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
#21351
Lovie Smith
#21362
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Lovie Lee Smith is an American football coach. He has served as the head coach of the Chicago Bears, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Houston Texans of the National Football League , and as the head coach of the Illinois Fighting Illini. Smith has been to the Super Bowl twice, as the defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams in 2001 and as head coach for the Bears in 2006.
Go to Profile#21352
Václav E. Beneš
#21363
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Václav Edvard "Vic" Beneš is a Czech-American, a mathematician known for his contributions to the theory of stochastic processes, queueing theory and control theory, as well as the design of telecommunications switches.
Go to Profile#21353
Michel C. Nussenzweig
#21364
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Michel C. Nussenzweig is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at The Rockefeller University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is a member of both the US National Academy of Medicine and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#21354
Malinda Carpenter
#21365
Overall Influence
Malinda Carpenter,Ph.D, FRSE is a professor of developmental psychology at the University of St Andrews, an international researcher specialising in infant and child communications, prosocial behaviour and group reactions, in how people learn to understand others, and building self esteem; her work includes research between ape and human social cognition, and more recently in considering human-robotic communication futures.
Go to Profile#21355
Keith Joseph
#21366
Overall Influence
1918 - 1994 (76 years)
Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, , known as Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet, for most of his political life, was a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a minister under four prime ministers: Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher. He was a key influence in the creation of what came to be known as "Thatcherism".
Go to Profile#21356
Bob Brinker
#21367
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Robert John Brinker is an American financial advisor and radio host. From 1986 to 2018, Brinker hosted the syndicated financial radio show Moneytalk. He previously had a show on local New York radio on WMCA. Prior to that Brinker hosted talk radio programs on WCAU and WWDB in Philadelphia.
Go to Profile#21357
Charles Paul Conn
#21368
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Charles Paul Conn is Chancellor and former President of Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. Conn became president of Lee University in 1986 and announced retirement in 2019. He retired in 2020 to become chancellor. He was the longest serving CEO of any college or university in Tennessee history.
Go to Profile#21358
Ernest Mathijs
#21369
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Ernest Mathijs is a professor at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches film. He has published several books on cult films. Career According to CTV News, his "specialties include movie audiences, the reception of alternative cinema and cult film." Mathijs is primarily known for his books on cult films, such as The Cult Film Reader and 100 Cult Films, which he co-edited and co-wrote, respectively, with Xavier Mendik; Cult Cinema, which he co-wrote with Jamie Sexton; The Cinema of David Cronenberg: From Baron of Blood to Cultural Hero and John Fawcett's Ginger Snaps. With Sexto...
Go to Profile#21359
Lawrence R. Jacobs
#21370
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Lawrence R. Jacobs is an American political scientist and founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. He was appointed the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 2005 and holds the McKnight Presidential Chair. Jacobs has written or edited, alone or collaboratively, 17 books and over 100 scholarly articles in addition to numerous reports and media essays on American democracy, national and Minnesota elections, political communications, health care reform, and economic inequality.
Go to Profile#21360
Dennis Quaid
#21371
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor. He is known for his leading man roles in film and television. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
Go to Profile#21361
Richard Arnowitt
#21372
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Richard Lewis Arnowitt was an American physicist known for his contributions to theoretical particle physics and to general relativity. Arnowitt was a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University, where he was a member of the Department of Physics.
Go to Profile#21362
Sam Wineburg
#21373
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Samuel S. Wineburg is an American educational and cognitive psychologist. He is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies emeritus at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#21363
Jacques Pitrat
#21374
Overall Influence
1934 - 2019 (85 years)
Jacques Pitrat was one of the French symbolic artificial intelligence pioneers. He developed knowledge based systems, expert systems, and theorem proverss, and was a strong advocate of meta-knowledge based systems.
Go to Profile#21364
Mário Zagallo
#21375
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo is a Brazilian former professional football player, coordinator and manager, who played as a forward. Zagallo holds the record for World Cup titles in general with four titles in total. He also holds the record for World Cup Finals with six participations, in addition to being on the pitch during the 1950 Final as a young soldier providing security for the event on the behalf of the Brazilian Armed Forces. He was the first person to win the FIFA World Cup as both a manager and as a player, winning the competition in 1958 and 1962 as a player, in 1970 as manager, and in 1994 as assistant manager.
Go to Profile#21365
Nils Dencker
#21376
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Nils Jonas Dencker is a Swedish mathematician. Dencker earned his doctorate from Lund University in 1981 under supervision of Lars Hörmander, and is a professor of mathematics at Lund University. From 1981 until 1983, he was the C. L. E. Moore instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#21366
Franco Baresi
#21377
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Franchino Baresi is an Italian football youth team coach and a former player and manager. He mainly played as a sweeper or as a central defender, and spent his entire 20-year career with Serie A club AC Milan, captaining the club for 15 seasons. He is considered to be one of the best defenders in the history of the sport. He was ranked 19th in World Soccer magazine's list of the 100 greatest players of the 20th century. With Milan, he won three UEFA Champions League titles, six Serie A titles, four Supercoppa Italiana titles, two European Super Cups and two Intercontinental Cups.
Go to Profile#21367
Pam Fredman
#21378
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Pam Fredman is a Swedish professor of neuroscience and former rector of the University of Gothenburg. From 2016, Fredman is the President of the International Association of Universities Biography Fredman graduated with a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in 1973 and a Doctor of Philosophy in Neurochemistry in 1979. Her thesis is titled ”Structure and Function of Gangliosides”.
Go to Profile#21368
Jenny Hocking
#21379
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. Her work is in two key areas, counter-terrorism and Australian political biography. In both areas she explores Australian democratic practice, the relationship between the arms of government, and aspects of Australian political history. Her research into the life of former Aus...
Go to Profile#21369
Stephen Baskerville
#21380
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Stephen K. Baskerville is an American scholar of political science. He is described by Paul Craig Roberts as a leading authority on divorce, child custody and the family court system. Education and employment Baskerville holds a BA in International Relations from American University as well as a PhD in Political Science and History from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Go to Profile#21370
Sidney van den Bergh
#21381
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Sidney Van den Bergh, OC, FRS is a retired Dutch-Canadian astronomer. He showed an interest in science from an early age, learning to read with books on astronomy. In addition to being interested in astronomy. He also liked geology and archeology. His parents got him science books, a telescope, and a microscope, although they wished him to pursue a more practical career and only follow astronomy as a hobby. He went to Leiden University in the Netherlands from 1947 to 1948. He then attended Princeton University on scholarship where he received his A.B. in 1950. In December 1950, he was living in Columbus, Ohio and evidencing an interest in Astronomy.
Go to Profile#21371
Davide Gaiotto
#21382
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Davide Silvano Achille Gaiotto is an Italian mathematical physicist who deals with quantum field theories and string theory. He received the Gribov Medal in 2011 and the New Horizons in Physics Prize in 2013.
Go to Profile#21372
Peter Lillback
#21383
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Peter A. Lillback is an American theologian who is President and Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian and Reformed Christian graduate educational institution in Glenside, Pennsylvania. He also serves as the president of the Providence Forum and a senior editor at Unio cum Christo: An International Journal of Reformed Theology and Life. Lillback has been ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church , and holds credentials as teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America . Lillback held degrees from Cedarville University , Dallas Theological Seminary , and Westminster Theological Seminary .
Go to Profile#21373
Lourdes J. Cruz
#21384
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Lourdes J. Cruz is a Filipino biochemist whose research has contributed to the understanding of the biochemistry of toxic peptides from the venom of fish-hunting Conus marine snails. Throughout the Philippines, she is known as the Sea Snail Venom Specialist. The characterization of over 50 biologically active peptides from the snail's venom had been made possible, in part, by her studies. Scientific findings regarding the peptides found in snails have applications in diagnostic tools for cancers and the development of drugs for the treatment of neurological disorders. She has also contributed to the development of conotoxins as tools for examining the activity of the human brain.
Go to Profile#21374
James Cutsinger
#21385
Overall Influence
1953 - 2020 (67 years)
James Sherman Cutsinger was an author, editor, and professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina, whose works focused primarily on comparative religion, the modern Traditionalist School of perennial philosophy, Eastern Christian spirituality, and the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Go to Profile#21375
Srgjan Kerim
#21386
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Srgjan Kerim is a Macedonian diplomat, economist, former Foreign Minister and President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. His term of office began on September 18, 2007 and ended on September 16, 2008. He is of Macedonian Turkish descent.
Go to Profile#21376
Steven Van Zandt
#21387
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Steven Van Zandt , also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American musician and actor. He is a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He has appeared in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer . Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own so...
Go to Profile#21377
John Boardman
#21388
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Sir John Boardman, is a classical archaeologist and art historian. He has been described as "Britain's most distinguished historian of ancient Greek art." Biography John Boardman was educated at Chigwell School ; then Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read Classics beginning in 1945. After completing two years' national service in the Intelligence Corps he spent three years in Greece, from 1952 to 1955, as the Assistant Director of the British School at Athens. He married Sheila Stanford in 1952 , and has two children, Julia and Mark.
Go to Profile#21378
Eugene R. Fidell
#21389
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Eugene Roy Fidell is an American lawyer specializing in military law. He is currently the Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. Education Military service Family Fidell has been married to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse since January 1, 1981. Together they have one daughter, filmmaker Hannah Margalit Fidell .
Go to Profile#21379
Jay W. Richards
#21390
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jay Wesley Richards is an American analytic philosopher who focuses on the intersection of politics, philosophy, and religion. He is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. He serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Business at the Catholic University of America and the executive editor of The Stream and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. A former Presbyterian, Richards is now a Catholic.
Go to Profile#21380
Piet Rietveld
#21391
Overall Influence
1952 - 2013 (61 years)
Pieter Rietveld was a Dutch economist and Professor in Transport Economics at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and a fellow at the Tinbergen Institute. He was among the top researchers in economic geography according to IDEAS/RePEc.
Go to Profile#21381
Fred Iklé
#21392
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
Fred Charles Iklé was a Swiss-American sociologist and defense expert. Iklé's expertise was in defense and foreign policy, nuclear strategy, and the role of technology in the emerging international order. After a career in academia he was appointed director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1973–1977, before becoming Under Secretary of Defense for Policy . He was later a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a Distinguished Scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Director ...
Go to Profile#21382
Li Haopei
#21393
Overall Influence
1906 - 1997 (91 years)
Li Haopei was a Chinese jurist, diplomat and academic. He was a leading authority on international law. Education Li attended Soochow University and received his Bachelor and Master's of laws in 1928 and 1930 respectively. In 1936 he won a scholarship and travelled to the United Kingdom to pursue advanced studies in public international law, international private law and comparative law at the London School of Economics, University of London.
Go to Profile#21383
Leela Gandhi
#21394
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Leela Gandhi is an Indian-born literary and cultural theorist who is noted for her work in postcolonial theory. She is currently the John Hawkes Professor of Humanities and English and director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University.
Go to Profile#21384
Lawrence A. Tabak
#21395
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Lawrence A. Tabak is an American dentist and biomedical scientist serving as the principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health. He served as acting director from 2021 to 2023. Previously he was the director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research from 2000 to 2010.
Go to Profile#21385
Charles Kurzman
#21396
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Charles Kurzman is a Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in Middle East and Islamic studies. Education and employment After completing his B.A. at Harvard University in 1986, he completed his M.A. and PhD. at University of California, Berkeley in 1997 and 1992 respectively. He has been affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1998.
Go to Profile#21386
Gerald Berreman
#21397
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Gerald Duane Berreman was an American anthropologist and ethnographer who was known for his theory on the caste system in India, as well as his contributions to the ethical practice of anthropology itself. Berreman spoke out during the Vietnam War era about the working relationship between anthropologists and the CIA. His anthropological work focused on the study of social stratification, in which he drew parallels between racial inequality in the United States and the caste system in India.
Go to Profile#21387
Mariusz Wodzicki
#21398
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mariusz Wodzicki is a Polish mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, whose works primarily focus on analysis, algebraic k-theory, noncommutative geometry, and algebraic geometry.
Go to Profile#21388
Mark Z. Jacobson
#21399
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Mark Zachary Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program. He is also a co-founder of the non-profit, Solutions Project.
Go to Profile#21389
Claudio Ciborra
#21400
Overall Influence
1951 - 2005 (54 years)
Claudio Ciborra was an Italian organizational theorist, and Professor of Information Systems and PWC Chair in Risk Management in the London School of Economics. Prior to the LSE, he was professor at the Theseus International Management Institute.
Go to Profile#21390
T. N. Srinivasan
#21401
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
T. N. Srinivasan, in full Thirukodikaval Nilakanta Srinivasan , was an Indian economist who had taught and worked in the United States. He was the Emeritus Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University. He was formerly chairman of the department of economics. He was a special adviser to the Development Research Center at the World Bank from 1977 to 1980, and taught at numerous academic institutions for over four decades, including MIT, Stanford University, and the Indian Statistical Institute. In 2007, he received a Padma Bhushan decoration from the President of India for his...
Go to Profile#21391
Ruth Sager
#21402
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Ruth Sager was an American geneticist. Sager enjoyed two scientific careers. Her first was in the 1950s and 1960s when she pioneered the field of cytoplasmic genetics by discovering transmission of genetic traits through chloroplast DNA, the first known example of genetics not involving the cell nucleus. The academic community did not acknowledge the significance of her contribution until after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s. Her second career began in the early 1970s and was in cancer genetics; she proposed and investigated the roles of tumor suppressor genes.
Go to Profile#21392
Prasenjit Duara
#21403
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Prasenjit Duara , originally from Assam, India, a historian of China, is Oscar Tang Family Distinguished Professor, Department of History, Duke University, after being the Raffles Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore where he was also Director of Asian Research Institute and Director of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences. Duara also taught at George Mason University and the Department of History in the University of Chicago, where he was chairman of the department from 2004–2007.
Go to Profile#21393
Anthony B. Pinn
#21404
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Anthony B. Pinn is an American professor working at the intersections of African-American religion, constructive theology, and humanist thought. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is also the founder and executive director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning in Houston, Texas, and Director of Research for the Institute for Humanist Studies in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#21394
Reza Davari Ardakani
#21405
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Reza Davari Ardakani is an Iranian philosopher who was influenced by Martin Heidegger, and a distinguished emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran. He is also the current member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences and former President of Academy from 1998 to 2023. He is known for his works on Intellect, politics, and underdevelopment.
Go to Profile#21395
John Ernest Randall
#21406
Overall Influence
1924 - 2020 (96 years)
John Ernest "Jack" Randall was an American ichthyologist and a leading authority on coral reef fishes. Randall described over 800 species and authored 11 books and over 900 scientific papers and popular articles. He spent most of his career working in Hawaii. He died in April 2020 at the age of 95.
Go to Profile#21396
Laurence Wolsey
#21407
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Laurence Alexander Wolsey is an English mathematician working in the field of integer programming. He is a former president and research director of the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He is professor emeritus of applied mathematics at the engineering school of the same university.
Go to Profile#21397
Ron Ben-Yishai
#21408
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Ron Ben-Yishai is an Israeli journalist. A veteran war correspondent, Ben-Yishai has covered many military conflicts in several different regions. In 2018, he won the Israel Prize, Israel's most prestigious civic honor.
Go to Profile#21398
Debra Satz
#21409
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Debra Satz is an American philosopher and the Vernon R. & Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. She is the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor of Philosophy and, by courtesy, Political Science. She teaches courses in ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of social science.
Go to Profile#21399
Robert Geddes
#21410
Overall Influence
1923 - 2023 (100 years)
Robert Louis Geddes was an American architect, planner, writer, educator, past principal of the firm Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham , and dean emeritus of the Princeton University School of Architecture . As principal of GBQC, select major projects include Pender Labs at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Police Headquarters, the Liberty State Park master plan, the Philadelphia Center City master plan, and his best-known work, the Dining Commons, Birch Garden, and Academic Building at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was a Fellow of ...
Go to Profile#21400
Gerardo Beni
#21411
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gerardo Beni is a professor of electrical engineering at University of California, Riverside who, with Jing Wang, is known as the originator of the term swarm intelligence in the context of cellular robotics and the concept of electrowetting, with Susan Hackwood. He also devised, with Xuan-Li Xie, the Xie–Beni index for measuring the validity of fuzzy clustering.
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