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
#25801
Ragnhild Hatton
#25812
Overall Influence
1913 - 1995 (82 years)
Ragnhild Marie Hatton was professor of International History at the London School of Economics. As the author of her obituary declared, she was "for a generation Britain's leading historian of 17th- and 18th century Europe...."
Go to Profile#25802
Anatoly Derevyanko
#25813
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Anatoly Panteleyevich Derevyanko is a Soviet and Russian archaeologist who specializes in the Stone Age of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Anatoly was born in the workman`s family. In 1963 he graduated from Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University . Derevyanko was one of the youngest Doctors of Historical Sciences in the Soviet Union. He got a degree in 1971, being 28 years old, for his doctoral thesis «Amur River Region in Antiquity ».
Go to Profile#25803
Pat Cash
#25814
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Patrick Hart Cash is an Australian former professional tennis player and coach. He reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 4 in May 1988 and a career-high ATP doubles ranking of world No. 6 in August 1988. Upon winning the 1987 singles title at Wimbledon, Cash climbed into the stands to celebrate, starting a tradition that has continued ever since.
Go to Profile#25804
Herminia Ibarra
#25815
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Herminia Ibarra is a scholar in the fields of organizational behaviour, leadership, and career development. She is the Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.
Go to Profile#25805
Bobby Allison
#25816
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Robert Arthur Allison is a former American professional stock car racing driver and owner. Allison was the founder of the Alabama Gang, a group of drivers based in Hueytown, Alabama, where there were abundant short tracks with high purses. Allison raced competitively in the NASCAR Cup Series from 1961 to 1988, while regularly competing in short track events throughout his career. He also raced in IndyCar, Trans-Am, and Can-Am. Named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers and a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, he was the 1983 Winston Cup champion and won the Daytona 500 in 1978, 1982, and 1988.
Go to Profile#25806
Ravindra Nanda
#25817
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Dr. Ravindra Nanda is a professor and Head of the Department of Craniofacial Sciences and Chair of the Division of Orthodontics at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. He is part of the founding faculty of School of Dental Medicine and has been at the University of Connecticut since 1972 where he also holds an Alumni Chair in the Orthodontics Division. He is an innovator of various appliances in orthodontics. His research and clinical interests include adolescent and adult orthodontics, the biology of tooth mobility, craniofacial orthopedics, biomechanics and developing e...
Go to Profile#25807
Tress MacNeille
#25818
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Teressa Claire MacNeille is an American voice actress, whose credits include voicing Dot Warner on the animated television series Animaniacs and its reboot, Babs Bunny on Tiny Toon Adventures, Chip and Gadget Hackwrench on Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and Daisy Duck in various Disney media since 1999. She has also worked on animated series such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Disenchantment, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold!
Go to Profile#25808
Noriko Osumi
#25819
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Noriko Osumi is a Japanese neuroscientist. She was appointed as the Vice-president of Tohoku University in 2018, a Professor of Developmental Neuroscience, and the Director of the Core Center for Neuroscience at that university. Osumi also presided at the Molecular Biology Society of Japan, 2013-2014.
Go to Profile#25809
Susan R. Wolf
#25820
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Susan Rose Wolf is an American moral philosopher and philosopher of action who is currently the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught previously at Johns Hopkins University , the University of Maryland and Harvard University .
Go to Profile#25810
Bruce Onobrakpeya
#25821
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya is a Nigerian printmaker, painter and sculptor. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Malmö Konsthall in Malmö, Sweden. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos has an exhibit of colourful abstract canvases by Onobrakpeya and his works can be found at the Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art, although no exhibitions were showing .
Go to Profile#25811
Gayatri Reddy
#25822
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Gayatri Reddy is an Indian anthropologist who has also made contributions to queer and gender studies. Reddy received her PhD in Anthropology in 2000 from Emory University after M.A in Anthropology from Columbia University and B.A. in Psychology from Delhi University. She is currently an associate professor in Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Reddy has carried out fieldwork on a community of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh in India. Her current research is on male queer identity among South Asian immigrants to the US.
Go to Profile#25812
James J. Kay
#25823
Overall Influence
1954 - 2004 (50 years)
James J. Kay was an ecological scientist and policy-maker. He was a respected physicist best known for his theoretical work on complexity and thermodynamics. Biography James Kay held a BS in physics from McGill University and a Ph.D. in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo. His Ph.D. thesis was entitled Self-Organization in Living Systems. Much of his work relates to integrating thermodynamics into an understanding of self-organization in biological systems. For example, when water in a pot is heated, it will spontaneously form convection currents such as Bénard_cell....
Go to Profile#25813
Sig Gissler
#25824
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Sig Gissler is an American former professor of journalism at Columbia University and the former administrator of the Pulitzer Prize. Biography Sig Gissler was born in Chicago. He is a graduate of Lake Forest College and completed graduate work in political science at Northwestern University. After writing for the Libertyville Independent-Register and serving as executive editor of the Waukegan News-Sun, he joined The Milwaukee Journal in 1967.
Go to Profile#25814
Lois Mailou Jones
#25825
Overall Influence
1905 - 1998 (93 years)
Lois Mailou Jones was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. She is often associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
Go to Profile#25815
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
#25826
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of the Humanities and a professor of English at Stanford University. Fishkin received her B.A. and M.Phil. in English, and her Ph.D. in American studies, all from Yale University. Before teaching at Stanford University, she served as director of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale University and professor of American studies at the University of Texas, Austin.
Go to Profile#25816
Barbara Jordan
#25827
Overall Influence
1936 - 1996 (60 years)
Barbara Charline Jordan was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives, and one of the first two African Americans elected to the U.S. House from the former Confederacy since 1901, alongside Andrew Young of Georgia.
Go to Profile#25817
René Joyeuse
#25828
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
René Joyeuse, M.D., MS, FACS was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher. He distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II.
Go to Profile#25818
Jack Penn
#25829
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
Jack Penn , M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S., Mil. Dec. M.B.E., S.M., was a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, sculptor and author, who was also for a time a member of the President's Council in South Africa. Early years Penn was born in Cape Town in 1909, the youngest of 7 children. After World War I, the family moved to Johannesburg, where he was educated at Parktown Boys' High School and the University of the Witwatersrand.
Go to Profile#25819
Alberto Conti
#25830
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Alberto Conti , is an astrophysicist and the Vice President and General Manager of the Civil Space Strategic Business Unit at Ball Aerospace. He is one of the creators of the GoogleSky concept, of the idea of astronomical outreach at South by SouthWest 2013 and of the James Webb Space Telescope iBook. He is also the Executive Producer of the Emmy Winning CNN Films The Hunt for Planet B.
Go to Profile#25820
Robert Spitzer
#25831
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Robert J. Spitzer is a Jesuit priest, philosopher, educator, author, speaker, and retired President of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Spitzer is founder and currently active as president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing educational materials on the complementarity of science, philosophy, and faith. He is also president of the Spitzer Center of Ethical Leadership, dedicated to helping Catholic and for-profit organizations develop leadership, constructive cultures, and virtue ethics.
Go to Profile#25821
Yaya Touré
#25832
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Gnégnéri Yaya Touré is an Ivorian professional football coach and former player who played as a midfielder. He is currently an assistant coach for the Saudi Arabia national team. Touré aspired to be a striker during his youth and has played centre-back, including for Barcelona in the 2009 UEFA Champions League final. However, he spent the majority of his career as a box-to-box midfielder for club and country, where he has been regarded as one of the world's best players in his position. One of the greatest African players of all time, Touré was voted African Footballer of the Year for 2011, 2...
Go to Profile#25822
Olu Oguibe
#25833
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Olu Oguibe is a Nigerian-born American artist and academic. Professor of Art and African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Oguibe is a senior fellow of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New York City, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He is also an art historian, art curator, and leading contributor to post-colonial theory and new information technology studies. Oguibe is also known to be a well respected scholar and historian of contemporary African and African American art and was honoured with the State of Connecticut Gov...
Go to Profile#25823
Charles King
#25834
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Charles King is the Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University, where he previously served as the chairman of the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Go to Profile#25824
Shane Mosley
#25835
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Shane Mosley , often known by his nickname "Sugar" Shane Mosley, is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2016. He held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the IBF lightweight title; the WBA and WBC welterweight titles; and the WBA , WBC, and The Ring magazine light middleweight titles. He was also a lineal champion at welterweight and light middleweight.
Go to Profile#25825
Allan Luke
#25836
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Allan Luke is an educator, researcher, and theorist studying literacy, multiliteracies, applied linguistics, and educational sociology and policy. Luke has written or edited 17 books and more than 250 articles and book chapters. Luke, with Peter Freebody, originated the Four Resources Model of literacy in the 1990s. Part of the New London Group, he was coauthor of the "Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures" published in the Harvard Educational Review . He is Emeritus Professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia and adjunct professor at Werklund Scho...
Go to Profile#25826
Paul George
#25837
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Paul Clifton Anthony George is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "PG-13", he is an eight-time NBA All-Star and six-time member of the All-NBA Team, as well as a four-time member of the NBA All-Defensive Team.
Go to Profile#25827
Joseph M. McShane
#25838
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Joseph Michael McShane is an American Jesuit priest, who served as President of Fordham University from 2003 until his retirement in 2022. Before becoming President of Fordham University, McShane was the President of the University of Scranton and Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. In addition to his role as President of Fordham, McShane was appointed to the Commission on Metropolitan Transportation Authority Financing by New York Governor David A. Paterson in 2008. On July 1, 2009, McShane threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium to commemorate the 150th anniversary of baseball at Fordham.
Go to Profile#25828
Douglas Niles
#25839
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Douglas Niles is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, the Star Frontiers space opera setting and the Top Secret S/I espionage role-playing game.
Go to Profile#25829
Ray Liotta
#25840
Overall Influence
1954 - 2022 (68 years)
Raymond Allen Liotta was an American actor. He first gained attention for his role in the film Something Wild , which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination. He was best known for his portrayals of Shoeless Joe Jackson in the film Field of Dreams and Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas . Liotta appeared in numerous other films, including Unlawful Entry , Cop Land , Hannibal , Blow , John Q. , Identity , Killing Them Softly , The Place Beyond the Pines , and Marriage Story .
Go to Profile#25830
Pauline Hanson
#25841
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician who is the founder and leader of One Nation, a right-wing populist political party. Hanson has represented Queensland in the Australian Senate since the 2016 Federal Election.
Go to Profile#25831
Guy Verhofstadt
#25842
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt is a Belgian liberal politician and an advocate of a Federal Europe. He is a former prime minister of Belgium. He has been a member of the European Parliament from Belgium since 2009.
Go to Profile#25832
Claudia L. Johnson
#25843
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Claudia L. Johnson is the Murray Professor of English Literature at Princeton University; she is also currently chairperson of the English department. Johnson received her PhD from Princeton University; she specializes in Restoration and 18th century British literature, with an especial focus on the novel. She is also interested in feminist theory and gender studies. Johnson is renowned for her books on Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Go to Profile#25833
Yōichi Komori
#25844
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
is a critic of Japanese modern literature and a social activist in Japan. He is currently a professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Early life Yoichi Komori was born into a family of a professional political activists on May 14, 1953, in Tokyo, Japan. His father Yoshio Komori , had been the representative of Japanese Communist Party to the general headquarter of the World Federation of Trade Unions in Praha, Czechoslovakia from 1961 to 1965 and Yoshio had been elected as the central member of Japanese Communist Party from 1977. Yoichi Komori’s mother Kyoko , is a poet and a communist social activist.
Go to Profile#25834
James Kugel
#25845
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
James L. Kugel is professor emeritus in the Bible department at Bar Ilan University in Israel and the Harry M. Starr Professor Emeritus of Classical and Modern Hebrew Literature at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#25835
Robert Smith
#25846
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Robert James Smith is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his work as the co-founder, lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and only continuous member of the rock band the Cure since 1978. His unique guitar-playing style, distinctive singing voice, and fashion sensealmost always sporting a pale complexion, smeared red lipstick, black eye-liner, unkempt wiry black hair, and all-black clotheswere highly influential on the goth subculture that rose to prominence in the 1980s.
Go to Profile#25836
Terry Speed
#25847
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Terence Paul "Terry" Speed , FAA FRS is an Australian statistician. A senior principal research scientist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, he is known for his contributions to the analysis of variance and bioinformatics, and in particular to the analysis of microarray data.
Go to Profile#25837
Brun-Otto Bryde
#25848
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Brun-Otto Bryde is a German legal scholar and a former judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Life Bryde was born in Hamburg on 12 January 1943. Following his first state exam in law 1966 and his second one in 1969 he did his doctoral degree in Hamburg in 1971. After that he became an instructor at a university in Ethiopia. Between 1973 and 1974 he was a Law and Modernization Fellow at the Yale Law School. Later, from 1974 until 1982, he was a teacher at the university of Hamburg. 1980 he did his habilitation and afterwards he became a professor at Bundeswehr University of Munich.
Go to Profile#25838
Alexandr Dolgopolov
#25849
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Alexandr Oleksandrovych Dolgopolov , formerly known as Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr., is a Ukrainian retired professional tennis player. He changed his forename spelling to the current form in May 2010. Dolgopolov reached the quarterfinals of the 2011 Australian Open and achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 13 in January 2012.
Go to Profile#25839
Cheryl Misak
#25850
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Cheryl J. Misak is a Canadian philosopher who works in pragmatism, the history of analytic philosophy, and bioethics. She is a University Professor at the University of Toronto, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in intellectual and cultural history. In 2011, Misak served as president of the Charles S. Peirce Society. In December 2020, Misak became the interim director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#25840
J. Desmond Clark
#25851
Overall Influence
1916 - 2002 (86 years)
John Desmond Clark was a British archaeologist noted particularly for his work on prehistoric Africa. Early life Clark was born in London, but his childhood was spent in a hamlet in the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire. Clark went to a preparatory boarding school in Buckinghamshire at age 6 1/2, from where he moved on to Monkton Combe School near Bath. Clark graduated with a BA from Christ's College, Cambridge, under M. C. Burkitt and Grahame Clark.
Go to Profile#25841
Ken Inglis
#25852
Overall Influence
1929 - 2017 (88 years)
Kenneth Stanley Inglis, was an Australian historian. Early life and education Inglis was born in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, on 7 October 1929, the son of Stan and Rene Inglis. He was educated at Tyler Street Public School, Northcote Boys' High School and Melbourne High School, before going to study at the University of Melbourne. Inglis participated in the Student Christian Movement and amateur dramatics during his studies, and worked as a tutor at Ormond College. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours in History and English, he read for a Master of Arts at Melbourne.
Go to Profile#25842
Alexander Kuznetsov
#25853
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Alexander Gennadyevich Kuznetsov is a Russian mathematician working at the Steklov Mathematical Institute and the Interdisciplinary Scientific Center J.-V. Poncelet, Moscow, and head of the Laboratory of Algebraic Geometry and its Applications of the Higher School of Economics. He graduated from Moscow State School 57 in 1990. He received a Ph.D. in 1998 under the supervision of . Kuznetsov is known for his research in algebraic geometry, mostly concerning derived categories of coherent sheaves and their semiorthogonal decompositions.
Go to Profile#25843
Béla Merkely
#25854
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Dr. Béla Merkely is a Hungarian interventional cardiologist and sports cardiologist, a university professor, director of Semmelweis University's Heart and Vascular Centre and the current rector of Semmelweis University since 1 July 2018.
Go to Profile#25844
Frank Pfenning
#25855
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Frank Pfenning is a German-American professor of computer science, adjunct professor in the department of philosophy, and head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Education and career Pfenning grew up in Rüsselsheim in Germany. He studied mathematics and computer science at Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany. He then moved to the US and studied at Carnegie Mellon University, where he received his M.S. and Ph.D. in the Department of Mathematics in 1987, for his dissertation entitled Proof Transformations in Higher-Order Logic. He was a student of Peter B....
Go to Profile#25845
Jonathan Haskel
#25856
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Jonathan Haskel is a British economist, and professor of economics at Imperial College Business School. Haskel currently serves as board member of the UK Statistics Authority, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and a member of the Financial Conduct Authority Competition Decisions Committee and the Payment System Regulator Enforcement and Competition Decisions Committee.
Go to Profile#25846
Giannis Antetokounmpo
#25857
Overall Influence
1994 - Present (32 years)
Giannis Sina Ugo Antetokounmpo is a Greek-Nigerian professional basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association . His country of origin, in addition to his size, speed, strength, and ball-handling skills have earned him the nickname "Greek Freak". He is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards and one of the greatest European players of all time.
Go to Profile#25847
Arthur Asa Berger
#25858
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Arthur Asa Berger is an American academic and author known for his contributions to the field of media studies. He is currently a Professor Emeritus in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts at San Francisco State University.
Go to Profile#25848
Homayoun Seraji
#25859
Overall Influence
1947 - 2007 (60 years)
Homâyun Serâji was an Iranian scientist, engineer, a JPL senior researcher and former professor of Sharif University of Technology who published extensively in the field of multivariable control systems, focusing on optimal control, pole placement, multivariable PID controllers, and output regulation. Also he has significant publications in the field of Robotics, and space exploration.
Go to Profile#25849
Eli Eduardo de Gortari
#25860
Overall Influence
1918 - 1991 (73 years)
Eli Eduardo de Gortari de Gortari was a logician, philosopher of science and engineer. Biography Elí de Gortari was a student of the Engineering School of the National Autonomous University of Mexico , matriculating in 1938. His goal was to become an engineer, which he achieved in two years. His commitment to public welfare led him to enroll in sanitation engineering, but he continued his studies of mathematics and philosophy. Eventually, in 1948, he would become a professor of philosophy of science. In 1949 he obtained a master's degree in philosophy and published a thesis "The Science of Lo...
Go to Profile#25850
Jean Vercoutter
#25861
Overall Influence
1911 - 2000 (89 years)
Jean Vercoutter was a French Egyptologist. One of the pioneers of archaeological research into Sudan from 1953, he was Director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale from 1977 to 1981. Biography Born in Lambersart, Nord, Vercoutter attended the Académie Julian to learn about painting, but soon turned to Egyptology. In 1939, he graduated from the IVe section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études with a thesis on ancient Egyptian funerary objects and was appointed resident of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology of Cairo . He participated in excavations in Karnak and direct...
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