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
#25601
Cesare G. De Michelis
#25612
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Cesare G. De Michelis is a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. Biography He is also an authority on the notorious plagiarism, hoax, and literary forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to de Michelis, "twenty-odd editions had appeared in Russia between 1903 and 1912". He gives the text the acronymous name, "PSM", from its Russian title Protocoly sionskikh mudretsov . He also informs us that in 1919 PSM entered the "world at large" in "German, Swedish, Polish, English, Hungarian, and French editions." The first edition in Italian appeared in 1921.
Go to Profile#25602
Shekhar Chaudhuri
#25613
Overall Influence
Shekhar Chaudhuri is an Indian academic and management professor. He is a former director of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Currently, Chaudhari is the director with Calcutta Business School, a fully residential premium Management Institute located close to IIM Calcutta.
Go to Profile#25603
Shmuel Moreh
#25614
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Shmuel Moreh was a professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a recipient of the Israel Prize in Middle Eastern studies in 1999. In addition to having written many books and articles dealing with Arabic literature in general and Iraqi Jewish Arabic literature in particular, he has been a major contributor to Elaph, the first online daily independent journal in the Arabic language. Professor Moreh wrote in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
Go to Profile#25604
Miriam Gebhardt
#25615
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Miriam Gebhardt is a German historian and writer. Life Gebhardt was born in Freiburg, Germany and trained as a journalist. From 1982, she worked as an editor. From 1988 to 1993 she studied social and economic history, regional history and modern German literature at Munich University. In 1988 she obtained a doctorate in Modern History under Clemens Wischermann at the University of Münster with a thesis on family memories.
Go to Profile#25605
Jérémy Chardy
#25616
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Jérémy Chardy is a former French professional tennis player. He has won one ATP Tour singles title, in Stuttgart in 2009. His best major performance in singles was reaching the quarterfinals of the 2013 Australian Open, and in doubles was reaching the final at the 2019 French Open partnering Fabrice Martin. He achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 25 on 28 January 2013 and No. 24 on 3 February 2020 in doubles.
Go to Profile#25606
Andrew Neitzke
#25617
Overall Influence
Andrew Neitzke is an American mathematician and theoretical physicist, at Yale University. He works in mathematical physics, mainly in geometric problems arising from physics, particularly from supersymmetric quantum field theory.
Go to Profile#25607
Atiku Abubakar
#25618
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Atiku Abubakar is a Nigerian politician and businessman who served as the vice president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. He ran as governor of Adamawa State in 1990, 1996, and in 1998, when he was finally elected before he became Obasanjo's running mate during the 1999 presidential election and was re-elected in 2003.
Go to Profile#25608
Bernard Charbonneau
#25619
Overall Influence
1910 - 1996 (86 years)
Bernard Charbonneau was a French writer who authored about twenty books and numerous articles, published in La Gueule Ouverte, Foi et Vie, La République des Pyrénées. An apolitical and independent thinker, he is considered to be a major inspiration for the various French ecological movements. His name is regularly mentioned by French academics. as well French green party leaders.
Go to Profile#25609
Miloslav Petrusek
#25620
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
Miloslav Petrusek was a prominent Czech sociologist who served as a dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague between 1992–1997, as well as the prorector for academic affairs of the university in 1997–2000. For his consistent contribution to sociology and education, he received numerous awards, such as Ordre des Palmes Académiques or Golden Medal of Masaryk University. In 2012, Petrusek received The VIZE 97 Prize .
Go to Profile#25610
Slava Turyshev
#25621
Overall Influence
Vyacheslav Gennadievich Turyshev is a Russian physicist now working in the US at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory . He is known for his investigations of the Pioneer anomaly, affecting Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft, and for his attempt to recover early data of the Pioneer spacecraft to shed light on such a phenomenon.
Go to Profile#25611
Carmela Abraham
#25622
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Carmela R. Abraham is an American neuroscientist who focuses on the study of Alzheimer’s disease. Early life and education Abraham earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Tel Aviv University and her PhD in Neuroscience from Harvard University. In 1990, Abraham was the recipient of The Neuroscience Education and Research Foundation Award for an Outstanding Promise as a Young Alzheimer Investigator. She was also the first Rappaport Scholar at the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the recipient of the Zenith and Temple awards from the Alzheimer’s As...
Go to Profile#25612
Todd Haynes
#25623
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Todd Haynes is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender roles.
Go to Profile#25613
Marc B. Shapiro
#25624
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Marc B. Shapiro is a professor and the author of various books and articles on Jewish history, philosophy, theology, and rabbinic literature. Education and career Shapiro received his BA at Brandeis University and his PhD at Harvard University, where he was the last PhD student of Professor Isadore Twersky. He received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Ephraim Greenblatt. Shapiro's father is Edward S. Shapiro, who has published books on American history and American Jewish history.
Go to Profile#25614
Albert Macovski
#25625
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Albert Macovski is an American Professor at Stanford University, known for his many innovations in the area of imaging, particularly in the medical field. Education Macovski graduated from NYU Poly and got his PhD from Stanford University for research supervised by Joseph W. Goodman.
Go to Profile#25615
Radhika Govindrajan
#25626
Overall Influence
Radhika Govindrajan is an Indian-American anthropologist, researcher and university professor. She has done research on animal studies especially about leopards, elephants. She is currently serving as an assistant associate professor at the University of Washington. She is well known for her book Animal Intimacies which is about an ethnography of multispecies relatedness in the Central Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
Go to Profile#25616
Mauro Ferrari
#25627
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Mauro Ferrari is a nanoscientist and leader in the field of nanomedicine. He served as special expert on nanotechnology for the National Cancer Institute and was instrumental in establishing the Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer in 2004. On 1 January 2020, Ferrari was made president of the European Research Council . Following a vote of no confidence, on 27 March 2020, "all 19 active members of the ERC’s Scientific Council individually and unanimously requested that Mauro Ferrari resign from his position as ERC’s President", due to poor conduct in office, exploiting the position to further his own projects, and for consistently failing to represent the interests of the ERC.
Go to Profile#25617
Kausalya Hart
#25628
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Kausalya Hart is a scholar of Tamil language at UC Berkeley. She is famous for translating Sangam literature from Tamil to English and for writing many Tamil textbooks. Life Kausalya Hart is a scholar of Tamil. She taught in the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written many books for students and has translated many works of bhakti literature from the 6th to 15th century CE.
Go to Profile#25618
Sonajharia Minz
#25629
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Sonajharia Minz is an academician, trained in Mathematics and Computer Science, and engages with adivasi issues. She is the second tribeswoman hailing from Chotanagpur and appointed as a Vice-Chancellor in Sido Kanhu Murmu University, Dumka.
Go to Profile#25619
Robert M. Young
#25630
Overall Influence
1935 - 2019 (84 years)
Robert Maxwell Young was an American-born historian of science specialising in the 19th century and particularly Darwinian thought, a philosopher of the biological and human sciences, and a Kleinian psychotherapist.
Go to Profile#25620
Dawn Dekle
#25631
Overall Influence
Dawn Dekle is an American international educator formerly serving as the fourth president of the American University of Nigeria. Education Dawn Dekle completed her undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University, going on to earn a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.
Go to Profile#25621
Greg Marinovich
#25632
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Greg Marinovich is a South African photojournalist, filmmaker, photo editor, and member of the Bang-Bang Club. He co-authored the book The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War , which details South Africa's transition to democracy.
Go to Profile#25622
Steve Davis
#25633
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Steve Davis is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, DJ, electronic musician, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World Snooker Championship finals in nine years, won six world titles, and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He was runner-up to Dennis Taylor in one of snooker's most famous matches, the 1985 World Championship final, whose dramatic black-ball conclusion attracted 18.5 million viewers, still the largest British television audience for any b...
Go to Profile#25623
Donald A. Crosby
#25634
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Donald Allen Crosby is an American theologian who is professor emeritus of philosophy at Colorado State University, since January 2000. Crosby's interests focus on metaphysics, American pragmatism, philosophy of nature, existentialism, and philosophy of religion. He is a member of the Highlands Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought and has been a leader in the discussions on Religious Naturalism.
Go to Profile#25624
H. Patrick Swygert
#25635
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Haywood Patrick Swygert was the president of Howard University in Washington, D.C., from 1995 until 2008. Career He is a graduate of South Philadelphia High School and has been inducted into the SPHS Alumni Cultural Hall of Fame. Swygert graduated from Howard University in 1965, the same year President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his historic speech to the graduating class.
Go to Profile#25625
Erhan Çinlar
#25636
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Erhan Çınlar is a probabilist and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He was the Norman J. Sollenberger Professor of the department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#25626
Mark Selden
#25637
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Mark Selden is a coordinator of the open-access journal The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, a senior research associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, and Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton University. He graduated from Amherst College with a major in American Studies and completed a Ph.D. at Yale University in modern Chinese history. He was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars in the 1960s and for more than thirty years served on the board of editors of The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars . He is also the editor of book series at Rowman & Littlefield, Routledge, and M.E.
Go to Profile#25627
Roberto Di Matteo
#25638
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Roberto Di Matteo is an Italian professional football manager and former player. During his playing career as a midfielder, he played for Swiss clubs Schaffhausen, Zürich and Aarau before joining Lazio of Italy and Chelsea of England. Born in Switzerland to Italian parents, he was capped 34 times for Italy, scoring two goals, and played in UEFA Euro 1996 and the 1998 FIFA World Cup. He retired as a player in February 2002 at the age of 31 following injury problems.
Go to Profile#25628
Bob Barr
#25639
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Robert Laurence Barr Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He served as a federal prosecutor and as a U.S. Representative. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. During his time in the House of Representatives, he authored the Defense of Marriage Act, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013 and repealed by the 117th Congress.
Go to Profile#25629
John Fuller
#25640
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
John Fuller FRSL is an English poet and author, and Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College, Oxford. Biography Fuller was born at Ashford, Kent, United Kingdom, the son of poet and Oxford Professor Roy Fuller, and educated at St Paul's School and New College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#25630
Julia Lockheart
#25641
Overall Influence
Julia Lockheart is a British artist, academic and researcher. She is a Professor, Head of Contextual Practices, and Director of the Metadesign Research Centre at Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David; metadesign researcher and Associate Lecturer in Design Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London; and also as a design and language consultant to several educational institutions internationally.
Go to Profile#25631
Daniel K. Riskin
#25642
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Daniel K. Riskin is a Canadian evolutionary biologist, television personality and producer. He hosted the Canadian television series Daily Planet. Early life and education He was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. He received a BSc in zoology from the University of Alberta, an MSc in biology from York University, and a PhD in zoology from Cornell University. He also completed post-doctoral studies at Boston University and Brown University.
Go to Profile#25632
Dennis Miller
#25643
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Dennis Michael Miller is an American political commentator, stand-up comedian, talk show host, writer, and former sportscaster. Miller was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1991, and he subsequently hosted a string of his own talk shows on HBO, CNBC, and also in syndication. From 2007 to 2015, Miller hosted a daily, three-hour, self-titled talk radio program, nationally syndicated by Westwood One. On March 9, 2020, Dennis Miller + One show, launched on RT America. It ran twice-weekly and featured celebrity interviews.
Go to Profile#25633
Michael Cohen
#25644
Overall Influence
2000 - 2018 (18 years)
M. Michael Cohen Jr. was an American pathologist and geneticist who was Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University . He was the first doctor to diagnose Proteus syndrome, in 1979.
Go to Profile#25634
Seymour Topping
#25645
Overall Influence
1921 - 2020 (99 years)
Seymour Topping was an American journalist best known for his work as a foreign correspondent covering wars in China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and the Cold War in Europe. From 1969 to 1986, he was the second senior-most editor at The New York Times. At the time of his death, he was the San Paolo Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University, where he also served as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes from 1993 to 2002.
Go to Profile#25635
Hom-Lay Wang
#25646
Overall Influence
Hom-Lay Wang is a Taiwanese-born periodontist and director of the graduate periodontal program at University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Education and career Wang graduated from Taipei Medical College in Taiwan in 1983. He moved on to Case School of Dental Medicine, where he graduated in 1987 with a Master's degree in periodontics. He remained at Case until 1989 to complete an American dental degree. He received his PhD from Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan in 2008.
Go to Profile#25636
Juan Navarro Baldeweg
#25647
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Juan Navarro Baldeweg is a Spanish architect and professor at the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid . He is currently retired from architectural practice. Baldeweg studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts of Madrid, and the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Madrid, where he graduated in 1965. From 1977 to his retirement in 2014, he was appointed as teacher of the ETSAM, though for more than 20 years he was hardly ever seen in the school.
Go to Profile#25637
Rainn Wilson
#25648
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Rainn Percival Dietrich Wilson is an American actor, comedian, podcaster, producer, writer, and director — widely known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom The Office , for which he earned three consecutive Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Go to Profile#25638
Steven Muller
#25649
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Steven Muller was a German-American professor of political science, author, and the president of the Johns Hopkins University, serving from 1972 to 1990. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of Marianne and Werner A. Muller. His father was Jewish, and, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany, the family suffered increasing persecution. During Kristallnacht in 1938, his father was arrested by the Nazis. Thanks to influential friends, he was released after a short time, but this experience convinced him that he and his family had to leave Germany. His father left first, followed by the rest of the family shortly before the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
Go to Profile#25639
Jim van Os
#25650
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jim van Os is a Dutch academic and psychiatrist. He is Professor of Psychiatry and medical manager of the Brain Center at Utrecht University Medical Center, the Netherlands. Career Van Os studied medicine in Amsterdam, psychiatry in Jakarta, Casablanca, Bordeaux, and London, and subsequently epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Go to Profile#25640
Julius Axelrod
#25651
Overall Influence
#25641
Robert M. Nerem
#25652
Overall Influence
1937 - 2020 (83 years)
#25642
Paul-André Meyer
#25653
Overall Influence
1934 - 2003 (69 years)
Paul-André Meyer was a French mathematician, who played a major role in the development of the general theory of stochastic processes. He worked at the Institut de Recherche Mathématique in Strasbourg and is known as the founder of the 'Strasbourg school' in stochastic analysis.
Go to Profile#25643
Andrei Iancu
#25654
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Andrei Iancu is a Romanian-American engineer and intellectual property attorney, who served as the under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 2017 to 2021. He was nominated for both positions in 2017 by President Donald Trump. He left office January 20, 2021.
Go to Profile#25644
Peter Milward
#25655
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Father Peter Milward, SJ was a Jesuit priest and literary scholar. He was emeritus professor of English Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo and a leading figure in scholarship on English Renaissance literature. He was chair of the Renaissance Institute at Sophia University from its inception in 1974 until it was closed down in 2014 and director of the Renaissance Centre from its start in 1984 until it was closed down in 2002. He primarily published on the works of William Shakespeare and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Go to Profile#25645
Ishwar Puri
#25656
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ishwar Kanwar Puri is an Indian-American and Canadian scientist, engineer, and academic. Early life and education Puri was born in New Delhi, India, in 1959. He studied at St. Xavier’s School, Delhi from 1964 to 1976. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering of Delhi University, Delhi in 1982, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Science from the University of California, San Diego.
Go to Profile#25646
Josh McCown
#25657
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Joshua Treadwell McCown is an American football coach and former quarterback of the National Football League . He played college football for SMU for three seasons before transferring to Sam Houston State. McCown was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the third round of the 2002 NFL Draft and played for them for four seasons. He spent his career as a journeyman quarterback playing for 12 different teams, including the Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, Carolina Panthers, San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets,...
Go to Profile#25647
Matt Pharr
#25658
Overall Influence
Matt Pharr is an American computer graphics researcher and writer, and one of the primary originators of the physically based rendering process. His research focuses on rendering algorithms, graphics processing units, as well as scientific illustration and visualization.
Go to Profile#25648
Angela Rasmussen
#25659
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Angela Lynn Rasmussen is an American virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Education and early career During graduate school, Rasmussen worked in the laboratory of Vincent Racaniello where she developed a mouse model of rhinovirus infection in order to better understand the pathogenesis of illnesses caused by the virus, such as the common cold.
Go to Profile#25649
Kai Wehmeier
#25660
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Kai Frederick Wehmeier is a German-American philosopher and logician. He is best known for proving that the fragment of Frege's inconsistent logical theory of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik becomes consistent upon restricting the complexity of comprehension formulas in the second-order comprehension schema to , for his development of a system of subjunctive modal logic and its use in rebutting Kripke's modal argument against description theories of proper names, as well as for refining and defending the thesis that there is no binary identity relation between objects.
Go to Profile#25650
Lorde
#25661
Overall Influence
1996 - Present (30 years)
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor , known professionally as Lorde , is a New Zealand singer and songwriter. She is known for her unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording music. Their first effort, an extended play titled The Love Club, was self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud before UMG's commercial release in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped raise Lorde to prominence.
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