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
#22751
Michael Kahn
#22762
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Michael Kahn is an American theater director and drama educator. He was the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. from 1986 until his retirement in 2019. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006.
Go to Profile#22752
Arlie Petters
#22763
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Arlie Oswald Petters, MBE is a Belizean-American mathematical physicist, who is the Benjamin Powell Professor of mathematics and a professor of physics and economics at Duke University. Petters became the provost at New York University Abu Dhabi effective September 1, 2020. Petters is a founder of mathematical astronomy, focusing on problems connected to the interplay of gravity and light and employing tools from astrophysics, cosmology, general relativity, high energy physics, differential geometry, singularities, and probability theory. His monograph "Singularity Theory and Gravitational Lensing" developed a mathematical theory of gravitational lensing.
Go to Profile#22753
Tamás Vicsek
#22764
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Tamás Vicsek is a Hungarian scientist with research interests in numerical studies of dense liquids, percolation theory, Monte Carlo simulation of cluster models, aggregation phenomena, fractal growth, pattern formation , collective phenomena in biological systems , molecular motors, cell locomotion in vitro. He held the position of professor of physics at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, and was visiting scientists in various academia.
Go to Profile#22754
Christine Chinkin
#22765
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Christine Mary Chinkin is a Professor of International Law and founding Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the William W. Cook Global Law Professor at the University of Michigan Law School. She was a member of the four-person United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict created by the United Nations Human Rights Council. From January 2010, she is a member of the Human Rights Advisory Panel of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. She is the Chair of the International Law Association, appointed in 2021.
Go to Profile#22755
Roman Herzog
#22766
Overall Influence
1934 - 2017 (83 years)
Roman Herzog was a German politician, judge and legal scholar, who served as the president of Germany from 1994 to 1999. A member of the Christian Democratic Union , he was the first president to be elected after the reunification of Germany. He previously served as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court, and he was the President of the court 1987–1994. Before his appointment as a judge he was a professor of law. He received the 1997 Charlemagne Prize.
Go to Profile#22756
Fatemeh Keshavarz
#22767
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Fatemeh Keshavarz Ph.D. is an Iranian academic, Rumi and Persian studies scholar, and a poet in Persian and English. She is the Roshan Chair of Persian Studies and Director of the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, since 2012. Previously, she served as a professor of Persian Language and Comparative Literature for twenty years and chair of the department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis from 2004 to 2011.
Go to Profile#22757
Calvin L. Stevens
#22768
Overall Influence
1923 - 2014 (91 years)
Calvin Lee Stevens was an American chemist. He was a professor of organic chemistry at Wayne State University, and is known for being the first to synthesize the drug ketamine. Early life and education Stevens was born in Edwardsville, Illinois, to Arthur Allen Stevens and Irma E. Ambuehl. He earned a Bachelor of Science at the University of Illinois, and in 1947 a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in the field of substituted ketene acetals and related orthoesters.
Go to Profile#22758
Helmut Ringsdorf
#22769
Overall Influence
1929 - 2023 (94 years)
Helmut Ringsdorf was a German polymer chemist. His work promoted cross-disciplinary discussions and collaborations in the field of polymer chemistry, biology, physics and medicine. Ringsdorf's major research works deal with the self-assembly of polymers into functional aggregates, where 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts'. He is known for being the first to propose covalently bonding drugs to water-soluble polymers.
Go to Profile#22759
Levi Watkins
#22770
Overall Influence
1944 - 2015 (71 years)
Levi Watkins Jr. was an American heart surgeon and civil rights activist. On February 4, 1980, he and Vivien Thomas were the first to successfully implant an automatic defibrillator in a human patient at Johns Hopkins University. This took place only a mere seven months after Watkins completed his surgical education at Johns Hopkins. Today, millions of patients everywhere use this device, which detects irregular heart beats and corrects them.
Go to Profile#22760
Louis C.K.
#22771
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Louis Alfred Székely , known professionally as Louis C.K. , is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and filmmaker. C.K. won three Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as numerous awards for The Chris Rock Show, Louie, and his stand-up specials Live at the Beacon Theater and Oh My God . In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked C.K.'s stand-up special Shameless number three on their "Divine Comedy: 25 Best Stand-Up Specials and Movies of All Time" list and ranked him fourth on its 2017 list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Go to Profile#22761
Alan Parker
#22772
Overall Influence
1944 - 2020 (76 years)
Sir Alan William Parker was an English filmmaker. His early career, beginning in his late teens, was spent as a copywriter and director of television advertisements. After about ten years of filming adverts, many of which won awards for creativity, he began screenwriting and directing films.
Go to Profile#22762
Abdallah Laroui
#22773
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Abdallah Laroui is a Moroccan philosopher, historian, and novelist. Besides some works in French, his philosophical project has been written mostly in Arabic. He is among the most read and discussed Arab and Moroccan philosophers.
Go to Profile#22763
Davor Šuker
#22774
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Davor Šuker is a Croatian football administrator and former professional player who played as a striker. He served as the president of the Croatian Football Federation from 2012 to 2021. As Croatia's all-time top scorer with 45 goals, Šuker is generally regarded as the greatest Croatian striker of all time, and as one of the greatest strikers of all time.
Go to Profile#22764
William H. Sewell
#22775
Overall Influence
1909 - 2001 (92 years)
William Hamilton Sewell was a United States sociologist and the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison during the 1967–1968 school year. He is the father of William H. Sewell Jr. Biography Sewell was born on November 27, 1909, in Perrinton, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he received his BA in 1933 and his MA in 1934, both in sociology. He then attended the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1939 with a dissertation supervised by F. Stuart Chapin. He briefly taught at Michigan State and Oklahoma State before he became a profe...
Go to Profile#22765
Sam Waterston
#22776
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Samuel Atkinson Waterston is an American actor. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television, and film. He has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a BAFTA Award. His acting career has spanned over five decades acting on stage and screen. Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2012.
Go to Profile#22766
Rajendra Prasad
#22777
Overall Influence
Rajendra Prasad is a chest physician and professor of Pulmonary Medicine based in Lucknow. He is an MBBS and MD from King George's Medical College which was then under University of Lucknow. After some time he joined same institution as faculty member and later became head of department of Pulmonary Medicine department of King George's Medical University. He also worked as director of U.P. Rural Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute . Now he is working as Director Medical Education and Professor & Head of Department, Pulmonary Medicine of Era Univer...
Go to Profile#22767
Frank Schimmelfennig
#22778
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Frank Schimmelfennig is a professor of European politics at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. Academic career Frank Schimmelfennig obtained his PhD in political science from the University of Tübingen, Germany in 1995, during which time he was employed as a research fellow at the Institute of Political Science. During his studies, Schimmelfennig had research stays in Dijon, France and at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#22768
Igor Dolgachev
#22779
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Igor V. Dolgachev is a Russian–American mathematician specializing in algebraic geometry. He has been a professor at the University of Michigan since 1978. He introduced Dolgachev surfaces in 1981.
Go to Profile#22769
Geydar Dzhemal
#22780
Overall Influence
1947 - 2016 (69 years)
Geydar Dzhahidovich Dzhemal was a Russian Islamic public figure, activist, philosopher, poet, political and social activist. He was the founder and chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia He was also the Co-chairman and member of the Presidium of the Russian Social Movement "Russian Islamic Heritage", permanent member of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, one of the founders and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Left Front, member of The Other Russia. He took part in the Dissenters' March.
Go to Profile#22770
Dave Gahan
#22781
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
David Gahan is an English singer, best known as the lead singer of electronic band Depeche Mode since their formation in 1980. Noted for his commanding stage presence and unique baritone voice, Q magazine ranked him at No. 73 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers" and No. 27 on its list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen". As part of Depeche Mode, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Go to Profile#22771
Göran Persson
#22782
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Hans Göran Persson is a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Persson was first elected to the Swedish Parliament in 1979, representing Södermanland County but left in 1985 to serve as Municipal Commissioner of Katrineholm, which he did from 1985 to 1989. In 1991, he was re-elected to the Parliament and represented the same constituency. He served as Minister for Schools from 1989 to 1991 in Ingvar Carlsson's first and second cabinetss. From 1994 to 1996, Persson served as Minister for F...
Go to Profile#22772
Amine Gemayel
#22783
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Amine Pierre Gemayel is a Lebanese politician who served as President of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988. Born in Bikfaya, his father was Pierre Gemayel, the founder of the Kataeb Party. He worked as a lawyer, then was elected as a deputy for Northern Metn in 1970 by-election, following the death of his uncle, Maurice Gemayel, and once again in the 1972 general election. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War, the Phalanges were a member of the Lebanese Front, allied with Syria against the leftist National Movement. However, Syria became their enemy, while they started receiving the support of Israel.
Go to Profile#22773
José Sarukhán Kermez
#22784
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
José Sarukhán Kermez is a plant biologist and ecologist. He is currently the National Coordinator for Mexico’s National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity . He received a B.A. from National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1964, a Masters from Postgraduate College , and a Ph.D. from the University of Wales. A known expert in the biodiversity of Mexico, Sarukhán’s main interests include tropical ecology, plant population ecology, and the systems ecology of both temperate and tropical ecosystems, as well as training and education. He has published over 110 research papers and...
Go to Profile#22774
Hermotimus of Clazomenae
#22785
Overall Influence
Hermotimus of Clazomenae , was a possibly historic or legendary Presocratic philosopher about whom many legendary feats were ascribed in antiquity, including the ability for his soul to leave his body and travel around. Some ancient sources also considered him a previous reincarnation of Pythagoras. Aristotle also credited him with some of the metaphysical doctrines on Nous that were more commonly attributed to Anaxagoras.
Go to Profile#22775
M.R. Ghanoonparvar
#22786
Overall Influence
#22776
Maynard Pirsig
#22787
Overall Influence
1902 - 1997 (95 years)
Maynard E. Pirsig, LLD, was an American legal scholar. He was a professor, and dean, of the University of Minnesota Law School; a Minnesota Supreme Court justice; director of the Minnesota Legal Aid Society, and an advisor for the Indonesian, Puerto Rican, and El Salvadoran legal systems. He defined Legal Ethics in the 1974 Encyclopedia Britannica. His law books were widely used in schools across the country, including his casebook Judicial Administration--which Pirsig used for the United States' first law reform course, early 1930s. He was mentored by Everett Fraser, Roscoe Pound, and Felix ...
Go to Profile#22777
Tommy Lee
#22788
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Thomas Lee Bass is an American musician who co-founded and plays drums for the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. He also founded rap metal band Methods of Mayhem and has pursued solo musical projects.
Go to Profile#22778
Michael Batty
#22789
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Michael Batty is a British academic currently appointed as Bartlett Professor of Planning in The Bartlett at University College London. His work spans the fields of urban planning, geography and spatial data science. He has been Director—now Chairman—of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, set up when he was appointed to UCL in 1995. His research and the work of CASA is focused on computer models of city systems. He was awarded the William Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association in 2011 for his book Cities and Complexity, the same prize a second time for his book The New Scienc...
Go to Profile#22779
Robert Bertram Serjeant
#22790
Overall Influence
1915 - 1993 (78 years)
Robert Bertram Serjeant, FBA was a British scholar, traveller, and one of the leading Arabists of his generation. Background and career He was born and raised in Edinburgh and studied at the University of Edinburgh under the Quranic scholar Richard Bell. He received his MA in 1935, and moved on to Trinity College, Cambridge, completing his PhD dissertation on Islamic textiles under the supervision of Professor C.A. Storey. He won a scholarship to work at SOAS with Professor A. S. Tritton. In 1940, he was working in Aden, but with the Second World War in progress, he was commissioned into the ...
Go to Profile#22780
Mario Raviglione
#22791
Overall Influence
Mario C. Raviglione has been professor at the University of Milan, Italy since March 2018. He directs the activities focused on global health and aiming at pursuing didactic and research in this field as part of the new Multidisciplinary Research in Health Science Centre . Part of his activities are devoted to teaching global health principles to undergraduate medical students, making the University of Milan the first in Italy, and one of the pioneers world-wide, introducing global health as a module among the required curricular courses. At the same university, Raviglione is now coordinatin...
Go to Profile#22781
Doug Linder
#22792
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Douglas O. Linder is an American author, narrator, and historian. He is the creator of the Famous Trials website hosted by University of Missouri, which covers over 50 famous trials throughout history. Linder has coauthored a research analysis The Happy Lawyer with Nancy Levit about the challenges facing the legal profession, as well as The Good Lawyer published by Oxford in 2014.
Go to Profile#22782
Peter Cook
#22793
Overall Influence
1937 - 1995 (58 years)
Peter Edward Cook was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
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David Lehman
#22794
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David Lehman is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for The Best American Poetry. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such publications as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. In 2006, Lehman served as Editor for the new Oxford Book of American Poetry. He taught and was the Poetry Coordinator at The New School in New York City until May 2018.
Go to Profile#22784
Richard Billingham
#22795
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Richard Billingham is an English photographer and artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere.
Go to Profile#22785
Corrie Moreau
#22796
Overall Influence
Corrie S. Moreau is an evolutionary biologist and entomologist with a specialty in myrmecology, the study of ants. She is currently a professor and curator at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Moreau studies the evolution, ecology, biogeography, systematics, and diversification of insects and their microbial gut-symbionts using molecular and genomic tools. She has also been an advocate for increasing women and diversity in the sciences.
Go to Profile#22786
Miriam Lichtheim
#22797
Overall Influence
1914 - 2004 (90 years)
Miriam Lichtheim was a Turkish-born American-Israeli egyptologist, known for her translations of ancient Egyptian texts. Biography Miriam was born in Istanbul on May 3, 1914, to Richard Lichtheim – a German-born Jewish politician, publicist, and notable Zionist – and his wife Irene , a Sephardic Jew whose first language was Greek. Her older brother, born 1912, was the British Marxist journalist George Lichtheim. From 1913 to 1917, Richard Lichtheim was the successor to Victor Jacobson, representative of the Zionist World Organization in Istanbul. Due to suspicions of espionage, the Lichtheim ...
Go to Profile#22787
Philip Siekevitz
#22798
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
Philip Siekevitz was an American cell biologist who spent most of his career at Rockefeller University. He was involved in early studies of protein synthesis and trafficking, established purification techniques to facilitate study of the cell nucleus, worked with Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner George Palade on cell membrane dynamics, and published extensively on the subject of postsynaptic density.
Go to Profile#22788
Peter Hall
#22799
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognizing achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
Go to Profile#22789
William Craft Brumfield
#22800
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
William Craft Brumfield is a contemporary American historian of Russian architecture, a preservationist and an architectural photographer. Brumfield is currently Professor of Slavic studies at Tulane University.
Go to Profile#22790
Steven Calabresi
#22801
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Steven Gow Calabresi is an American legal scholar and the Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern University. He is the co-chairman of the Federalist Society. He is the nephew of Guido Calabresi, a U.S. Appellate judge and former dean of the Yale Law School.
Go to Profile#22791
Bruce K. Alexander
#22802
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Bruce K. Alexander is a psychologist and professor emeritus from Vancouver, BC, Canada. He has taught and conducted research on the psychology of addiction at Simon Fraser University since 1970. He retired from active teaching in 2005. Alexander and SFU colleagues conducted a series of experiments into drug addiction known as the Rat Park experiments. He has written two books about addiction: Peaceful Measures: Canada's Way Out of the War on Drugs and The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit .
Go to Profile#22792
Jon Mills
#22803
Overall Influence
Jon Mills is a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. His principle theoretical contributions have been in the philosophy of the unconscious, a critique of psychoanalysis, philosophical psychology, value inquiry, and the philosophy of culture. His clinical contributions are in the areas of attachment pathology, trauma, psychosis, and psychic structure.
Go to Profile#22793
E. Gordon Gee
#22804
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Elwood Gordon Gee is an American academic administrator. As of 2023, he was serving his second term as President of West Virginia University; his first term was from 1981 to 1985. Gee has held more university presidencies than any other American. He was head of University of Colorado Boulder from 1985 to 1990, of Ohio State University from 1990 to 1997, of Brown University from 1998 to 2000, of Vanderbilt University from 2000 to 2007, and of Ohio State University for a second time from 2007 to 2013.
Go to Profile#22794
Richard Shine
#22805
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Richard Shine is an Australian evolutionary biologist and ecologist; he has conducted extensive research on reptiles and amphibians, and proposed a novel mechanism for evolutionary change. He is currently a Professor of Biology at Macquarie University, and an Emeritus Professor at The University of Sydney.
Go to Profile#22795
Jean Giraud
#22806
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was a French artist, cartoonist and writer who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition. Giraud garnered worldwide acclaim predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius for his fantasy/science-fiction work, and to a slightly lesser extent as Gir , which he used for the Blueberry series and his other Western themed work. Esteemed by Federico Fellini, Stan Lee, and Hayao Miyazaki, among others, he has been described as the most influential bande dessinée artist after Hergé.
Go to Profile#22796
Jean Giraud
#22807
Overall Influence
1936 - 2007 (71 years)
Jean Giraud was a French mathematician, a student of Alexander Grothendieck. His research focused on non-abelian cohomology and the theory of topoi. In particular, he authored the book Cohomologie non-abélienne and proved the theorem that bears his name, which gives a characterization of a Grothendieck topos.
Go to Profile#22797
Martin Barker
#22808
Overall Influence
1946 - 2022 (76 years)
Martin Barker was a British scholar of media studies and cultural studies. He was an Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University, having previously taught at the University of the West of England and the University of Sussex. Over the course of his career he wrote or co-edited fifteen books. He was known for being one of the pioneers behind the concept of cultural racism, which he termed "new racism".
Go to Profile#22798
Carol Padden
#22809
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Carol A. Padden is an American academic, author, and lecturer. She is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego, where she has been teaching since 1983.
Go to Profile#22799
Kenneth M. Sayre
#22810
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Kenneth M. Sayre was an American philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Notre Dame . His early career was devoted mainly to philosophic applications of artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and information theory. Later on his main interests shifted to Plato, philosophy of mind, and environmental philosophy. His retirement in 2014 was marked by publication of a history of ND's Philosophy Department, Adventures in Philosophy at Notre Dame.
Go to Profile#22800
László Fuchs
#22811
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
László Fuchs is a Hungarian-born American mathematician, the Evelyn and John G. Phillips Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Mathematics at Tulane University. He is known for his research and textbooks in group theory and abstract algebra.
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