith
#21202
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Abbe Lyn Smith is an American criminal defense attorney and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Smith is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic and Co-Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program.
Go to Profile#21192
Kiyoo Mogi
#21203
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Kiyoo Mogi was a prominent seismologist. He was regarded as Japan's foremost authority on earthquake prediction and was a chair of the Japanese Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction . Mogi was also a director of the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute, was a professor at Nihon University and was professor emeritus at Tokyo University. Due to the seismic activity in Japan, Mogi also took an interest in safety of nuclear power in Japan.
Go to Profile#21193
Theo Härder
#21204
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Theo Härder is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Kaiserslautern. Life and career Theo Härder studied electrical Engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Technische Universität Darmstadt, earning his doctorate there in 1975. In 1976 he moved to the IBM Research - Almaden in San Jose, California. In 1977 he returned to TU Darmstadt as a professor at the Department of Computer Science. In 1980 he accepted an appointment at the University of Kaiserslautern in computer science.
Go to Profile#21194
Clifford Nass
#21205
Overall Influence
1958 - 2013 (55 years)
Clifford Ivar Nass was a professor of communication at Stanford University, co-creator of The Media Equation theory, and a renowned authority on human-computer interaction . He was also known for his work on individual differences associated with media multitasking. Nass was the Thomas M. Storke Professor at Stanford and held courtesy appointments in Computer Science, Education, Law, and Sociology. He was also affiliated with the programs in Symbolic Systems and Science, Technology, and Society.
Go to Profile#21195
Ansley J. Coale
#21206
Overall Influence
1917 - 2002 (85 years)
Ansley Johnson Coale , was one of America's foremost demographers. A native to Baltimore, Maryland, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1939, his Master of Arts in 1941, and his Ph.D. in 1947, all at Princeton University. A long-term director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton, Coale was especially influential for his work on the demographic transition and for his leadership of the European Fertility Project.
Go to Profile#21196
Mohammad Aslam Khan Khalil
#21207
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mohammad Aslam Khan Khalil, M.A.K. Khalil or Aslam Khalil is a theoretical physicist known for his leading research in atmospheric physics. Early in his career, he worked on quantum field theory of elementary particles. During the last three decades, he has worked on Global Change Science, including the physics, chemistry and biology of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting compounds. He is a professor of physics at Portland State University.
Go to Profile#21197
Eileen McNamara
#21208
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Eileen McNamara is an American journalist. She is the author of Eunice, The Kennedy Who Changed the World, published by Simon and Schuster. She is an emerita professor in the Journalism Program at Brandeis University and formerly a columnist with the Boston Globe, where she won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1997.
Go to Profile#21198
Viviana Simon
#21209
Overall Influence
Viviana Simon is a Professor of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai . She is a member of the ISMMS Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute. Her research considers viral-host interactions and the mode of action of retroviral restriction factors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Simon developed an antibody test that can determine immunity to Coronavirus disease 2019.
Go to Profile#21199
Daniel J. Elazar
#21210
Overall Influence
1934 - 1999 (65 years)
Daniel Judah Elazar was a political scientist known for his seminal studies of political culture of the US states. He was professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Temple University in Pennsylvania, and director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University and the founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Go to Profile#21200
Kenneth Maxwell
#21211
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Kenneth Robert Maxwell is a British historian of Iberia and Latin America, educated at St John’s College, Cambridge University, where he studied under Professor Sir Harry Hinsley and Ronald Robinson and Edward Miller . In 1963 he studied at the University of Madrid and was a Gulbenkian grantee in Lisbon in 1964. In September 1964 he entered the graduate program in Latin American History at Princeton University where his supervisor was Professor Stanley Stein . He was a Newberry library-Gulbenkian fellow in Chicago . He was appointed an assistant and later an associate professor of Luso-Brazilian history at the University of Kansas in Lawrence .
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