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
#27001
Jasvinder K Gambhir
#27012
Overall Influence
Jasvinder K Gambhir is an Indian doctor, researcher and professor in the fields of clinical biochemistry, diabetology and cardiology. Dr Gambhir completed her master's in biochemistry in 1972 from Punjab University and PhD from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research She has an experience in the field of over 40 years. She is Senior professor and Head of Department, Biochemistry at University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and Senior Professor at School of Medical Sciences and Research Noida. Dr. Gambhir is also a member of American Association of Clinical Chemistry ...
Go to Profile#27002
Berit Brogaard
#27013
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Berit Oskar Brogaard is a Danish–American philosopher specializing in the areas of cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Her recent work concerns synesthesia, savant syndrome, blindsight and perceptual reports. She is professor of philosophy and runs a perception lab at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. She was also co-editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report until 2021.
Go to Profile#27003
Brian Martin
#27014
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Brian Martin is a social scientist in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, at the University of Wollongong in NSW, Australia. He was appointed a professor at the university in 2007, and in 2017 was appointed emeritus professor. His work is in the fields of peace research, scientific controversies, science and technology studies, sociology, political science, media studies, law, journalism, freedom of speech, education and corrupted institutions, as well as research on whistleblowing and dissent in the context of science. Martin was president of Whistleblowers Australia from 1996 to 1999 and remains their International Director.
Go to Profile#27004
Vijay Seshadri
#27015
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Vijay Seshadri is an American poet, essayist and literary critic based in Brooklyn. Vijay won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for 3 Sections. Early life Vijay's parents immigrated to the United States from Bangalore, India when he was five. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where his father taught chemistry at Ohio State University.
Go to Profile#27005
Shankar Sastry
#27016
Overall Influence
S. Shankar Sastry is the Founding Chancellor of the Plaksha University, Mohali and a former Dean of Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. From 1996-1999, he was the director of the Electronics Research Laboratory at Berkeley. From 1999-early 2001, he was on leave from Berkeley as director of the Information Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . He has served as chairman, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciencess, University of California, Berkeley from January, 2001 through June 2004. From 2004 to 2007 he was the director of CITRIS ...
Go to Profile#27006
Graham Hutchings
#27017
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Graham John Hutchings CBE FRS FIChemE FRSC FLSW is a British chemist, Professor for Research at Cardiff University. He gained his BSc in 1972 at University College London, a PhD from University College in 1975 in Biological Chemistry and a DSc from the University of London in 2002 for his work on heterogeneous catalysis.
Go to Profile#27007
George Lakey
#27018
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
George Russell Lakey is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.
Go to Profile#27008
Christopher Lloyd
#27019
Overall Influence
1921 - 2006 (85 years)
Christopher "Christo" Hamilton Lloyd, OBE was an English gardener and a gardening author of note, as the 20th-century chronicler for thickly planted, labour-intensive country gardening. Life Lloyd was born in Great Dixter, into an upper-middle-class family, the youngest of six children. In 1910, his father, Nathaniel Lloyd, an Arts and Crafts architect, author, printer and designer of posters and other images for confectionery firms,
Go to Profile#27009
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
#27020
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He conducts research into the network economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the co-author of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think and author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age , which won the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book and the 2010 Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science and Technology Politics, and has written over a hundred articles and book chapters.
Go to Profile#27010
Tikva Frymer-Kensky
#27021
Overall Influence
1943 - 2006 (63 years)
Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky was a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She received her MA and PhD from Yale University. She had previously served on the faculties of Wayne State University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yale University, Ben Gurion University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she served as director of Biblical studies.
Go to Profile#27011
Bruce Kogut
#27022
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Bruce Mitchel Kogut is an American organizational theorist, and Professor of Leadership and Ethics Director of the Columbia Business School. He is particularly known for his work with Udo Zander on knowledge-based theory of the firm.
Go to Profile#27012
Kay Hymowitz
#27023
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kay S. Hymowitz is an American author. Early life and education Born in Philadelphia, she earned her B.A. at Brandeis University, and her M.A. in English literature from Tufts University. Career She taught English literature and composition at Brooklyn College and at the Parsons School of Design. As of 2010 she was the William E. Simon fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
Go to Profile#27013
Paulo S. L. M. Barreto
#27024
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Paulo S. L. M. Barreto is a Brazilian cryptographer and one of the designers of the Whirlpool hash function and the block ciphers Anubis and KHAZAD, together with Vincent Rijmen. He has also co-authored a number of research works on elliptic curve cryptography and pairing-based cryptography, including the eta pairing technique, identity-based cryptographic protocols, and the family of Barreto–Naehrig pairing-friendly elliptic curvess. More recently he has been focusing his research on post-quantum cryptography, being one of the discoverers of quasi-dyadic codes and quasi-cyclic moderate-dens...
Go to Profile#27014
Margaret Morgan Lawrence
#27025
Overall Influence
1914 - 2019 (105 years)
Margaret Cornelia Morgan Lawrence was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, gaining those qualifications in 1948. Her work included clinical care, teaching, and research, particularly into the presence and development of ego strength in inner-city families. Lawrence studied young children identified as "strong" by their teachers in Georgia and Mississippi, as well as on sabbatical in Africa in 1973, writing two books on mental health of children and inner-city families. Lawrence was chief of the Developmental Psychiatry Service for Infants and Children at Harlem Hospital for 21 years, ...
Go to Profile#27015
Henrik I. Christensen
#27026
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Henrik Iskov Christensen is a Danish roboticist and Professor of Computer Science at Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. He is also the Director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego.
Go to Profile#27016
Ramani Durvasula
#27027
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ramani Suryakantham Durvasula is an American clinical psychologist, retired professor of psychology , media expert, and author. She has appeared on media outlets discussing narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse, including Red Table Talk, Bravo, the Lifetime Movie Network, National Geographic, and the History Channel, as well programs such as the TODAY show and Good Morning America.
Go to Profile#27017
Samaun Samadikun
#27028
Overall Influence
1931 - 2006 (75 years)
Samaun Samadikun was an Indonesian electrical engineer. Early life Samaun was born on 15 April 1931 in Magetan. He was the fourth child of Dutch East Indies civil service Samadikun, later became East Java governor, and Mubandi. Samaun was maternally a descendant of Sultan Hamengkubuwono I. As a teenager, Samaun knew radio transceiver in details and helped Tentara Genie Pelajar applying radio.
Go to Profile#27018
David Strangway
#27029
Overall Influence
1934 - 2016 (82 years)
David William Strangway, was a Canadian geophysicist and university administrator. Strangway was the founder, first President and first Chancellor of Quest University Canada, a private non-profit liberal arts and sciences university in Squamish, British Columbia which opened in September 2007. He was President Emeritus of the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.
Go to Profile#27019
Robert Creighton Buck
#27030
Overall Influence
1920 - 1998 (78 years)
Robert Creighton Buck , usually cited as R. Creighton Buck, was an American mathematician who, with Ralph Boas, introduced Boas–Buck polynomials. He taught at University of Wisconsin–Madison for 40 years. In addition, he was a writer.
Go to Profile#27020
Tom L. Humphries
#27031
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Tom L. Humphries is an American academic, author, and lecturer on Deaf culture and deaf communication. Humphries is a professor at the University of California, San Diego . Early life Humphries coined the term audism in an unpublished paper in 1975 and repeated the term in his doctoral PDE in 1977. He earned his Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Communication and Language Learning at Union Institute & University in 1977.
Go to Profile#27021
Ulrike Beisiegel
#27032
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Ulrike Beisiegel is a German biochemist and university professor who in 2011 became the first woman to serve as president of the University of Göttingen, founded in 1737. Her research on liver fats and disease was honored with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Rudolf Schönheimer Medal and an honorary doctorate. Intent on maintaining high levels of scholarship and diminishing scientific misconduct, she has served on many boards and committees, receiving the Ubbo-Emmius Medal for her commitment to good scientific practice and an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#27022
Denis Rousseau
#27033
Overall Influence
Denis L. Rousseau is an American scientist. He is currently professor and university chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Biography Rousseau is professor and university chairman of physiology and biophysics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, of Yeshiva University, a position he has held since 1996. He received his B.A. from Bowdoin College and received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Princeton University. After holding a position as research associate in the physics department at the University of Southern California, ...
Go to Profile#27023
Rick Adelman
#27034
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Richard Leonard Adelman is an American former professional basketball player and coach. He coached 23 seasons in the National Basketball Association . Adelman served as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 2021.
Go to Profile#27024
David Applegate
#27035
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David L. Applegate is an American computer scientist known for his research on the traveling salesperson problem. Education Applegate graduated from the University of Dayton in 1984, and completed his doctorate in 1991 from Carnegie Mellon University, with a dissertation on convex volume approximation supervised by Ravindran Kannan.
Go to Profile#27025
Nikki Sixx
#27036
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Nikki Sixx is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, bassist, and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Prior to forming Mötley Crüe, Sixx was a member of Sister before going on to form London with his Sister bandmate Lizzie Grey. In 2000, he formed side project group 58 with Dave Darling, Steve Gibb and Bucket Baker, issuing one album, Diet for a New America. Also in 2002, he formed the hard rock supergroup Brides of Destruction with L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns. Formed in 2006, initially to record an audio accompaniment to Sixx's autobiography The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, his side band Sixx:A.M.
Go to Profile#27026
James R. Kearl
#27037
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
James R. Kearl is the Abraham O. Smoot Professor of Economics at Brigham Young University and a principal figure in establishing the BYU Jerusalem Center. Kearl was born in Logan, Utah, and earned a bachelor's degree from Utah State University in Mathematics and Economics. He obtained a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed a post-doctoral program in Law at Harvard Law School.
Go to Profile#27027
Adrian Mihai Ionescu
#27038
Overall Influence
Adrian Ionescu is a full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne on a special contract. Education He received the B.S./M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania and the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, in 1989 and 1997, respectively. He has held staff and/or visiting positions at LETI-CEA, Grenoble, France, LPCS-ENSERG, Grenoble, France and Stanford University, US, in 1998 and 1999. He was a visiting professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2012 and 2016.
Go to Profile#27028
Mary Jeanne Kreek
#27039
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Mary Jeanne Kreek was an American neurobiologist specializing in the study and treatment of addiction. She is best known for her work with Marie Nyswander and Dr. Vincent Dole in the development of methadone therapy for heroin addiction.
Go to Profile#27029
Avner Treinin
#27040
Overall Influence
1928 - 2011 (83 years)
Avner Treinin was an Israeli poet and professor of physical chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Treinin was born in Tel Aviv on February 14, 1928. At the age of two, his family moved to Jerusalem. Treinin attended the Tachkemoni school and Gymnasia Rehavia.
Go to Profile#27030
Adriana Lleras-Muney
#27041
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Adriana Lleras-Muney is a Colombian-American economist. She is currently a professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA. She was appointed as Associate Editor for the Journal of Health Economics in 2014, and she was elected as one of the six members of the American Economic Association Executive committee in 2018. Her research focuses on socio-economic status and health with a particular emphasis on education, income, and economic development. In 2017, she was received the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama.
Go to Profile#27031
Tony Juniper
#27042
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Anthony Juniper is a British campaigner, writer, sustainability adviser and environmentalist who served as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000 to 2008.
Go to Profile#27032
Julien Hoffman
#27043
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Julien I.E. Hoffman, FRCP was a pediatric cardiologist and professor emeritus of pediatrics and a senior member of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. He has also worked at the Moffitt-Long Hospital at the UCSF Medical Center, and served on the medical advisory committee for the SIDS Alliance.
Go to Profile#27033
Susan Murphy
#27044
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Susan Allbritton Murphy is an American statistician, known for her work applying statistical methods to clinical trials of treatments for chronic and relapsing medical conditions. She is a professor at Harvard University, a MacArthur Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#27034
Mary Morgan-Richards
#27045
Overall Influence
Mary Morgan-Richards is a New Zealand biologist, and as of 2019 is a full professor at Massey University. Academic career In 1995, Morgan-Richard's completed a PhD thesis titled 'Weta Karyotypes: the Systematic Significance of Their Variation' at the Victoria University of Wellington. Between 1996 and 2003, she worked at the University of St Andrews, University of Otago, the Natural History Museum, London, and the University of Canterbury successively. In 2005 Morgan-Richards moved to the Massey University, rising to full professor in 2018.
Go to Profile#27035
Werner Dilger
#27046
Overall Influence
1942 - 2007 (65 years)
Werner Dilger was a German professor of computer science and held the chair for artificial intelligences at the Chemnitz. His last major area of research was the study of artificial immune systems.
Go to Profile#27036
Robert J. Frey
#27047
Overall Influence
Dr. Robert J. Frey is a former Managing Director of Renaissance Technologies Corp and presently serves as a Research Professor on the faculty of Stony Brook University where he is the Founder and Director of the Program in Quantitative Finance within the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Frey obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from Stony Brook University in 1986. He is the Founder, and Chief Executive Officer of global fund of hedge funds group FQS Capital Partners.
Go to Profile#27037
Peter Criss
#27048
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
George Peter John Criscuola , better known by his stage name Peter Criss, is a retired American musician, best known as the co-founder, original drummer, and one of the vocalists of the hard rock band Kiss. Criss established The Catman character for his Kiss persona. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Kiss.
Go to Profile#27038
Marcel Dionne
#27049
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Marcel Elphège "Little Beaver" Dionne is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers between 1971 and 1989. A prolific scorer, he won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer in 1979–80, and recorded 50 goals or more in a season six times, and 100 points or more in a season 8 times during his career. Internationally Dionne played for the Canadian national team at two Canada Cups and three World Championships. Dionne was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1992.
Go to Profile#27039
Anne Peyroche
#27050
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Anne Peyroche, born Anne Marthe Alice Smal, is a French biologist and geneticist. From October 2017 to January 2018, she acted as interim president of the National Center for Scientific Research until fraud allegations were made.
Go to Profile#27040
Christiane Woopen
#27051
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Christiane Woopen is a German medical ethicist. She was appointed Professor for Ethics and Theory of Medicine at the University of Cologne in 2009. There she is Executive Director of ceres , an interdepartmental institution created by the Rector and five of the six Faculties of Cologne University. Furthermore, she is Head of the Research Unit Ethics at the Faculty of Medicine and was from 2011 to 2019 Vice-Dean for Academic Development and Gender of that Faculty. From 2012 to 2016 she was Chair of the German Ethics Council and from 2014 to 2016 President of the Global Summit of National Ethics/Bioethics Committees.
Go to Profile#27041
Deepika Padukone
#27052
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Deepika Padukone is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Hindi films. One of the highest-paid actresses in India, her accolades include three Filmfare Awards. She features in listings of the nation's most popular personalities; Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018 and awarded her the Time100 Impact Award in 2022.
Go to Profile#27042
Abel Guobadia
#27053
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Sir Abel Guobadia OFR was an educator, administrator, diplomat and retired public servant. Education Abel Guobadia was born on 28 June 1932, in Benin City, Nigeria. He attended C.M.S. Primary Schools in Benin City ; Government College, Ibadan ; University College Ibadan . In 1962, he won a scholarship for graduate studies in the United States of America and was awarded the Ph.D. in solid-state physics from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, in 1966.
Go to Profile#27043
Jan Veizer
#27054
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ján Veizer is the Distinguished University Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa and Institute for Geology, Mineralogy und Geophysics, of Bochum Ruhr University. He held the NSERC/Noranda/CIFAR Industrial Chair in Earth System Isotope and Environmental Geochemistry until 2004. He is an isotope geochemist; his research interests have included the use of chemical and isotopic techniques in determining Earth's climatic and environmental history.
Go to Profile#27044
Margaret Bent
#27055
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Margaret Bent CBE , is an English musicologist who specializes in music of the late medieval and Renaissance eras. In particular, she has written extensively on the Old Hall Manuscript, English masses as well as the works of Johannes Ciconia and John Dunstaple.
Go to Profile#27045
Greg Street
#27056
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Greg Street is an American video game designer and former Head of Creative Development for Riot Games. Street was previously employed by Blizzard Entertainment as Lead Systems Designer on the award-winning MMORPG World of Warcraft, and is also known by his screen name "Ghostcrawler" on the World of Warcraft forums and his own Twitter account. Prior to being employed by Blizzard, Street worked as a marine biologist, eventually moving into the game design field. He also worked with Ensemble Studios on the Age of Empires series of real-time strategy games, during which period he was also known ...
Go to Profile#27046
Steven Murdoch
#27057
Overall Influence
Steven James Murdoch is Professor of Security Engineering in the Computer Science Department, University College London. His research covers privacy-enhancing technology, Internet censorship, and anonymous communication, in particular Tor. He is also known for discovering several vulnerabilities in the EMV bank chipcard payment system and for creating Tor Browser.
Go to Profile#27047
Jimmy Hill
#27058
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
James William Thomas Hill, OBE was an English footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including player, trade union leader, coach, manager, director, chairman, television executive, presenter, pundit, analyst and assistant referee.
Go to Profile#27048
Dwight Clark
#27059
Overall Influence
1957 - 2018 (61 years)
Dwight Edward Clark was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver for nine seasons with the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League from 1979 He was a member of San Francisco's first two Super Bowl championship teams.
Go to Profile#27049
Todd Golub
#27060
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Todd R. Golub is a professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School, the Charles A. Dana Investigator in Human Cancer Genetics at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, and the Director and a founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is a world leader in applying genomic tools to cancer research, having made important discoveries in the molecular basis of childhood leukemia.
Go to Profile#27050
Irena Lasiecka
#27061
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Irena Lasiecka is a Polish-American mathematician, a Distinguished University Professor of mathematics and chair of the mathematics department at the University of Memphis. She is also co-editor-in-chief of two academic journals, Applied Mathematics & Optimization and Evolution Equations & Control Theory.
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