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
#22451
Hideyuki Okano
#22462
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Hideyuki Okano is a Japanese physiology professor and the current dean of Keio University School of Medicine. He is also the team leader of the Laboratory for Marmoset Neural Architecture, at RIKEN Brain Science Institute. His lab is the first in the world to produce transgenic marmosets with germline transmission. He is a director of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
Go to Profile#22452
Drew Shindell
#22463
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Drew Shindell is a physicist and a climate specialist and professor at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. He is listed as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher. He was a chapter lead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change October 8, 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C as well as on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in 2013. He has testified on climate issues before both houses of the US Congress, at the request of both parties. His research concerns natural and human drivers of climate change, linkages between air quality and climate change, and the interface between climate change science and policy.
Go to Profile#22453
Peter Shaffer
#22464
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer was an English playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He wrote numerous award-winning plays, of which several were adapted into films. Early life Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, the son of Reka and estate agent Jack Shaffer. He grew up in London and was the identical twin brother of fellow playwright Anthony Shaffer.
Go to Profile#22454
Jacques Rivette
#22465
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Jacques Rivette was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. He made twenty-nine films, including L'Amour fou , Out 1 , Celine and Julie Go Boating , and La Belle Noiseuse . His work is noted for its improvisation, loose narratives, and lengthy running times.
Go to Profile#22455
Justin Hill
#22466
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Justin Hill is an English novelist. Biography Justin Hill was born in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island in 1971, and he grew up in Yorkshire, England. He was educated at St Peter's School, an independent school in York.
Go to Profile#22456
Mark Kirkland
#22467
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Mark Kirkland is an American animation director. He has directed 84 episodes of The Simpsons since 1990, more than any other director. Career At the age of 13, Kirkland began making super 8 films and working for his father, noted photographer and filmmaker Douglas Kirkland, creating “making of” films for major production companies. This exposure to Hollywood sparked Kirkland's desire to seek a career in the entertainment industry. Kirkland developed an interest in drawing at an early age. At the age of 17, he began studying in the Experimental Animation Program at the California Institute of the Arts for four years, earning a BFA degree.
Go to Profile#22457
Jim Shepard
#22468
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Jim Shepard is an American novelist and short story writer, who teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. Biography Shepard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He received a B.A. at Trinity College in 1978 and an MFA from Brown University in 1980. He currently teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. His wife, Karen Shepard, is also a novelist. They are on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.
Go to Profile#22458
Henry Daniels
#22469
Overall Influence
1912 - 2000 (88 years)
Henry Ellis Daniels FRS was a British statistician. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society , and was awarded its Guy Medal in Gold in 1984, following a silver medal in 1947. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1980. The Parry-Daniels map is named after him .
Go to Profile#22459
Nicole Wong
#22470
Overall Influence
Nicole A. Wong is an American attorney, specializing in Internet, media and intellectual property law. In May 2013, she was selected by the Barack Obama administration to be the White House deputy chief technology officer of the United States. She earned the nickname "the Decider" while she was vice president and deputy general counsel at Google, where she was responsible for arbitrating issues of censorship for Google. Wong stepped down as Deputy US CTO on August 16, 2014, to return with her family to California. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Albright Stonebridge Group, a globa...
Go to Profile#22460
Werner Spies
#22471
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Werner Spies is a German art historian, journalist and exhibition organizer. From 1997 to 2000, he was a director of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Klaus Albrecht Schröder, director of the Albertina in Vienna, has called Spies "one of the most influential art historians of the 20th century."
Go to Profile#22461
Anita Silvey
#22472
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Anita Silvey is an American author, editor, and literary critic in the genre of children’s literature. Born in 1947 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Silvey has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book Magazine and as vice-president at Houghton Mifflin where she oversaw children’s and young adult book publishing. She has also authored a number of critical books about children's literature, including 500 Great Books for Teens and The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators. In October 2010, she began publishing the Children's Book-A-Day Almanac online, a daily essay on classic and co...
Go to Profile#22462
Sally Miller Gearhart
#22473
Overall Influence
1931 - 2021 (90 years)
Sally Miller Gearhart was an American teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist. In 1973, she became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country. She later became a nationally known gay rights activist.
Go to Profile#22463
Surajit Kumar De Datta
#22474
Overall Influence
Surajit Kumar De Datta is an Indian American agronomist who is best known for his high yield variety of rice IR-8 that contributed significantly to the Green Revolution across Asia. Over the course of 27 years, he worked at the International Rice Research Institute in Philippines helping Southeast Asia get self-sufficiency in rice production. His book on rice production, Principles and Practices of Rice Production, is considered an authoritative opus in the field of rice cultivation. He has also written two books namely, "Availability of Phosphorus and Utilization of Phosphate Fertilizers in S...
Go to Profile#22464
Paul Tiffany
#22475
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Paul Tiffany is a senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Decline of American Steel, How Management, Labor and Government Went Wrong and Business Plans for Dummies.
Go to Profile#22465
Justin Cronin
#22476
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Justin Cronin is an American author. He has written six novels: Mary and O'Neil, The Ferryman, and The Summer Guest, as well as a vampire trilogy consisting of The Passage, The Twelve and City of Mirrors. He has won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Stephen Crane Prize, and a Whiting Award.
Go to Profile#22466
Scott M. Gimple
#22477
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Scott M. Gimple is an American writer for both comics and television. He is known for his work as a writer and producer for Fillmore!, Life, FlashForward, Chase, and The Walking Dead, and served as showrunner for The Walking Dead from seasons 4 through 8.
Go to Profile#22467
Joe Celko
#22478
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Joe Celko is an American relational database expert from Austin, Texas. He has participated on the ANSI X3H2 Database Standards Committee, and helped write the SQL-89 and SQL-92 standards. He is the author of a Morgan-Kaufmann series of books on SQL, and over 1200 published articles on SQL and other database topics. He had been a full-time statistician for several years.
Go to Profile#22468
Eliot Deutsch
#22479
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Eliot Sandler Deutsch was a philosopher, teacher, and writer. He made important contributions to the understanding and appreciation of Eastern philosophies in the West through his many works on comparative philosophy and aesthetics. He was a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Go to Profile#22469
Thomas E. Anderson
#22480
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Thomas E. Anderson is an American computer scientist noted for his research on distributed computing, networking and operating systems. Biography Anderson received a B.A. in Philosophy from Harvard University in 1983. He received a M.S. in computer science from University of Washington in 1989 and a Ph.D in computer science from University of Washington in 1991.
Go to Profile#22470
David Myers
#22481
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
David Guy Myers is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, United States, and the author of 17 books, including popular textbooks entitled Psychology, Exploring Psychology, Social Psychology and general-audience books dealing with issues related to Christian faith as well as scientific psychology. In addition, he has published chapters in over 60 books and numerous scholarly research articles in professional journals. Myers is widely recognized for his research on happiness and is one of the supporters of the positive psychological movement.
Go to Profile#22471
Kevin Burkhardt
#22482
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Kevin Burkhardt aka Lil Baby Kay Kay is an American sportscaster. He is currently the lead play-by-play voice for the NFL on Fox and lead studio host for Fox Major League Baseball. Burkhardt was formerly a reporter with SportsNet New York during New York Mets telecasts from 2007 to 2014. He also called select Mets games during both spring training and the regular season during that time. He has been the primary studio host for Major League Baseball telecasts on Fox and FS1 since the 2014 season. He also hosts the "Reunion" episodes of the History Channel's reality series Alone.
Go to Profile#22472
Rajesh Chandra
#22483
Overall Influence
Rajesh Chandra was a Fijian academic. In February 2005 he was appointed the first Vice-Chancellor of the newly founded University of Fiji. He served as Vice-Chancellor and President of The University of the South Pacific ending his term in December 2018.
Go to Profile#22473
Carla Katz
#22484
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Carla A. Katz served as president of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America from 1999 until 2008, representing 16,000 public and private sector workers in the state of New Jersey. Katz is currently full-time faculty at Rutgers University and an attorney with the firm of Cohen, Placitella and Roth in Red Bank, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#22474
Gerry Philipsen
#22485
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Gerry Philipsen , Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of Washington is an American academic and ethnographer of communication. Philipsen's research treats communicative acts as occurring within cultural, social and small group settings. He is most noted for developing speech code theory a framework for communication in a given speech community. Speech code theory explores the manner in which groups communicate based on societal, cultural, gender, occupational or other factors. Philipsen received recognition for his lifetime achievement from the National Communication Association.
Go to Profile#22475
Stephen B. Shepard
#22486
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Stephen B. Shepard is an American business journalist and academic who served as editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek magazine and was the founding dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Born and raised in New York City, Shepard attended the Bronx High School of Science. He received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York and was awarded a master's degree from Columbia University. He married fellow Newsweek senior editor Lynn Povich on September 16, 1979, at a ceremony officiated by Rabbi Balfour Brickner. They have two adult children.
Go to Profile#22476
Gen Suwa
#22487
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Gen Suwa is a Japanese paleoanthropologist. He is known for his contributions to the understanding of the evolution of early hominids, including the discovery of a tooth from a hominid that was more than one million years older than the oldest previously known hominid. The discovery changed scientific opinion regarding the ancestral splits between humans, chimps and gorillas.
Go to Profile#22477
Alberto Del Rio
#22488
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
José Alberto Rodríguez Chucuan is a Mexican-American professional wrestler, professional wrestling promoter, sports commentator, and mixed martial artist, currently signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship as a commentator. He also makes appearances for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide as a wrestler. In professional wrestling, he is best known for his time in WWE under the ring name Alberto Del Rio, and Impact Wrestling under the ring name Alberto El Patrón.
Go to Profile#22478
Edward Gramlich
#22489
Overall Influence
1939 - 2007 (68 years)
Edward M. Gramlich was an American economist who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1997 to 2005. Gramlich was also an acting director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Go to Profile#22479
Dale L. Boger
#22490
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Dale Lester Boger is an American medicinal and organic chemist and former chair of the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Dale Boger was born on August 22, 1953, in Hutchinson, Kansas. He studied chemistry at the University of Kansas , and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1980 under Professor E. J. Corey. Following graduate school, he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas where he became assistant/associate professor of medicinal chemistry .
Go to Profile#22480
Jerome Loving
#22491
Overall Influence
Jerome Loving is an American literary critic and academic. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of American Literature and Culture at Texas A&M University at College Station, and the author of several books about Walt Whitman, Theodore Dreiser, Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson. His Jack and Norman: A State-raised Convict and the Legacy of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song is under option by Village Roadshow Entertainment Group. He served as a Fulbright Professor in Leningrad in 1978 and Paris in 1989–90. He also taught at the Sorbonne in 1984 and at the University of Texas at Austin in 1986.
Go to Profile#22481
Ken Stabler
#22492
Overall Influence
1945 - 2015 (70 years)
Kenneth Michael Stabler was an American professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 17 seasons, primarily with the Oakland Raiders. Nicknamed "Snake", he played college football at Alabama and was selected by the Raiders in the second round of the 1968 NFL Draft. During his 10 seasons in Oakland, Stabler received four Pro Bowl selections and was named Most Valuable Player in 1974. Stabler also helped the Raiders win their first Super Bowl title in the Super Bowl XI. He was posthumously inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.
Go to Profile#22482
Mayawati
#22493
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Kumari Mayawati is an Indian politician who served as the 18th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1995 to 1995, 1997 to 1997, 2002 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2012. She is the national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party , which focuses on a platform of social change for Bahujans, more commonly known as Other Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as well as religious minorities since 2003. She had also served as a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from 2012 to 2017 from Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati's rise from humble beginnings has been called a "miracle of democracy" by P. V. Narasimha Rao, former prime minister of India.
Go to Profile#22483
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh
#22494
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Benjamin Heinz-Dieter Buchloh is a German art historian. Between 2005 and 2021 he was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art in the History of Art and Architecture department at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#22484
Jason Robards
#22495
Overall Influence
1922 - 2000 (78 years)
Jason Nelson Robards Jr. was an American actor. Known as an interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill, Robards received two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. He is one of 24 performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting.
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Ryan Fitzpatrick
#22496
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Ryan Joseph Fitzpatrick is an American former professional football player who was quarterback for 17 seasons in the National Football League . Fitzpatrick was a starter for nine teams, the most in league history. He is also the only NFL player to have both a passing and rushing touchdown with eight different teams.
Go to Profile#22486
Rod Rosenbladt
#22497
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Rod Rosenbladt is a former Professor of Theology at Concordia University Irvine in California, and is also well-known among Lutheran, Reformed, and Evangelical Christians as the former co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program "The White Horse Inn". He now does his own program as part of the 1517 project discussed below.
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Vladimir Aleksandrovich Mau
#22498
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Mau is a Russian economist, scientist, and teacher. Since 2010 to 2023 he has served as the rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration . During his career, he was a member of many advisory and scientific councils and commissions. Currently, he is a member of the Presidium of the Economic Council under the President of the Russian Federation. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
Go to Profile#22488
Debbie Millman
#22499
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Debbie Millman is an American writer, educator, artist, curator, and designer who is best known as the host of the podcast Design Matters. She has authored six books and is the President Emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and chair, one of only five women to hold the position over 100 years. She co-founded the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City with Steven Heller. She was previously the editorial and creative director of Print magazine. Her illustrations have appeared in many major publications, including New York Magazine, Design Observe...
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Allan Lichtman
#22500
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Allan Jay Lichtman is an American historian. He has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 1973. Lichtman created the Keys to the White House model with Soviet seismologist Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981. The model uses 13 true/false criteria to predict whether the presidential candidate of the incumbent party will win or lose the next election. Using this model, Lichtman has accurately predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1984, with the exception of 2000. He ran for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland in 2006, finishing in sixth place in the Democratic primary.
Go to Profile#22490
Leon Mestel
#22501
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Leon Mestel was an Australian astronomer and astrophysicist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex. His research interests were in the areas of star formation and structure, especially stellar magnetism and astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics. He was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society . Following his retirement, he wrote several obituaries and biographical articles on physicists and astrophysicists.
Go to Profile#22491
Rex Ryan
#22502
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Rex Ashley Ryan is a former American football coach and analyst. Ryan was formerly the head coach of the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills of the National Football League , and also held various coaching positions with seven other NFL and college teams.
Go to Profile#22492
Ramachandran Balasubramanian
#22503
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ramachandran Balasubramanian is an Indian mathematician and was Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India. He is known for his work in number theory, which includes settling the final g case of Waring's problem in 1986.
Go to Profile#22493
Earl Davie
#22504
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Earl Warren Davie was an American biochemist. He was a professor emeritus of biochemistry at the University of Washington. Davie studied the blood proteins involved in coagulation and was among the first scientists to describe the steps of the clotting process. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#22494
Efraim Benmelech
#22505
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Efraim Benmelech is a financial economist. Benmelech is the Henry Bullock Professor of Finance and Real Estate at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the director of the Guthrie Center for real estate research and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research .
Go to Profile#22495
David Shugar
#22506
Overall Influence
1915 - 2015 (100 years)
David Shugar was a professor of the University of Warsaw. After the First World War, he settled as a child with his parents in Canada. In 1936 he concluded his education of physics at McGill University in Montreal and obtained his doctorate in 1940. Since January 1941, he did research in biophysics in the laboratory of Research Enterprises, Limited, a Crown Company in Leaside near Toronto, later served in the Canadian Marines with the rank of Electrical Sub-Lieutenant R.C.N.V.R. In 1946 he entered the employ of the Department of National Health and Welfare.
Go to Profile#22496
Christophe Bisciglia
#22507
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Christophe Bisciglia is an American entrepreneur known for his work with big data and cloud computing. Known for helping to popularize the programming model MapReduce while working at Google, and in addition he co-founded Cloudera and WibiData.
Go to Profile#22497
Kevin Harvick
#22508
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Kevin Michael Harvick is an American stock car racing driver. He last competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 4 Ford Mustang for Stewart–Haas Racing. Harvick won the Cup Series championship in 2014 as well as the 2001 and 2006 Xfinity Series championships, and the 2007 Daytona 500.
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Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
#22509
Overall Influence
1907 - 2001 (94 years)
Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, , known as the 2nd Viscount Hailsham between 1950 and 1963, at which point he disclaimed his hereditary peerage, was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician who served as Lord Chancellor from 1970 to 1974 and again from 1979 to 1987.
Go to Profile#22499
Ross McKitrick
#22510
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ross McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph, and a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute.
Go to Profile#22500
Frederick William Danker
#22511
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
Frederick William Danker was a Christ Seminary–Seminex Professor Emeritus of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Illinois. Danker was a noted New Testament scholar and the pre-eminent Koine Greek lexicographer for two generations, working with F. Wilbur Gingrich as an editor of the Bauer Lexicon starting in 1957 until the publication of the second edition in 1979, and as the only editor from 1979 until the publication of the 3rd edition, updating it with the results of modern scholarship, converting it to SGML to allow it to be easily published in electronic formats, ...
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