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
#23501
Carole Simpson
#23512
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Carole Simpson is an American broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author. She is the first African-American woman to anchor a major United States network newscast. Education and career Simpson, a graduate of the University of Michigan, began her career on radio at WCFL in Chicago, Illinois, and was later hired at WBBM. She moved to television at Chicago's WMAQ and onto NBC News in 1975, becoming the first African-American woman to anchor a major network newscast. She joined ABC News in 1982, and was an anchor for the weekend edition of World News Tonight from 1988 until October 2003.
Go to Profile#23502
Kari Jormakka
#23513
Overall Influence
1959 - 2013 (54 years)
Kari Juhani Jormakka was a Finnish architect, historian, critic and pedagogue. Background Though born in Helsinki, Kari Jormakka's family soon afterwards moved to the city of Lappeenranta, where he spent his childhood. After finishing school in Lappeenranta, he initially studied philosophy at the University of Helsinki before switching to studying architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, graduating in 1985. He completed a PhD in architecture theory, with a thesis titled "Constructing Architecture", at Tampere University of Technology in 1992.
Go to Profile#23503
Elaine May
#23514
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Elaine Iva May is an American comedian, filmmaker, playwright, and actress. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, before transitioning her career regularly breaking the mold as a writer and director of several critically acclaimed films. She has received numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2022.
Go to Profile#23504
Chen Wen-chang
#23515
Overall Influence
Chen Wen-chang is a Taiwanese chemical engineer and the current President of the National Taiwan University. Succeeding Kuan Chung-ming, he took his position as President of the University on the 8th January 2023.
Go to Profile#23505
Mark Harris
#23516
Overall Influence
1922 - 2007 (85 years)
Mark Harris was an American novelist, literary biographer, and educator, remembered for his baseball novels featuring Henry Wiggen, particularly Bang the Drum Slowly. Harris's obituary in The Denver Post calls him "one of that legion of under-the-radar writers who for decades consistently turned out excellent novels and went largely unsung as he did...Harris said of his books that 'they are about the one man against his society and trying to come to terms with his society, and trying to succeed within it without losing his own identity or integrity.' He might have said the same thing of himse...
Go to Profile#23506
Masahiko Shimada
#23517
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Masahiko Shimada is a Japanese writer. He has won the Noma Literary New Face Prize, the Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature, the Itō Sei Literature Prize, and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. His work has been translated into English.
Go to Profile#23507
Richard Harris
#23518
Overall Influence
Richard Harris, , is an Australian anaesthetist and cave diver who played a crucial role in the Tham Luang cave rescue. He and Craig Challen were jointly awarded 2019 Australian of the Year as a result of that rescue.
Go to Profile#23508
Michael Rebell
#23519
Overall Influence
Michael A. Rebell is the executive director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an experienced litigator in the field of education law, and he is also professor of law and educational practice at Teachers College. He has also taught at Harvard, Yale and Columbia Law Schools.
Go to Profile#23509
Dwight Gooden
#23520
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Dwight Eugene Gooden , nicknamed "Dr. K" and "Doc", is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball . Gooden pitched from 1984 to 1994 and from 1996 to 2000 for the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In a career spanning 430 games, he pitched innings and posted a win–loss record of 194–112, with a 3.51 earned run average , and 2,293 strikeouts.
Go to Profile#23510
Shekhar C. Mande
#23521
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Shekhar C. Mande is Structural and Computational Biologist. He was the Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research , India, and the Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research , Ministry of Science and Technology. Prior to this, he was the Director of National Centre for Cell Science, Pune.
Go to Profile#23511
Roy Thomas Baker
#23522
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Roy Thomas Baker is an English record producer, songwriter and arranger, who has produced rock and pop and songs since the 1970s. Career Baker began his career at Decca Records at the age of 14 and later worked as an assistant engineer at Morgan Studios. Encouraged by music producer Gus Dudgeon, he soon moved to Trident Studios, where he worked with Dudgeon, Tony Visconti, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and Frank Zappa, as well as recording artists such as The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Who, Gasolin', Nazareth, Santana, The Mothers of Invention, Jet, Be Bop Deluxe, Free and T. Rex.
Go to Profile#23512
Carolin Emcke
#23523
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Carolin Emcke is a German author and journalist who worked for from 1998 to 2006, often writing from areas of conflicts. From 2007 to 2014, she worked as an international reporter for . Her book Echoes of Violence – Letters from a War Reporter was published in 2007 at Princeton University Press. In 2008, she published Stumme Gewalt , in 2013 How We Desire , in 2016 Against Hate , and in 2019 Yes means yes and... . Carolin Emcke was honoured with several awards such as the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels in 2016, and a Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in 2017.
Go to Profile#23513
René Schérer
#23524
Overall Influence
1922 - 2023 (101 years)
René Schérer was a French philosopher and professor emeritus of the universite de Paris VIII. Biography Schérer was born in Tulle on 25 November 1922. He is the younger brother of filmmaker Éric Rohmer . He was Guy Hocquenghem's teacher and lover, with whom he co-wrote two books. In 2007, then aged 85, he commented on the history of his life and his work in an interview with Geoffroy de Lagasnerie: After all: interviews on an intellectual life, published by Cartouche.
Go to Profile#23514
Andrew Moravcsik
#23525
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Andrew Maitland Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, and founding director of both the European Union Program and the International Relations Faculty Colloquium at Princeton University. He holds a lifetime appointment as distinguished affiliated professor at the Technische Universität München, in Munich, Germany, where he is affiliated with its Hochschule für Politik.
Go to Profile#23515
Kurt Gottfried
#23526
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Kurt Gottfried was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also a co-founder with Henry Way Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He wrote extensively in the areas of physics and arms control.
Go to Profile#23516
Adam Hills
#23527
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Adam Christopher Hills is an Australian comedian, radio and television presenter. In Australia, he hosted the music quiz show Spicks and Specks from 2005 to 2011, and again in 2021 onwards, and the talk show Adam Hills Tonight from 2011 to 2013. In the United Kingdom, he has hosted the talk show The Last Leg since 2012. He has been nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award, the Gold Logie Award and numerous BAFTA TV Awards.
Go to Profile#23517
Alexander Gonzalez
#23528
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Alexander Gonzalez was the 11th president of California State University, Sacramento , serving from July , 2003 to June , 2015, after having held administrative positions at two other California State University campuses. His academic career began in 1983 as a professor of psychology at California State University, Fresno for four years, followed by three years chairing that department, one as assistant to the president, and culminating in six years as the university's provost . He was named Interim President of California State University, San Marcos on June , 1997 as the California State U...
Go to Profile#23518
H. Gordon Skilling
#23529
Overall Influence
1912 - 2001 (89 years)
Harold Gordon Skilling was a Canadian political scientist, known for his expertise on the history of Czechoslovakia and support for the Charter 77 dissident movement. Born in Toronto in 1912, Skilling received degrees from the University of Toronto, University of London, and University of Oxford. He was part of the faculty at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 1982.
Go to Profile#23519
Michael Weisberg
#23530
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Michael Craig Weisberg is an American philosopher of science, currently Bess W. Heyman President's Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as Interim Director of Perry World House, directs the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance, and is a Non-resident Senior Advisor for the International Peace Institute.
Go to Profile#23520
Vasily Vladimirov
#23531
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
Vasily Sergeyevich Vladimirov was a Soviet and Russian mathematician working in the fields of number theory, mathematical physics, quantum field theory, numerical analysis, generalized functions, several complex variables, p-adic analysis, multidimensional Tauberian theorems.
Go to Profile#23521
Yanni
#23532
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Yiannis Chryssomallis , known professionally as Yanni , is a Greek composer, keyboardist, pianist, and music producer. Yanni continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child, blending jazz, classical, soft rock, and world music to create predominantly instrumental works. Although this genre of music was not well suited for commercial pop radio and music television, Yanni received international recognition by producing concerts at historic monuments and by producing videos that were broadcast on public television. His breakthrough concert, Live at the Acropolis, yielded the second best-selling music concert video of all time.
Go to Profile#23522
Edwin A. Fleishman
#23533
Overall Influence
1927 - 2021 (94 years)
Edwin A. Fleishman was an American psychologist best known for his work in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. Among his notable achievements was a taxonomy for describing individual differences in perceptual-motor performance. The Fleishman Job Analysis Survey that he developed under Management Research Institute has been cited 100 times since 1995. Additionally, Fleishman is the author of more than 250 research articles and journals.
Go to Profile#23523
Mehrdad Abedi
#23534
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Mehrdad Abedi is an electrical engineer and electric machinery researcher and professor of power engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology. Life and career Abedi was born in 1948 in Tehran, Iran. He graduated from the University of Tehran with a degree in electrical engineering In 1970, he received an MS degree from Imperial College London in 1973 and a Ph.D from Newcastle University, both in electrical engineering with a speciality in electric machinery and power engineering.
Go to Profile#23524
Wolfgang Krätschmer
#23535
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Wolfgang Krätschmer is a German physicist. Krätschmer studied physics in Berlin. After his Diplom he went to the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and earned his PhD there in 1971 with a thesis on artificially etched tracks of accelerated heavy ions in quartz. In his career, he has worked on cosmic-ray heavy-ion tracks in lunar samples, as well as infrared and UV spectra of interstellar dust.
Go to Profile#23525
Albert Oehlen
#23536
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Albert Oehlen is a German artist. He lives and works in Bühler, Switzerland and Segovia, Spain. Early life and education Born in Krefeld, West Germany, in 1954, Oehlen moved to Berlin in 1977, where he worked as a waiter and decorator with his friend, the artist Werner Büttner. He graduated from the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg in 1978. Along with Martin Kippenberger and Georg Herold, Oehlen was a member of Berlin "bad boy" group.
Go to Profile#23526
Kenji Ekuan
#23537
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
Kenji Ekuan was a Japanese industrial designer, best known for creating the design of the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle. Biography Born in Tokyo on September 11, 1929, Ekuan spent his youth in Hawaii. At the end of World War II, he moved to Hiroshima, where he witnessed the atomic bombing of the city, in which he lost his sister and his father, a Buddhist priest. He said the devastation motivated him to become a "creator of things". Later he attended Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music . In 1957, he founded . "GK" stood for "Group of Koike", as Koike was the name of an associate prof...
Go to Profile#23527
John S. Strong
#23538
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John S. Strong is an American academic, who is the Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Bates College. Strong specializes in Buddhist studies and with emphasis on the Buddha's biography, relics, and the legends and cults of South Asia.
Go to Profile#23528
Ray L. Watts
#23539
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Ray Lannom Watts is an American physician-researcher in neurology, educator and university administrator. Watts has served as the seventh president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham since February 2013.
Go to Profile#23529
Hugo Assmann
#23540
Overall Influence
1933 - 2008 (75 years)
Hugo Assmann was a Brazilian Catholic theologian who helped develop the ideas surrounding liberation theology following the Second Vatican Council. He was a firebrand critic of the conservative values held by the Catholic orthodoxy, and believed firmly that the role of the Church should be to alleviate the suffering of the global poor. A prolific advocate for liberation theology, Assmann's work and participation in the movement forced him to move between numerous countries throughout Latin America throughout the course of his life.
Go to Profile#23530
Sébastien Candel
#23541
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Sébastien Candel is a French physicist, Emeritus Professor of École Centrale Paris. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2009 for significant contributions to solving multidisciplinary problems in the fields of combustion, fluid mechanics, aeroacoustics, and propulsion.
Go to Profile#23531
Antoine Sfeir
#23542
Overall Influence
1948 - 2018 (70 years)
Antoine Sfeir was a Franco-Lebanese journalist. Biography Sfeir was the editor of the French journal Les Cahiers de l'Orient , a quarterly publication devoted to the Arab and Muslim world, and the president of the CERPO . A former professor of international relations at the CELSA school, he was also president of the ILERI international relations school .
Go to Profile#23532
Gilles Peress
#23543
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gilles Peress is a French photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. Peress began working with photography in 1970, having previously studied political science and philosophy in Paris. One of Peress' first projects examined immigration in Europe, and he has since documented events in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, the Balkans, Rwanda, the U.S., Afghanistan and Iraq. His ongoing project, Hate Thy Brother, a cycle of documentary narratives, looks at intolerance and the re-emergence of nationalism throughout the world and its consequences.
Go to Profile#23533
Steven Pincus
#23544
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Steven Pincus is the Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of British History at the University of Chicago, where he specializes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British and European history. Education and career In 1990, Pincus received a PhD in history from Harvard University. He is a prominent scholar of Early Modern British history, and his work has focused on the 17th century, in particular the Glorious Revolution and English foreign policy. His book 1688: The First Modern Revolution has been praised as providing "a new understanding of the origins of the modern, liberal state." The Economist named it as one of the best books on history published in 2009.
Go to Profile#23534
Nigel Gibson
#23545
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nigel Gibson is a British activist, a scholar specialising in philosophy and author whose work has focussed, in particular, on Frantz Fanon. Edward Said described Gibson's work as "rigorous and subtle". He has been described as a leading figure in Fanon scholarship.
Go to Profile#23535
Sam Snead
#23546
Overall Influence
1912 - 2002 (90 years)
Samuel Jackson Snead was an American professional golfer who was one of the top players in the world for the better part of four decades and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Snead was awarded a record 94 gold medallions, for wins in PGA of America Tour events and later credited with winning a record 82 PGA Tour events tied with Tiger Woods, including seven majors. He never won the U.S. Open, though he was runner-up four times. Snead was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.
Go to Profile#23536
Preston Cloud
#23547
Overall Influence
1912 - 1991 (79 years)
Preston Ercelle Cloud, Jr. was an American earth scientist, biogeologist, cosmologist, and paleontologist. He served in the United States Navy , and led several field explorations of the U.S. Geological Survey. In academia, he was a member of the faculty of Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of California, Los Angeles, and lastly University of California, Santa Barbara. He was best known for his work on the geologic time scale and the origin of life on Earth, and as a pioneering ecologist and environmentalist. His works on the significance of Cambrian fossils in the 1940...
Go to Profile#23537
Sharon Glotzer
#23548
Overall Influence
Sharon C. Glotzer is an American scientist and "digital alchemist", the Anthony C. Lembke Department Chair of Chemical Engineering, the John Werner Cahn Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and the Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where she is also professor of materials science and engineering, professor of physics, professor of macromolecular science and engineering, and professor of applied physics. She is recognized for her contributions to the fields of soft matter and computational science, most notably on probl...
Go to Profile#23538
Jeremy Boissevain
#23549
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Jeremy Fergus Boissevain was a Dutch anthropologist. He was Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam. Academic background Boissevain was awarded his PhD in 1962 from the London School of Economics. He was professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam continually from 1966 to 1993, and also taught at the Universities of Montreal, Sussex, Malta, New York , Massachusetts , Columbia University and the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.
Go to Profile#23539
Phil Shiner
#23550
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Philip Joseph Shiner is a British former human rights solicitor. He was struck off the roll of solicitors in England and Wales in 2017 over misconduct relating to false abuse claims against British troops. He was Head of Strategic Litigation at Public Interest Lawyers from 2014 until the firm's closure on 31 August 2016. He had previously been Principal at Public Interest Lawyers Ltd from 1999 to 2014.
Go to Profile#23540
Tony McCoy
#23551
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Sir Anthony Peter McCoy , commonly known as AP McCoy or Tony McCoy, is a Northern Irish former National Hunt horse racing jockey. Based in Ireland and Britain, McCoy rode a record 4,358 winners, and was Champion Jockey a record 20 consecutive times, every year that he was a professional.
Go to Profile#23541
Grace Slick
#23552
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Grace Slick is an American painter and retired musician whose musical career spanned four decades. Slick was a prominent figure in San Francisco's psychedelic music scene during the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.
Go to Profile#23542
Gilbert Hottois
#23553
Overall Influence
1946 - 2019 (73 years)
Gilbert Hottois was a Belgian professor of philosophy at the Université Libre de Bruxelles who specialised in Bioethics. Hottois was born in Brussels. His positions included:Vice-Président of the Association des Sociétés de Philosophie de Langue Française ;Member of the Advisory Board of " Utopean studies " ;President of the Société Belge de Philosophie ;Founder member and vice-président of the Société pour la philosophie de la technique ; Président ;Member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique ;He was chair of the programme committee of the 20...
Go to Profile#23543
Richard Cook
#23554
Overall Influence
1957 - 2007 (50 years)
Richard David Cook was a British jazz writer, magazine editor and former record company executive. Sometimes credited as R. D. Cook, Cook was born in Kew, Surrey, and lived in west London as an adult. A writer on music from the late 1970s until he died, Cook was co-author, with Brian Morton, of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, which lasted for ten editions until 2010. Richard Cook's Jazz Companion and It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off the Record were published in 2005.
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Paul Oakenfold
#23555
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Paul Mark Oakenfold , formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer and trance DJ. He has provided over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Massive Attack, the Cure, New Order, the Rolling Stones, the Stone Roses and Michael Jackson. Oakenfold was voted the No. 1 DJ in the World twice in 1998 and 1999 by DJ Magazine.
Go to Profile#23545
Lukas Podolski
#23556
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Lukas Josef Podolski is a German professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ekstraklasa club Górnik Zabrze. He is known for his powerful and accurate left foot, explosive shooting, technique and probing attacks from the left side.
Go to Profile#23546
Seymour I. Schwartz
#23557
Overall Influence
1928 - 2020 (92 years)
Seymour I. Schwartz, was the Distinguished Alumni Professor for the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. He was one of the most prolific and honored surgeons in American history with further successes outside of the field of medicine as a renowned author and cartographic historian. His most notable accomplishments in surgery include being the founding editor-in-chief of Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester , Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and President of the American College of Surgeons .
Go to Profile#23547
Bonnie MacLean
#23558
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Bonnie MacLean , also known as Bonnie MacLean Graham, was an American artist known for her classic rock posters. In the 1960s and 1970s she created posters and other art for the promotion of rock and roll concerts managed by Bill Graham, using the iconic psychedelic art style of the day. MacLean continued her art as a painter focusing mostly on nudess, still lifes, and landscapess. Her work has been placed alongside the "big five"—male Haight-Ashbury poster artists who were seminal to the "iconography of the counterculture scene."
Go to Profile#23548
Michael Azerrad
#23559
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Michael Azerrad is an American author, music journalist, editor, and musician. A graduate of Columbia University, he has written for publications such as Spin, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Azerrad's 1993 biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana was named by Q as one of the 50 greatest rock books ever written. His 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life, a collection of profiles on prominent indie rock bands, received similar critical acclaim.
Go to Profile#23549
Mark Ridley
#23560
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Mark Ridley is a British zoologist and writer on evolution. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge in the 1980s , and later worked at Emory University. he worked as a research assistant at the Department of Zoology, Oxford University. Ridley has worked on the evolution of reproductive behaviour and written a number of popular accounts of evolutionary biology, including articles for the New York Times, The Sunday Times, Nature, New Scientist and The Times Literary Supplement. He is sometimes confused with Matt Ridley, another writer on evolution who is also from the UK.
Go to Profile#23550
Hirofumi Hayashi
#23561
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Hirofumi Hayashi is a historian, an authority on modern Japanese history, and is a professor of politics at the Kanto Gakuin University. He has been conducting research on the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia, Japanese war crimes, and war crimes trials including the subject of comfort women.
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