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
#26601
Robert J. Vanderbei
#26612
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Robert J. Vanderbei is an American mathematician and Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University. Biography Robert J. Vanderbei was born in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1955. He received his BS in Chemistry in 1976 and an MS in Operations Research and Statistics in 1978 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1981. In his thesis, he developed probabilistic potential theory for random fields consisting of tensor products of Brownian motions. He was postdoctoral research fellow at New...
Go to Profile#26602
Paul H. Harvey
#26613
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Paul H. Harvey is a British evolutionary biologist. He is Professor of Zoology and was head of the zoology department at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2011 and Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 2000 to 2011, holding these posts in conjunction with a professorial fellowship at Jesus College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#26603
Ali Bardakoğlu
#26614
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Ali Bardakoğlu served as the president of the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey between 2003 and 2010. Background Ali Bardakoğlu was born in 1952 in Tosya in the province of Kastamonu. He has been the president of the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı since May 2003. In 1975 he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in law from Istanbul University. Later he became an assistant for Islamic law at the High Islamic Institute in Kayseri. In 1982, he earned his PhD in Islamic studies from Atatürk University and taught as assistant professor at the theology faculty of the Erciyes University. From 1991...
Go to Profile#26604
Matthew Fuller
#26615
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Matthew Fuller is an author and Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is known for his writings in media theory, software studies, critical theory and cultural studies, and contemporary fiction.
Go to Profile#26605
Jack Thorne
#26616
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Jack A. Thorne is a British mathematician working in number theory and arithmetic aspects of the Langlands Program. He specialises in algebraic number theory. Education Thorne read mathematics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He completed his PhD with Benedict Gross and Richard Taylor at Harvard University in 2012.
Go to Profile#26606
Jane Fraser
#26617
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jane Fraser is a British-American banking executive who is the chief executive officer of Citigroup, a position she has held since March 2021. Educated at Girton College, Cambridge, and Harvard Business School, she worked at McKinsey & Company for 10 years, rising to partner prior to joining Citigroup in 2004. In 2019, she was named president of Citigroup and CEO of its consumer banking division.
Go to Profile#26607
Frank Farrelly
#26618
Overall Influence
1931 - 2013 (82 years)
Frank Farrelly was a therapist best known for the 1974 book Provocative Therapy, which advocated radical therapeutic moves intended to jolt the client out of his current mindset. Biography Farrelly holds a master's degree in Social Work from The Catholic University Of America and is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers. For many years he was a clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Social Work and an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. As a social worker in the 1960s he developed his ...
Go to Profile#26608
Menachem Mautner
#26619
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Menachem Mautner is an Israeli professor of Comparative Civil Law and Jurisprudence at Tel Aviv University. In 2000–2002, he was Dean of the Faculty of Law. Biography Menachem Mautner obtained a J.S.D. from Yale Law School. Mautner teaches at Tel Aviv University courses in the areas of contract law, law and culture and multiculturalism.
Go to Profile#26609
Evonne Goolagong Cawley
#26620
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Goolagong was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s. At the age of 19, she won the French Open singles and the Australian Open doubles championships . She won the women's singles tournament at Wimbledon in 1971. In 1980, she became the first mother to win Wimbledon in 66 years. Goolagong went on to win 14 Grand Slam tournament titles: seven in singles , six in women's doubles, and one in mixed doubles. She represented Australia in three Fed Cup competitions, winning the title in 1971, 1973 and 1974, and was Fed Cup captain for three consecutive years.
Go to Profile#26610
David M. Lampton
#26621
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
David M. Lampton is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and former Chairman of The Asia Foundation.
Go to Profile#26611
Chung Ling
#26622
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Chung Ling is a Taiwan-Chinese writer, critic, educator and translator. Her name also appears as Zhong Ling.[1] She was born in Chongqing in Sichuan province, a native Cantonese and came to Taiwan with her family in 1950 from Japan. Zhong was educated at a girls' school in Kaohsiung, at Tunghai University and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.[2] She taught at State University of New York at Albany, at Hong Kong University at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, where she became Dean of Liberal Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University where she served as chair professor, Dean of Arts ...
Go to Profile#26612
Dagmar R. Henney
#26623
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Dagmar Renate Kirchner Henney is a German-born American mathematician and former professor of calculus, finite mathematics, and measure and integration at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Go to Profile#26613
Sridevi
#26624
Overall Influence
1963 - 2018 (55 years)
Shree Amma Yanger Ayyapan , known professionally as Sridevi, was an Indian actress who worked in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada language films. Cited as the "first female superstar" of Indian cinema, she was the recipient of various accolades, including a National Film Award, four Filmfare Awards, including a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, three Filmfare Awards South, Two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, One Kerala State Film Award, and a Nandi Award. Sridevi's career spanned over 50 years in a wide range of genres. She was known for her reticent and introverted off-screen personality, but headstrong and outspoken on-screen persona, often playing strong-willed women.
Go to Profile#26614
Brian Wesbury
#26625
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Brian S. Wesbury is an American economist focusing on macroeconomics and economic forecasting. He is the economics editor and a monthly contributor for The American Spectator, in addition to appearing on television stations such as CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV frequently. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and for five years served as an adjunct professor of economics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.
Go to Profile#26615
Eric Bristow
#26626
Overall Influence
1957 - 2018 (61 years)
Eric John Bristow , nicknamed "The Crafty Cockney", was an English professional darts player. He was ranked World No. 1 by the World Darts Federation a record five times, in 1980, 1981 and 1983–1985. He was a five-time World Champion, a five-time World Masters Champion a four-time World Cup singles champion and 2-time champion of the News of the World Darts Championship. He won 22 WDF and BDO Major titles, he won 62 individual career titles, added to 20 titles in team events, winning 82 overall. In the 1980s, Bristow's skill and personality helped turn darts into a worldwide spectator sport.
Go to Profile#26616
Jan Plamper
#26627
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jan Plamper is a German professor of history at the University of Limerick. His research interests include Russian history, the history of emotions, sensory history, and the history of migration. After obtaining a B.A. in History at Brandeis University in 1992, Plamper did social work for Memorial in St. Petersburg.
Go to Profile#26617
Fikret Berkes
#26628
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Fikret Berkes is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute. Berkes studies community-based natural resources management in societies around the world.
Go to Profile#26618
Andrés Torres Queiruga
#26629
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Andrés Torres Queiruga is a Galician theologian, writer and translator. He studied in Santiago de Compostela and Comillas Pontifical University. He is a doctor in Theology and Philosophy. Queiruga lectures Theology at the Instituto Teolóxico compostelá and philosophy of religion at the University of Santiago de Compostela. A member of the Real Academia Galega and the Consello da Cultura Galega, he was a founder of the magazine Encrucillada: Revista Galega de Pensamento Cristián, nowadays he is director of the Asociación Encrucillada. He is a staff member of the magazines Iglesia Viva, Sal Ter...
Go to Profile#26619
Nyoman Nuarta
#26630
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
I Nyoman Nuarta is an Indonesian sculptor and artist who created a number of monuments across Indonesia. His "most ambitious and notable" work was the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Statue in Bali's GWK Park, completed in 2018. Officiated by president Joko Widodo, the statue stands 121 meters tall and weighs over 4,000 pounds; at the time of its creation, it was the tallest statue of a Hindu deity and it is currently the tallest statue in Indonesia.
Go to Profile#26620
Jonathan Pollard
#26631
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jonathan Jay Pollard is an American former intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel. In 1984, Pollard sold numerous closely guarded state secrets, including the National Security Agency's ten-volume manual on how the U.S. gathers its signal intelligence, and disclosed the names of thousands of people who had cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies. He was apprehended in 1985, and in subsequent proceedings agreed to a plea deal, pleaded guilty to spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel. Pollard admitted shopping his services—successfully, in some cases—to other countries.
Go to Profile#26621
John A. Hartigan
#26632
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
John Anthony Hartigan is an Australian-American statistician, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Statistics emeritus at Yale University. He made fundamental contributions to clustering algorithms, including the famous Hartigan-Wong method and biclustering, and Bayesian statistics.
Go to Profile#26622
Robert Stack
#26633
Overall Influence
1919 - 2003 (84 years)
Robert Stack was an American actor and television host. Known for his deep voice and commanding presence, he appeared in over forty feature films. He starred in the ABC television series The Untouchables , for which he won the 1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series, and later hosted/narrated the true-crime series Unsolved Mysteries . He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind . Later in his career, Stack was known for his deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen pers...
Go to Profile#26623
Jason Herbison
#26634
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Jason Herbison is an Australian television producer, screenwriter and novelist, most recently serving as the executive producer of the soap opera Neighbours. He has written scripts for numerous television serials, and has published several novels.
Go to Profile#26624
Kelsey Martin
#26635
Overall Influence
Kelsey Martin is a professor of biological chemistry, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA and the director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and the Simons Foundation Neuroscience Collaborations. She was the former dean of David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA from 2015 to 2021., and was the first woman to be named Dean of the UCLA medical school, and was one of just a few female medical school Deans in the United States. She has been the director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Neuroscience Collaborations since September 2021.
Go to Profile#26625
William Balée
#26636
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
William Balée is a professor of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. About Balée was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and educated at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he received a B.A. in Anthropology before moving on to Columbia University in New York City where he earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology .
Go to Profile#26626
Jonathan Sarna
#26637
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#26627
Ken Orr
#26638
Overall Influence
1939 - 2016 (77 years)
Kenneth T. Orr was an American software engineer, executive and consultant, known for his contributions in the field of software engineering to structured analysis and with the Warnier/Orr diagram. Education Orr received his BA in Mathematics and Physics in 1960 from Wichita State University, and his MA in Philosophy in 1963 from the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#26628
Paul Longley
#26639
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Paul A. Longley is a British geographer. He is Professor of Geographic Information Science at University College London , UK, where he also directs the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre. Prior to joining UCL in July 2000, he was the Professor of Geography at the University of Bristol.
Go to Profile#26629
Elon Musk
#26640
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Elon Musk is an influential entrepreneur and business man. He is well known because of his incredible vision and ability to turn his ideas into reality. He has founded or co-founded some of the most successful companies in the world, including Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. Musk is also a major philanthropist, donating millions of dollars to charities and causes. Musk is constantly innovating and pushing boundaries, which has made him one of the most respected and admired entrepreneurs in the world. 1. Elon Musk is the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, co-founder of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity.
Go to Profile#26630
Teddy Riley
#26641
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Edward Theodore Riley is an American record producer and songwriter credited with the creation of the R&B-hip hop fusion genre new jack swing. He is the creator and lead singer of the musical group Blackstreet, as well as its precedessor, Guy. The genre also gained popularity from artists who heavily utilized Riley's production and songwriting distinction, namely Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, Heavy D & the Boyz, Keith Sweat, Hi-Five, and the Jackson 5, among others.
Go to Profile#26631
Darko Tresnjak
#26642
Overall Influence
Darko Tresnjak is a director of plays, musicals, and opera, and winner of several awards, including the Tony Award. He was the artistic director of the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, United States. Early life and education Tresnjak is of Serbian heritage. Tresnjak and his mother moved from Zemun, Yugoslavia to Maryland in 1976. He graduated from Swarthmore College, became a US citizen, and received a master of fine arts degree from Columbia University.
Go to Profile#26632
Robert Ash
#26643
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Robert Lafayette Ash is a Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and an Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Early life and education In 1968, Ash graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans with a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and in 1963, he graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Ash's father-in-law was Lewis Webb Jr., who served as the first president of Old Dominion University.
Go to Profile#26633
Chip Monck
#26644
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Edward Herbert Beresford "Chip" Monck is an American Tony Award nominated lighting designer, most famously serving as the master of ceremonies at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Personal history Monck was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts to a mother from Nutley, New Jersey and a father from Liverpool, England. He acquired the nickname "Chip" at a summer camp on Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire. While Monck went to the South Kent School on scholarships for ice hockey and crew, he became more interested in welding and machinery, designing a potato harvester that he sold to McCormick. He began ...
Go to Profile#26634
Cicely Tyson
#26645
Overall Influence
1924 - 2021 (97 years)
Cecily Louise "Cicely" Tyson was an American actress known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.
Go to Profile#26635
Janet Leigh
#26646
Overall Influence
1927 - 2004 (77 years)
Jeanette Helen Morrison , known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Go to Profile#26636
Leslie Holdridge
#26647
Overall Influence
1907 - 1999 (92 years)
Leslie Ransselaer Holdridge was an American botanist and climatologist. He was the father of composer Lee Holdridge as well as the father of Leslie A. Holdridge, Lorena Holdridge, Marbella Holdridge, Marly Holdridge, Marisela Holdridge, Thania Holdridge, John Holdridge, Ida Holdridge, Reuseland Holdridge, Leythy J. Holdridge and youngest son Gregory Holdridge whom he fathered with Costa Rican Clara Luz Melendez.
Go to Profile#26637
James Ware
#26648
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
William James Ware is a retired United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Early life and education Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Ware received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 from California Lutheran University and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1972. Ware was a United States Army Reserve Second Lieutenant in 1972 and also served in the United States Army as a Military Police Officer in 1973. Ware also served as a United States Army Reserve Captain in the Military Police from 1973 to 1986 after graduating from Stanf...
Go to Profile#26638
Michael P. Nelson
#26649
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Michael Paul Nelson is an environmental scholar, writer, teacher, speaker, consultant, and Professor of environmental philosophy and ethics at Oregon State University. Nelson is also the philosopher in residence of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project, a senior fellow with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written word, and the co-founder and co-director of the Conservation Ethics Group. From 2012 to 2022 he served as the Lead Principal Investigator for the H.J. Andrews Long-Term Ecological Research Program and held the Ruth H. Spaniol Chair in Renewable Resources at Oregon Sta...
Go to Profile#26639
Jean Malaurie
#26650
Overall Influence
1922 - Present (104 years)
Jean Malaurie is a French cultural anthropologist, explorer, geographer, physicist, and writer. He and Kutsikitsoq, an Inuk, were the first two men to reach the North Geomagnetic Pole on 29 May 1951.
Go to Profile#26640
Yasuo Fukuda
#26651
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Yasuo Fukuda is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2007 to 2008. He was previously the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving in that role from 2000 to 2004 under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi. His record was surpassed by Yoshihide Suga, who served almost twice as long.
Go to Profile#26641
Peter M. Rhee
#26652
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Peter Meong Rhee is an American surgeon, medical professor, and military veteran. During his 24 years in the United States Navy, Rhee served as a battlefield casualty physician in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Go to Profile#26642
Daniel Horan
#26653
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Daniel Patrick Horan is an American Franciscan friar, Catholic priest, theologian, and author. He is currently the director of the Center for Spirituality and professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He previously held the Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He is a columnist for National Catholic Reporter.
Go to Profile#26643
Mari Jo Buhle
#26654
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mari Jo Buhle is an American historian and William J. Kenan Jr. University Professor Emerita at Brown University. Early life and education Buhle was born in 1943 as Mari Jo Kupski. She graduated from North Chicago Community High School in 1961.
Go to Profile#26644
Pierre DuMaine
#26655
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Roland Pierre DuMaine was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the Diocese of San José in California from 1981 to 1999. He also served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in California from 1978 to 1981.
Go to Profile#26645
Neil Smith
#26656
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Neilson Voyne Smith FBA , known as Neil Smith, was Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at University College London. He wrote his PhD on the grammar of Nupe, a language of Nigeria. Since then his research has encompassed theoretical syntax, language acquisition, the savant syndrome, and general linguistic theory, particularly the work of Noam Chomsky.
Go to Profile#26646
Mark Hatfield
#26657
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
Mark Odom Hatfield was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served eight years as Governor of Oregon, followed by 30 years as one of its United States senators, including time as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. A native Oregonian, he served in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II after graduating from Willamette University. After the war he earned a graduate degree from Stanford University before returning to Oregon and Willamette as a professor.
Go to Profile#26647
David DeWitt
#26658
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David J. DeWitt is a computer scientist specializing in database management system research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to moving to MIT, DeWitt was the John P. Morgridge Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was also a Technical Fellow at Microsoft, leading the Microsoft Jim Gray Systems Lab at Madison, Wisconsin. Professor DeWitt received a B.A. degree from Colgate University in 1970, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1976. He then joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison and started the Wisconsin Database Group, wh...
Go to Profile#26648
Deryk Osthus
#26659
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Deryk Osthus is the Professor of Graph Theory at the School of Mathematics, University of Birmingham. He is known for his research in combinatorics, predominantly in extremal and probabilistic graph theory.
Go to Profile#26649
Boris Levitan
#26660
Overall Influence
1914 - 2004 (90 years)
Boris Levitan was a mathematician known in particular for his work on almost periodic functions, and Sturm–Liouville operators, especially, on inverse scattering. Life Boris Levitan was born in Berdyansk , and grew up in Kharkiv. He graduated from Kharkov University in 1936; in 1938, he submitted his PhD thesis "Some Generalization of Almost Periodic Function" under the supervision of Naum Akhiezer. Then he defended the habilitation thesis "Theory of Generalized Translation Operators".
Go to Profile#26650
Felix Finster
#26661
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Felix Finster is a German mathematician working on problems in mathematical physics, geometry and analysis. Life and work Finster studied physics and mathematics at Heidelberg University, where he graduated in 1992 with Franz Wegner and Claus Gerhardt. In 1992–1995 he wrote his PhD thesis at ETH Zürich with Konrad Osterwalder. In 1996–1998 he was post-doc at Harvard University. From 1998–2002 he was member of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig. He got his habilitation in 2000 at Leipzig University. Since 2002 he is full professor of mathematics at the Universi...
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