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
#24101
William L. Burke
#24112
Overall Influence
1941 - 1996 (55 years)
William Lionel Burke was an astronomy, astrophysics, and physics professor at UC Santa Cruz. He is also the author of Spacetime, Geometry, Cosmology , and of Applied differential geometry , a text expounding the virtues of differential forms over vector calculus for theoretical physics. Bill also has a draft of a 3rd book reachable on the web [|Div, Grad, Curl are Dead].
Go to Profile#24102
Ellen Ruppel Shell
#24113
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Ellen Ruppel Shell is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and professor of science journalism. Biography Shell was born in Auburn, New York, United States. In 1974, Shell received a B.A. degree from the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#24103
Louis Markos
#24114
Overall Influence
Louis Markos is Professor in English at Houston Baptist University, where he holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. Education Markos earned his B.A. in English and History from Colgate University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan. While at the University of Michigan, he specialized in British Romantic Poetry , Literary Theory, and the Classics.
Go to Profile#24104
Deborah Berebichez
#24115
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Deborah Berebichez is a Mexican physicist, data scientist, TV host, educator and entrepreneur who dedicates her career to promoting education in science, technology, engineering and math fields. She was the first Mexican woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. She has developed models for cellular wave transmission which are in the process of being patented. Sometimes known as "The Science Babe", she appears in mainstream television and radio segments where she explains concepts in physics in everyday life.
Go to Profile#24105
Reijer Hooykaas
#24116
Overall Influence
1906 - 1994 (88 years)
Reijer Hooykaas was a Dutch historian of science. He along with Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis were pioneers in professionalizing the history of science in the Netherlands. Hooykaas gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews in 1975-77. H. Floris Cohen dedicated his historiographical text The Scientific Revolution to Hooykaas; its section on religion deals primarily with Hooykaas.
Go to Profile#24106
Henry T. King
#24117
Overall Influence
1919 - 2009 (90 years)
Henry T. King Jr. was an attorney who served as a U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-47. Late in his career, he became a law professor and an activist, writer, and lecturer working on international law and war crimes; David M. Crane has described King as "the George Washington of modern international law".
Go to Profile#24107
James Shapiro
#24118
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Dr. A. M. James Shapiro is a British-Canadian surgeon best known for leading the clinical team that developed the Edmonton Protocol – an islet transplant procedure for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Shapiro is Professor of Surgery, Medicine, and Surgical Oncology at the University of Alberta and the Director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program and the Living Donor Liver Transplant Program with Alberta Health Services.
Go to Profile#24108
Kola Tubosun
#24119
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian linguist, writer, translator, scholar, and cultural activist. His work and influence span the fields of education, language technology, literature, journalism, and linguistics. He is the recipient of the 2016 Premio Ostana "Special Prize" for Writings in the Mother Tongue for his work in language advocacy. He writes in Yoruba and English, and is currently the Africa editor of the Best Translations Anthology.
Go to Profile#24109
David Faiman
#24120
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
David Faiman is a British and Israeli physicist. Background Faiman was educated at Willesden County Grammar School and the University of London, and received his Ph.D from the University of Illinois in 1969. After post-doctoral appointments in Oxford and CERN he arrived in Israel in September 1973, to take up an appointment in theoretical physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. However, as a result of the energy crisis that followed the Yom Kippur War, he re-directed his research interests from elementary particles into solar energy. In 1976 he was recruited by Amos Richmond to assist i...
Go to Profile#24110
John Hussman
#24121
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
John Peter Hussman , is an American philanthropist, economist, and hedge fund manager. Early life Hussman holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University, as well as a master's degree in education and social policy and a bachelor's degree in economics from Northwestern University.
Go to Profile#24111
Steve Mariucci
#24122
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Stephen Ray Mariucci , nicknamed "Mooch", is an American sportscaster and former football coach who was the head coach of two National Football League teams, the San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions , and for a year at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#24112
Ofelia Zepeda
#24123
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ofelia Zepeda is a Tohono O'odham poet and intellectual. She is Regents' Professor of Tohono O'odham language and linguistics and Director of the American Indian Language Development Institute at The University of Arizona. Zepeda is the editor for Sun Tracks, a series of books that focuses on the work of Native American artists and writers, published by the University of Arizona Press.
Go to Profile#24113
Rostislaw Kaischew
#24124
Overall Influence
1908 - 2002 (94 years)
Rostislaw Kaischew was a Bulgarian physicochemist and a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. His most significant contributions to science were within studies of crystal growth and nucleation.
Go to Profile#24114
Paul Strathern
#24125
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Paul Strathern is a Scots-Irish writer and academic. Strathern was born in London, and studied philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, after which he served in the Merchant Navy over a period of two years. He then lived on a Greek island. In 1966, he travelled overland to India and the Himalayas. His novel A Season in Abyssinia won a Somerset Maugham Award in 1972.
Go to Profile#24115
Fred Adams
#24126
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Fred C. Adams is an American astrophysicist who has made contributions to the study of physical cosmology. Fred Adams is the Ta-You Wu Collegiate Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, where his main field of research is astrophysics theory focusing on star formation, planet formation, and dynamics. His seminal work on the radiative signature of star formation has provided a foundation for further studies in star formation. In more recent years, he has studied the formation and evolution of planetary systems, including the effect of the stellar birth cluster environment.
Go to Profile#24116
Colin Percival
#24127
Overall Influence
Colin A. Percival is a Canadian computer scientist and computer security researcher. He completed his undergraduate education at Simon Fraser University and a doctorate at the University of Oxford. While at university he joined the FreeBSD project, and achieved some notoriety for discovering a security weakness in Intel's hyper-threading technology. Besides his work in delta compression and the introduction of memory-hard functions, he is also known for developing the Tarsnap online backup service, which became his full-time job.
Go to Profile#24117
Telle Whitney
#24128
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Telle Whitney is the former CEO and President of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. A computer scientist by training, she cofounded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing with Anita Borg in 1994 and joined the Anita Borg Institute in 2002.
Go to Profile#24118
R. T. France
#24129
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
Richard Thomas France , known as R. T. France or Dick France, was a New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric. He was Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1989 to 1995. He also worked for the London School of Theology.
Go to Profile#24119
Izzy Stradlin
#24130
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Jeffrey Dean Isbell , best known as Izzy Stradlin, is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and backing vocalist of the hard rock and heavy metal band Guns N' Roses, which he left at the height of their fame in 1991, and with whom he recorded four studio albums.
Go to Profile#24120
Daniel Nettle
#24131
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Daniel Nettle is a British behavioural scientist, biologist and social scientist. He is notable for his research that integrates psychology with evolutionary and comparative biology. After obtaining a BA in Psychology and Philosophy at Oxford University, Nettle went on to complete a PhD in Biological Anthropology at University College London. He is a CNRS senior researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod, an interdisciplinary research institute associated with the Ecole Normale Superieure and EHESS in Paris.
Go to Profile#24121
Cinna Lomnitz
#24132
Overall Influence
1925 - 2016 (91 years)
Cinna Lomnitz Aronsfrau was a Chilean-Mexican geophysicist known for his contributions in the fields of rock mechanics and seismology. Early life and education Lomnitz was born to a Jewish family in Cologne, Germany. He graduated as engineer from the University of Chile in 1948. He then studied with Karl von Terzaghi in Harvard University and obtained a Master's degree in soil mechanics.
Go to Profile#24122
Ulrich Frank
#24133
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Ulrich Frank is a German Business informatician and Professor of Business informatics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, known for his work on the state of the art in information systems research and the development of the Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modeling meta modelling framework.
Go to Profile#24123
Simon Caney
#24134
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Simon Caney is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Warwick and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Caney studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Merton College, Oxford, and was a postgraduate student of G. A. Cohen at Nuffield College, Oxford. He taught at the University of Newcastle, the University of Birmingham, and at Magdalen College, at the University of Oxford before taking up his position at Warwick as Professor of Political Theory.
Go to Profile#24124
Carl Gans
#24135
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Carl Gans was a German-born American zoologist and herpetologist. He and Glen Northcutt proposed the provocative theory of "new head theory", opened up evolutionary developmental biology as a new discipline.
Go to Profile#24125
Geoff Parker
#24136
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Professor Geoffrey Alan Parker FRS is an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Liverpool and the 2008 recipient of the Darwin Medal. Parker has been called “the professional’s professional”.
Go to Profile#24126
Francis J. Aguilar
#24137
Overall Influence
1932 - 2013 (81 years)
Francis Joseph Aguilar was an American scholar of strategic planning and general management. He joined the faculty of Harvard Business School in 1964 and became a tenured professor there in 1971. He served as consultant to many firms and on the boards of Dynamic Research Corporation and Bentley University.
Go to Profile#24127
Sherri Tenpenny
#24138
Overall Influence
Sherri J. Tenpenny is an American anti-vaccination activist and conspiracy theorist who promulgates disproven hypotheses that vaccines cause autism. An osteopathic physician by training, she is the author of four books opposing vaccination. In 2023 the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended Tenpenny's medical license for failure to participate in its investigations.
Go to Profile#24128
Stephon Marbury
#24139
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Stephon Xavier Marbury is an American former professional basketball player who is the head coach for the Beijing Royal Fighters of the Chinese Basketball Association . After his freshman year with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, he was selected as the 4th overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, but was traded shortly thereafter to the Minnesota Timberwolves. A two-time All-Star and two-time member of the All-NBA Team, Marbury played in the NBA from 1996 until 2009. He then played in the CBA until his retirement in 2018.
Go to Profile#24129
Reinhart Heinrich
#24140
Overall Influence
1946 - 2006 (60 years)
Reinhart Heinrich was a German biophysicist. He was professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and best known as one of the founders, with Tom Rapoport, of metabolic control theory in parallel with similar ideas developed at about the same time by Henrik Kacser and Jim Burns. His far-reaching theoretical work on metabolism, signal transduction, and other cellular processes has made him one of the most influential forerunners of present-day systems biology. Reinhart's many talents made him appear as a modern Renaissance man. He played the violin, and published an autobiographic novel and several works of lyric poetry for which he received the Brigitte Reimann Prize.
Go to Profile#24130
Kōsuke Morita
#24141
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Kōsuke Morita is a Japanese experimental nuclear physicist, known as the leader of the Japanese team that discovered nihonium . He currently holds a joint appointment as a professor at Kyushu University’s Graduate School of Science and as director of the Super Heavy Element Research Group at Riken's Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science.
Go to Profile#24131
Gabriela González
#24142
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Gabriela Ines González, is a professor of physics and astronomy at the Louisiana State University and was the spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration from March 2011 until March 2017. Biography Gabriela González was born on February 24, 1965, in Córdoba, Argentina. She is the daughter of Dora Trembinsky, a professor of mathematics, and Pedro González, a doctor in Economic Sciences. González completed her primary school studies at the Colegio Luterano Concordia in the city of Córdoba, and her secondary school studies at the Instituto Manuel Lucero. An avid student, González received...
Go to Profile#24132
Henrik Wann Jensen
#24143
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Henrik Wann Jensen is a Danish computer graphics researcher. He is best known for developing the photon mapping technique as the subject of his PhD thesis, but has also done important research in simulating subsurface scattering and the sky.
Go to Profile#24133
Harold Wilensky
#24144
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
Harold L. Wilensky was an American organizational sociologist, noted among other things for his pioneering work on organizational intelligence. He was Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the author of 13 books and 70 articles.
Go to Profile#24134
Dorothy Dinnerstein
#24145
Overall Influence
1923 - 1992 (69 years)
Dorothy Dinnerstein was an American academic and feminist activist, best known for her 1976 book The Mermaid and the Minotaur. Drawing from elements of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, particularly as developed by Melanie Klein, Dinnerstein argued that sexism and aggression were both inevitable consequences of child rearing being left exclusively to women. As a solution, Dinnerstein proposed that men and women equally share infant and child care responsibilities. Her theories were not widely accepted at the time they were published. Dorothy Dinnerstein was a feminist, expressing her position b...
Go to Profile#24135
Michael E. Moseley
#24146
Overall Influence
Michael Edward Moseley is an American anthropologist at the University of Florida. Early life Moseley received his Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963, and his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1965 and 1968, respectively.
Go to Profile#24136
W. D. Davies
#24147
Overall Influence
1911 - 2001 (90 years)
William David Davies , often cited as W. D. Davies, was a Welsh Congregationalist minister, theologian, author and professor of religion in England and the United States. Life Davies was born in 1911 in Glanamman, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Educated at the University of Wales and at Cambridge , he was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church in 1941 and served churches in Cambridgeshire until 1946. Concurrently, he engaged in research at the University of Cambridge under C. H. Dodd, a leading British New Testament scholar, and David Daube, a Jewish scholar who became Regius Profess...
Go to Profile#24137
Dale Jarrett
#24148
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dale Arnold Jarrett is a former American race car driver and current racing commentator for NBC. He is best known for winning the Daytona 500 three times and winning the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship in 1999. He is the son of 2-time Grand National Champion Ned Jarrett, younger brother of Glenn Jarrett, father of former driver Jason Jarrett, and cousin of Todd Jarrett. In 2007, Jarrett joined the ESPN/ABC broadcasting team as an announcer in select Nationwide Series races. In 2008, after retiring from driving following the 2008 Food City 500, he joined ESPN permanently as the lead racing analyst replacing Rusty Wallace.
Go to Profile#24138
Xanthé Mallett
#24149
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Xanthé Danielle Mallett is a Scottish forensic anthropologist, criminologist and television presenter. She specialises in human craniofacial biometrics and hand identification, and behaviour patterns of paedophiles, particularly online. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
Go to Profile#24139
Raymond Flood
#24150
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Raymond Flood is Emeritus Fellow and a member of the Continuing Education Department at Kellogg College, Oxford, and has been a Professor of Geometry at Gresham College. Education Flood achieved a Bachelor of Science degree at Queens University, Belfast and a master's degree at Linacre College, Oxford. He obtained his PhD from University College, Dublin. Flood obtained his doctorate through part-time study, as he had already acquired a family and a job.
Go to Profile#24140
Alessio Fasano
#24151
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Alessio Fasano is an Italian-born medical doctor, pediatric gastroenterologist and researcher. He currently holds many roles, including professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, both in Boston. He serves as director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at MassGeneral Hospital for Children and co-director of the Harvard Medical School Celiac Research Program. In addition, he is director of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at MGHfC, where he oversees a research program with approximatel...
Go to Profile#24141
Keith Hitchins
#24152
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Keith Arnold Hitchins was an American historian and a professor of Eastern European history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in Romania and its history. He was born in Schenectady, New York. After graduating from Union College, he went to Harvard University, earning a Ph.D. in history in 1964 under the direction of Robert Lee Wolff. After teaching for seven years at Wake Forest University and then for a short period at Rice University, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, where he spent the rest of his academic career.
Go to Profile#24142
David Thesmar
#24153
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
David Thesmar is a French economist who works as Franco Modigliani Professor Financial Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research interests include corporate finance, financial intermediation, entrepreneurship and behavioural economics. In 2007, he was awarded the Prize of the Best Young Economist of France.
Go to Profile#24143
Neal Smatresk
#24154
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Neal Joseph Smatresk , is an American academic research biologist, physiologist, and university president, currently serving as president of the University of North Texas. Smatresk had previously served as president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a role he had held since August 6, 2009.
Go to Profile#24144
Jacqueline Bhabha
#24155
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jacqueline Strimpel Bhabha is a British academic, and an attorney. She is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. lecturer in law at Harvard Law School and teaches public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research and legal practice has focused on citizenship and rights of aliens, refugee law, trafficking, and smuggling. She is married to Homi K. Bhabha, the critical theorist, and they have three children.
Go to Profile#24145
Bernard van Praag
#24156
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Bernard Marinus Siegfried van Praag is a Dutch economist, and distinguished university professor at the University of Amsterdam, noted for researching the measurement of welfare, as well-being and happiness.
Go to Profile#24146
Teguest Guerma
#24157
Overall Influence
Teguest Guerma is an Ethiopian medical doctor specializing in public health and HIV/AIDS. Guerma is appointed by the African Medical and Research Foundation Board of Directors as Director General in June 2010. She has been the Associate Director of the HIV/AIDS Department of the World Health Organization between 2004–2010. She has started her career in HIV/AIDS in Burundi and has since extensively worked in Africa and South East Asia, including as country representative for the World Health Organization and Regional Advisor of HIV/AIDS for the Africa Regional Office of the WHO. She also repr...
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Otto Graham
#24158
Overall Influence
1921 - 2003 (82 years)
Otto Everett Graham Jr. was an American professional football quarterback who played for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference and National Football League for 10 seasons. Graham is regarded by critics as one of the most dominant players of his era and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, making ten championship appearances, and winning seven of them. With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs.
Go to Profile#24148
Neal Schon
#24159
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Neal Joseph Schon is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder and lead guitarist for the rock band Journey. He is the sole original member to remain throughout the group's history. He was a member of the rock band Santana before forming Journey, was a member for the group Bad English during Journey's hiatus from 1987 to 1995, and was also an original member of Hardline.
Go to Profile#24149
Jacques Cohen
#24160
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jacques Cohen is a Dutch embryologist based in New York, U.S. He is currently Director at Reprogenetics LLC, Laboratory Director at ART Institute of Washington at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center , and Scientific Director of R & D at IVF-online.
Go to Profile#24150
Alinaghi Alikhani
#24161
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
Alinaghi Alikhani was an Iranian economist who held government posts in the 1960s and was the first minister of economy of Iran. He also served as the chancellor of Tehran University. Early life and education Alikhani was born in Khamseh, near Abhar, Zanjan Province, on 21 January 1929. His father, Abedin Khan, was a Kazakh petty officer, who later began to serve as the administrator of the lands in Khamseh and nearby areas owned by Reza Shah. The family moved to a village, Varamin, near Tehran where Alikhani was raised.
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