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
#26951
Yehuda Zvi Blum
#26962
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Yehuda Zvi Blum is an Israeli professor of law and diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1978 to 1984. Biography Yehuda Z. Blum was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1931, and observed his bar-mitzvah in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He immigrated to British Mandate for Palestine in 1945. Blum earned his law degree from the University of London. His doctoral thesis, in 1961, was on Historic titles in international law.
Go to Profile#26952
Michael Shelley
#26963
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michael J. Shelley is an American applied mathematician who works on the modeling and simulation of complex systems arising in physics and biology. This has included free-boundary problems in fluids and materials science, singularity formation in partial differential equations, modeling visual perception in the primary visual cortex, dynamics of complex and active fluids, cellular biophysics, and fluid-structure interaction problems such as the flapping of flags, stream-lining in nature, and flapping flight. He is also the co-founder and co-director of the Courant Institute's Applied Mathemat...
Go to Profile#26953
Amir Banoo Karimi
#26964
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Amir-Banoo Karimi is an Iranian academic and professor of Persian literature, specializing in classical Persian literature and the work of Saib Tabrizi. In 2004, Karimi was inducted into the Iranian Science and Culture Hall of Fame for her lifelong contributions to Persian studies, language, and literature.
Go to Profile#26954
David Luiz
#26965
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
David Luiz Moreira Marinho is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays for Flamengo. He is primarily a centre back but has also been deployed as a defensive midfielder. After starting out at Vitoria, David Luiz moved to Benfica, remaining with the club for five seasons . He joined Chelsea in January 2011, winning the UEFA Champions League during the 2011–12 season. In the following season he won the UEFA Europa League. In June 2014, he transferred to Paris Saint-Germain for a fee of £50 million, at that time a world record transfer for a defender, and won all four domestic competitions over his two seasons in French football.
Go to Profile#26955
Miguel Induráin
#26966
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Miguel Induráin Larraya is a retired Spanish road racing cyclist. Induráin won five Tours de France from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, and last, to win five times, and the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively.
Go to Profile#26956
Hal V. Barron
#26967
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Hal V. Barron is an American clinician-scientist and drug developer who served as president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline from March 2018 until 2022, when he resigned in order to join the cellular reprogramming venture Altos Labs in August of that year. Prior to this he served as president of research and development at Calico. He has served as executive vice president, head of global product development, and chief medical officer of Hoffman-La Roche.
Go to Profile#26957
Andy Partridge
#26968
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Andrew John Partridge is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who founded the rock band XTC. He and Colin Moulding each acted as a songwriter and frontman for XTC, with Partridge writing and singing about two-thirds of the group's material. While the band were a formative punk group, Partridge's music drew heavily from 1960s songwriters, and his style gradually shifted to more traditional pop, often with pastoral themes. The band's only UK top 10 hit, "Senses Working Overtime" , was written by Partridge.
Go to Profile#26958
Katalin Marton
#26969
Overall Influence
1941 - 2019 (78 years)
Katalin Marton was a Hungarian mathematician, born in Budapest. Education and career Marton obtained her PhD from Eötvös Loránd University in 1965 and worked at the Department of Numerical Mathematics, Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest from 1965 to 1973. Important influences on her early career were her attendance at the combinatorics seminar organised by Alfréd Rényi from 1966, meeting Roland Dobrushin in Debrecen in 1967 , and her collaboration with Imre Csiszár which began in 1972. From 1973 she worked at the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of ...
Go to Profile#26959
Douglas Harding
#26970
Overall Influence
1909 - 2007 (98 years)
Douglas Edison Harding was an English philosophical writer, mystic, spiritual teacher and author of a number of books, including On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious , which describes simple techniques he invented for readers to experience the non-duality of consciousness.
Go to Profile#26960
Jacqueline Dutheil de la Rochère
#26971
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Jacqueline Dutheil de la Rochère is a French aristocrat, Professor Emerita of Law and former President of Panthéon-Assas University in Paris. Early life Jacqueline de Raguet de Brancion was born on December 18, 1940 in Nîmes, France. Her father was Jacques Chatel de Raguet de Brancion and her mother, Françoise Barbier.
Go to Profile#26961
Jake Delhomme
#26972
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Jake Christopher Delhomme is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League . Delhomme played college football at Louisiana, then known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana, before being signed by the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent after the 1997 NFL Draft. Delhomme began his professional career as a practice squad player with the Saints in 1997 and 1998 and played in the NFL Europe for two years in between NFL seasons. Returning to the Saints, Delhomme played his first NFL games in 1999. Delhomme played as the Carolina Panthers starting quarterback from 2003 to 2009.
Go to Profile#26962
James A. Banks
#26973
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
James Albert Banks is an American educator and the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies Emeritus and founding director of the University of Washington's Center for Multicultural Education, which is now the Banks Center for Educational Justice. He focuses on the discipline of multicultural education.
Go to Profile#26963
Assata Shakur
#26974
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Assata Olugbala Shakur is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army . In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. She escaped from prison in 1979 and is currently wanted by the FBI, with a $1 million FBI reward for information leading to her capture, and an additional $1 million reward offered by the Attorney General of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#26964
Steven Shavell
#26975
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Steven Shavell is an economist who is currently Samuel R. Rosenthal Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School. Shavell is the founder and director of the School's John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business.
Go to Profile#26965
Klaus Iohannis
#26976
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Klaus Werner Iohannis , sometimes briefly referred to as KWI in the Romanian press, is a Romanian politician, physicist, and former physics teacher who has been serving as the president of Romania since 2014. He became the president of the National Liberal Party in 2014, after previously serving as the leader of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania between 2002 and 2013. Prior to entering national politics, he was a physics teacher at the Samuel von Brukenthal National College in his native Sibiu .
Go to Profile#26966
John L. McKenzie
#26977
Overall Influence
1910 - 1991 (81 years)
John Lawrence McKenzie was an American Catholic biblical scholar. Biography McKenzie was born on October 9, 1910, in Brazil, Indiana, the first of the six children of Myra and Harry McKenzie. John McKenzie became the premier Catholic biblical scholar of the mid-twentieth century; indeed, John Courtney Murray wrote that John McKenzie was "the best Catholic theologian he knew of in the United States."
Go to Profile#26967
Gerald F. Davis
#26978
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Gerald Fredrick Davis is an American sociologist and the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, known for his work on corporate networks, social movements and organization theory.
Go to Profile#26968
Mark Teixeira
#26979
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Mark Charles Teixeira , nicknamed "Tex", is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 14 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and New York Yankees. Before his professional career, he played college baseball at Georgia Tech, where in 2000 he won the Dick Howser Trophy as the national collegiate baseball player of the year. One of the most prolific switch hitters in MLB history, Teixeira was an integral part of the Yankees' 27th World Series championship in 2009, leading the American League in home runs and runs batted in while finishing second in the Most Valuable Player Award balloting.
Go to Profile#26969
José Luis Encarnação
#26980
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
José Luis Moreira da Encarnação is a Portuguese computer scientist, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Computer Science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany and a senior technology and innovation advisor to governments, multinational companies, research institutions and organizations, and foundations. He is involved in the development of research agendas and innovation strategies for socio-economic development with a focus on emerging economies. He is also a member of the Topical Network Information and Communication Technology and ICT-related activities of the German Natio...
Go to Profile#26970
Monica Turner
#26981
Overall Influence
Monica G. Turner is an American ecologist known for her work at Yellowstone National Park since the large fires of 1988. She is currently the Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Go to Profile#26971
John Rarity
#26982
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
John G. Rarity is professor of optical communication systems in the department of electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Bristol, a post he has held since 1 January 2003. He is an international expert on quantum optics, quantum cryptography and quantum communication using single photons and entanglement. Rarity is a member of the Quantum Computation and Information group and quantum photonics at the University of Bristol.
Go to Profile#26972
Cormac Cullinan
#26983
Overall Influence
Cormac Cullinan is a practising environmental attorney and author based in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a director of the leading South African environmental law firm, Cullinan & Associates Inc, and director of the Wild Law Institute, a non-profit organisation that advocates for Rights of Nature. A former commercial lawyer, he has practiced, taught and written about environmental law and policy since 1992, and has worked in more than 20 countries.
Go to Profile#26973
Albert A. Bühlmann
#26984
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Albert Alois Bühlmann was a Swiss physician who was principally responsible for a number of important contributions to decompression science at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. His impact on diving ranged from complex commercial and military diving to the occasional recreational diver. He is held in high regard for his professional ethics and attention to his research subjects.
Go to Profile#26974
Jun Ye
#26985
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jun Ye is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular and optical physics.
Go to Profile#26975
Harish Poptani
#26986
Overall Influence
Harish Poptani is a University of Liverpool's Professor and Chair of the center for Preclinical Imaging. He did his PhD in Radiology from Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and MS in Organic Chemistry from University of Lucknow.
Go to Profile#26976
Mushtaq Khan
#26987
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Mushtaq Husain Khan is a British-Bangladeshi economist and professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies , University of London. His work focuses on the economics of poor countries; it includes notable contributions to the field of institutional economics and South Asian development. Khan also developed the concept of political settlement, which is a political economy framework that highlights how the distribution of organizational and political power among different classes or groups influences policies and institutions in different countries.
Go to Profile#26977
Jeffrey Heer
#26988
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Jeffrey Michael Heer is an American computer scientist best known for his work on information visualization and interactive data analysis. He is a professor of computer science & engineering at the University of Washington, where he directs the UW Interactive Data Lab. He co-founded Trifacta with Joe Hellerstein and Sean Kandel in 2012.
Go to Profile#26978
Redman
#26989
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Reginald Noble , better known by his stage name Redman, is an American rapper, DJ, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame in the early 1990s as an artist on the Def Jam label. He is well known for his collaborations with his close friend Method Man, as one-half of the rap duo Method Man & Redman including their starring roles in films and sitcoms which include How High and Method and Red. He was also a member of the Def Squad in the late 1990s.
Go to Profile#26979
Montserrat Teixidor i Bigas
#26990
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Montserrat Teixidor i Bigas is a Spanish-American academic who is a professor of mathematics at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She specializes in algebraic geometry, especially Moduli of Vector Bundles on curves.
Go to Profile#26980
João Gilberto
#26991
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
João Gilberto was a Brazilian guitarist, singer, and composer who was a pioneer of the musical genre of bossa nova in the late 1950s. Around the world, he was often called "father of bossa nova"; in his native Brazil, he was referred to as "O Mito" . In 1965, the album Getz/Gilberto was the first jazz record to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also won Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Nominated at the Grammy 1978 in the category Best Jazz Vocal Performance, album Amoroso, and winner category in Grammy 2001 with João voz...
Go to Profile#26981
Juan Luis Arsuaga
#26992
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras is a Spanish paleoanthropologist and author known for his work in the Atapuerca Archaeological Site. He obtained a master's degree and a doctorate in Biological Sciences at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he is professor in the Paleontology Department of the Faculty of Geological Sciences.
Go to Profile#26982
Giancarlo Pallavicini
#26993
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Giancarlo Pallavicini is an Italian writer and academic. External links Pallavicini at "Encyclopedia Treccani" website
Go to Profile#26983
Robert Sinclair MacKay
#26994
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Robert Sinclair MacKay is a British mathematician and professor at the University of Warwick. He researches dynamical systems, the calculus of variations, Hamiltonian dynamics and applications to complex systems in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and economics.
Go to Profile#26984
Jouko Lindstedt
#26995
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jouko Lindstedt is a Finnish linguist and a professor at the University of Helsinki. Lindstedt is a member of the Academy of Esperanto and was nominated as the Esperantist of the Year in 2000 by The Wave of Esperanto.
Go to Profile#26985
Todd Martin
#26996
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Todd Martin is an American retired tennis player. He reached the men's singles final at the 1994 Australian Open and the 1999 US Open and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4. Playing career Martin was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, and played tennis for two years at Northwestern University before turning professional in 1990. His parents lived in Lansing, Michigan, where Martin went to nearby East Lansing High School. At Northwestern, he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He won his first top-level singles title in 1993 at Coral Springs, Florida. Martin traveled with good friend David Helfer for much of the '92 season.
Go to Profile#26986
Lane P. Hughston
#26997
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Lane P. Hughston is an American mathematician. Early life and education Lane P. Hughston was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and raised in Dallas, Texas, where he attended J. J. Pershing Elementary School, Benjamin Franklin Junior High School, and Hillcrest High School. He is the son of Edward Wallace Hughston and Joan Palmer Hughston. He holds a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a student of Roger Penrose. While he was a student at Oxford he was based at Magdalen College.
Go to Profile#26987
Lute Olson
#26998
Overall Influence
1934 - 2020 (86 years)
Robert Luther "Lute" Olson was an American basketball coach, who was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats men's team for 25 years. He was also head coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes for nine years and Long Beach State 49ers for one season. Known for player development and great recruiting, many of his former players have gone on to have impressive careers in the NBA. On October 23, 2008, Olson announced his retirement from coaching. Olson died on August 27, 2020, in Tucson, Arizona.
Go to Profile#26988
Gary Anderson
#26999
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Gary Anderson is a British semi-retired racing car designer and motorsport pundit/commentator. Biography Early career Born in Northern Ireland, Anderson moved to England in 1972 with the dream of becoming a racing driver but instead found work as a mechanic at Motor Racing Stables at Brands Hatch. Some time later, he found a job at Brabham, helping to build their Formula 3 cars. He then began to work with the Brabham Formula 1 team and quickly progressed to become their chief mechanic. It was during his time at Brabham that he met his future wife, who sent a letter to Bernie Ecclestone on Ga...
Go to Profile#26989
Richard W. Bailey
#27000
Overall Influence
1939 - 2011 (72 years)
Richard Weld Bailey was an American linguist, scholar of the English language, and the Fred Newton Scott Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Bailey was born in Pontiac, Michigan to Karl and Elisabeth Bailey. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1961, having also studied for a year at the University of Edinburgh. He received his MA and Ph.D in English from the University of Connecticut in 1965. He died in 2011 at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Go to Profile#26990
Ian Parker
#27001
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Ian Parker is a British psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Emeritus Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Leicester. Biography Parker went to Ravens Wood School in Keston, Bromley, UK, studied psychology at Plymouth Polytechnic and the University of Southampton, lectured at Manchester Polytechnic from 1985, was appointed Professor of Psychology at Bolton Institute in 1996, and returned to Manchester as Professor of Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000. In 2012 he was suspended for questioning, in his capacity as departmental union representative for the University and College Union, work-load and appointment procedures.
Go to Profile#26991
Guido Westerwelle
#27002
Overall Influence
1961 - 2016 (55 years)
Guido Westerwelle was a German politician who served as foreign minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011, being the first openly gay person to hold any of these positions. He also led the liberal Free Democratic Party from 2001 until he stepped down in 2011. A lawyer by profession, he was a member of the Bundestag from 1996 to 2013.
Go to Profile#26992
Louise DeSalvo
#27003
Overall Influence
1942 - 2018 (76 years)
Louise A. DeSalvo was an American writer, editor, professor, and lecturer who lived in New Jersey. Much of her work focused on Italian-American culture, though she was also a renowned Virginia Woolf scholar.
Go to Profile#26993
Herman Berendsen
#27004
Overall Influence
1934 - 2019 (85 years)
Herman Johan Christiaan Berendsen was a Dutch chemist. He was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Groningen from 1967 to 1999. Career Berendsen was born on 22 September 1934 in Apeldoorn. In 1962 he obtained his PhD cum laude from the University of Groningen, with a dissertation titled: "An NMR study of collagen hydration". In March 1963 Berendsen was appointed lector of physical chemistry at his alma mater, and four years later became full professor. He retired in 1999. At Groningen Berendsen was group leader of molecular dynamics.
Go to Profile#26994
Tim Wu
#27005
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
#26995
Jim Messina
#27006
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Jim Messina is an American political adviser who was the White House deputy chief of staff for operations under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011 and served as the campaign manager for Obama's successful 2012 re-election campaign. His "innovative fusion of technology and politics led Google chairman Eric Schmidt to call the 2012 race 'the best-run campaign ever'". He is the CEO of the Messina Group.
Go to Profile#26996
Ed Thrasher
#27007
Overall Influence
1932 - 2006 (74 years)
Edward Lee Thrasher Jr. , known as Ed Thrasher, was an American art director and photographer. He was the recipient of a number of Grammy Award nominations for his work on album covers and won a Grammy for Best Album Package in 1974 for the Mason Proffit cover Come & Gone. He worked with various recording artists.
Go to Profile#26997
Stefan Rozental
#27008
Overall Influence
1903 - 1994 (91 years)
Stefan Rozental , was a nuclear physicist, specialising in quantum mechanics. Trapped outside Poland when World War I started, he and his parents ended up in Denmark and spent four years from 1915 there before they returned to their native Poland in 1919 after the war. He received his PhD from the University of Kraków in 1928.
Go to Profile#26998
Ifi Amadiume
#27009
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ifi Amadiume is a Nigerian poet, anthropologist and essayist. She joined the Religion Department of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, US, in 1993. Biography Born in Kaduna to Igbo parents, Ife Amadiume was educated in Nigeria before moving to Britain in 1971. She studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, gaining a BA and PhD in social anthropology respectively. She was a research fellow for a year at the University of Nigeria, Enugu, and taught and lectured in the UK, Canada, US and Senegal. Her fieldwork in Africa resulted in two ethnographic monographs ...
Go to Profile#26999
James Arthur
#27010
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
James Greig Arthur is a Canadian mathematician working on automorphic forms, and former President of the American Mathematical Society. He is a Mossman Chair and University Professor at the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics.
Go to Profile#27000
Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín
#27011
Overall Influence
1927 - 2006 (79 years)
Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín , was archbishop of Guayaquil for ten years, and the first member of the prelature of Opus Dei in Ecuador. He was also a distinguished lawyer, frequently consulted about Ecuadorian Civil law and the author of more than 60 books about jurisprudence.
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