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
#27251
Karel van Wolferen
#27262
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Karel van Wolferen is a Dutch journalist, writer and professor, who is particularly recognised for his knowledge of Japanese politics, economics, history and culture. Career as journalist, writer and academic After finishing high school, he traveled to the Middle East, India and South East Asia, and from 1962 to the 1990s, he was based in Japan. In 1972, he became a correspondent for the authoritative Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, reporting from many countries in Asia. In 1987, he received the highest Dutch award for journalism for his articles on the People Power Revolution of 1986 in the Ph...
Go to Profile#27252
Eva Feldman
#27263
Overall Influence
Eva Lucille Feldman is an American physician-scientist who is a leading authority on neurodegenerative disease. She serves as the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan, as well as Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine. She was also named the James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor of Neurology.
Go to Profile#27253
A. Sreekar Prasad
#27264
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Akkineni Sreekar Prasad is an Indian film editor known for his works across Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu language films. In a career spanning more than 35 years, he has edited over 600 films. He is a recipient of nine National Film Awards including seven wins for Best Editing which is a record in that category. He also won five Kerala State Film Awards, two Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards, and two Filmfare Awards among others.
Go to Profile#27254
Ingvar Carlsson
#27265
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Gösta Ingvar Carlsson is a Swedish politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Sweden, first from 1986 to 1991 and again from 1994 to 1996. He was leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1986 to 1996. He is best known for leading Sweden into the European Union.
Go to Profile#27255
William Thomson Newnham
#27266
Overall Influence
1923 - 2014 (91 years)
William Thomson Newnham was a Canadian educator and the first president of Seneca College serving from 1966 through 1984. Early life Newnham was born in Shallow Lake, Ontario. After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II, Newnham went to Queen's University to study physics and math.
Go to Profile#27256
Parvis Emad
#27267
Overall Influence
1935 - 2023 (88 years)
Parvis Emad was an Iranian-American philosopher and translator of Martin Heidegger's writings. He was the founder and co-editor of the journal Heidegger Studies. Emad was a professor emeritus at DePaul University.
Go to Profile#27257
Georg von Krogh
#27268
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Georg von Krogh is a Norwegian organizational theorist and Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and holds the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation. He also serves on Strategy Commission at ETH Zurich.
Go to Profile#27258
Jayne Anne Phillips
#27269
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jayne Anne Phillips is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Education Phillips graduated from West Virginia University, earning a B.A. in 1974, and later graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.
Go to Profile#27259
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz
#27270
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz is a German-American Middle East historian. He is a specialist in comparative studies of modern international relations between the United States, the Middle East, and Europe. Schwanitz is known for his research on relations between Arabs, Jews, and Germans, and on the history of German relations with the Middle East.
Go to Profile#27260
Susan Tolman
#27271
Overall Influence
Susan Tolman is an American mathematician known for her work in symplectic geometry. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and Lynn M. Martin Professorial Scholar at Illinois.
Go to Profile#27261
Dickey Betts
#27272
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Forrest Richard Betts is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. Early in his career, he collaborated with Duane Allman, introducing melodic twin guitar harmony and counterpoint which "rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe". Following Allman's death in 1971, Betts assumed sole lead guitar duties during the peak of the group's commercial success in the mid-1970s. Betts was the writer and singer on the Allmans' hit single "Ramblin' Man".
Go to Profile#27262
Shaf Keshavjee
#27273
Overall Influence
Shaf Keshavjee is a Canadian surgeon and the current Surgeon-in-Chief at University Health Network in Toronto, the Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, as well as a clinical scientist and professor with the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#27263
Maggie Snowling
#27274
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Margaret Jean Snowling is a British psychologist, and world-leading expert in language difficulties, including dyslexia. From 2012 to 2022 she was President of St John's College, Oxford and Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. Snowling was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2016 for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia. She was born in South Shields.
Go to Profile#27264
Elizabeth Farrelly
#27275
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Elizabeth Margaret Farrelly , is a Sydney-based author, architecture critic, essayist, columnist and speaker who was born in New Zealand but later became an Australian citizen. She has contributed to current debates about aesthetics and ethics; design, public art and architecture; urban and natural environments; society and politics, including criticism of the treatment of Julian Assange. Profiles of her have appeared in the New Zealand Architect, Urbis, The Australian Financial Review, the Australian Architectural Review, and Australian Geographic.
Go to Profile#27265
Safa Khulusi
#27276
Overall Influence
1917 - 1995 (78 years)
Safa Abdul-Aziz Khulusi was an Iraqi historian, novelist, poet, journalist and broadcaster. He is known for mediating between Arabic- and English-language cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature.
Go to Profile#27266
Jonathan Sessler
#27277
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Jonathan Sessler is a professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. He is notable for his pioneering work on expanded porphyrins and their applications to biology and medicine. He is a co-founder of Pharmacyclics, Inc., a company that works with expanded porphyrins, and Anionics, Inc., which develops anion recognition chemistry. Pharmacyclics was sold to AbbVie for $21 billion in 2015.
Go to Profile#27267
Wolf Schneider
#27278
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Wolf Dietrich Schneider was a German journalist, author, and language critic. After World War II, he learned journalism on the job with Die Neue Zeitung, a newspaper published by the US military government. He later worked as a correspondent in Washington for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, then as editor-in-chief and from 1969 manager of the publishing house of Stern. He moved to the Springer Press in 1971. From 1979 to 1995, he was the first director of a school for journalists in Hamburg, shaping generations of journalists. He wrote many publications about the German language, becoming an authority.
Go to Profile#27268
Jacob Klapwijk
#27279
Overall Influence
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Jacob Klapwijk was a Dutch philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Modern and Systematic Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, known for his work on Ernst Troeltsch and historicism, Reformational thinking, the transformational task of Christian philosophy, and the theory of emergent evolution.
Go to Profile#27269
Yael Moses
#27280
Overall Influence
Yael Moses is a professor in the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel. Education and career Moses received her Ph.D. in computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the Robotics group at the University of Oxford from 1993 to 1994 and at the Weizmann Institute of Science from 1994 to 1997. Moses has been on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence since 2013.
Go to Profile#27270
Arn Anderson
#27281
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Martin Anthony Parmar Lunde , better known by the ring name Arn Anderson, is an American professional wrestling road agent, author, and retired professional wrestler. Formerly signed to All Elite Wrestling he was manager of Wardlow. Although he is widely regarded as one of the greatest tag team wrestlers in history, he also had a successful singles career and became a four-time NWA/WCW World Television Champion, which he often called his "world title".
Go to Profile#27271
Gene D. Block
#27282
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gene David Block is an American biologist who has served as the current and 6th chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles since August 2007. Block has served as provost and professor of biology at the University of Virginia. While at the University of Virginia, Block interacted with Randy Pausch and is mentioned in his memoir, The Last Lecture.
Go to Profile#27272
Irina Blok
#27283
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Irina Blok is a graphic designer and an artist. She is best known for the creation of the Android logo including its green robot icon. Irina Blok has appeared on ABC's Reality Show Shark Tank as one of the contestants, and her designs were featured in NBC NY, USA today, SF weekly, the French Edition of Elle Magazine and multiple publications around the world.
Go to Profile#27273
Sarah K. England
#27284
Overall Influence
Sarah K. England is a physiologist and biophysicist and the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Washington University School of Medicine. England conducts research on cation channels in uterine smooth muscle to understand the biological correlates of preterm birth and is the Associate Program Director of the Prematurity Research Center at Washington University as well as the Vice Chair of Research for the Center for Reproductive Health Sciences. In 2005, England was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in the Office of Senator Hill...
Go to Profile#27274
Stuart Pocock
#27285
Overall Influence
Stuart J. Pocock is a British medical statistician. He has been professor of medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine since 1989. His research interests include statistical methods for the design, monitoring, analysis and reporting of randomized clinical trials. He also collaborates on major clinical trials, particularly in cardiovascular disease.
Go to Profile#27275
Harm de Blij
#27286
Overall Influence
1935 - 2014 (79 years)
Harm J. de Blij was a geographer. He was a geography editor on ABC's Good Morning America and an editor of National Geographic magazine and the author of several books, including Why Geography Matters.
Go to Profile#27276
Pal Benko
#27287
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Pal Charles Benko was a Hungarian and American chess player, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems. Early life Benko was born on July 15, 1928, in Amiens, France, where his Hungarian parents were on vacation. He was raised in Hungary. Benko learned to play chess aged eight from his father, but he did not compete in tournaments until age 17 due to World War II. During the war, he dug ditches for the Hungarian army before being captured by the Soviet army, which forced him to be a laborer. He eventually escaped to his home, only to find that his brother and father had been ...
Go to Profile#27277
Edward Ott
#27288
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Edward Ott is an American physicist most noted for his contributions to the development of chaos theory. Ott was born and grew up in New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from The Cooper Union, and his Ph.D. in electrophysics from The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1967. Following receipt of his Ph.D., he was an NSF postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Cambridge University. He then joined the faculty of the department of electrical engineering at Cornell University. S...
Go to Profile#27278
Enrique Chaneton
#27289
Overall Influence
Enrique J. Chaneton was an Argentinian ecologist. He completed his bachelor's degree in 1986. He then studied at the University of Buenos Aires, and completed a master's degree in 1995, working under . He then moved to the University of London, and did a PhD with John Lawton, graduating in 1998. His research was on the structure and dynamics of plant communities in the pampas, or grasslands, of Argentina. Within this system, he studied biological disturbance, and specifically biological invasion. He served as an associate editor of the journal Biological Invasions. According to an obituary, h...
Go to Profile#27279
Juan David García Bacca
#27290
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Juan David García Bacca was a Spanish-Venezuelan philosopher and university professor. He was born in Pamplona on June 26, 1901, and passed away on August 5, 1992, in Quito, Ecuador. Bacca began his education under the Claretians and was ordained as a priest in 1925. He continued his studies at the University of Munich, the University of Zurich, and the University of Paris. However, during the 1930s, he left the Church and pursued philosophy at the University of Barcelona. In 1936 after criticizing Francisco Franco, Bacca was forced to live in exile. He first traveled to Ecuador where he taught at the Central University of Ecuador .
Go to Profile#27280
Grigory Yavlinsky
#27291
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Grigory Alekseyevich Yavlinsky is a Russian economist and politician. Serving as Deputy Premier of the Russian SFSR and later the entire Soviet Union, Yavlinsky authored the 500 Days Program, a plan for the transition of the Soviet economy to a free-market one. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he created the Yabloko party, which has advocated for a centrist alternative to the right-wing economic policies of President Boris Yeltsin. Between 1994 and 2003, he led his party in the State Duma.
Go to Profile#27281
Andrew H. Plaks
#27292
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Andrew Henry Plaks is an American sinologist who specializes in the study of the vernacular fiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties. From 1973 to 2007, he taught at Princeton University, becoming full professor in 1980. He moved to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007, where he became Professor of East Asian Studies.
Go to Profile#27282
Luis de la Peña
#27293
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Luis Fernando de la Peña-Auerbach known as Luis de la Peña is a Mexican physicist, born in Mexico City in 1931. He is a researcher of the Institute of Physics and professor of the Faculty of Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is a member of the Science Advisory Council of the Presidency of Mexico.
Go to Profile#27283
Theodore Khoury
#27294
Overall Influence
1930 - 2023 (93 years)
Adel Theodor Khoury was a Lebanese Catholic theologian and historian of Christianity and Islam. Biography Adel Theodor Khoury was born in Tebnine, Lebanon on 26 March 1930. After theological studies Khoury entered priesthood in 1953. He also pursued philosophy and Oriental studies in Beirut before receiving a doctoral degree in Lyon. From 1970 until his retirement in 1993 Khoury was professor of general religious studies in the Catholic-Theological Department of Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, where he twice served as head of the department.
Go to Profile#27284
ZZ Packer
#27295
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Zuwena "ZZ" Packer is an American writer. She is primarily known for her works of short fiction. Early life and education Born in Chicago, Illinois, Packer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky. "ZZ" was a childhood nickname; her given name is Zuwena. She was recognized as a talented writer at an early age, publishing in Seventeen at the age of 19. Packer is a 1990 graduate of Seneca High School, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Go to Profile#27285
Beth Shapiro
#27296
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Beth Alison Shapiro is an American evolutionary molecular biologist. She is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Shapiro's work has centered on the analysis of ancient DNA. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009 and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2006.
Go to Profile#27286
Alexander Deichsel
#27297
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Alexander Deichsel is a German sociologist and professor at the University of Hamburg . Deichsel completed his abitur at the Christianeum Hamburg. He is the founder of sociology of brand and co-editor of the Complete Works of Ferdinand Tönnies.
Go to Profile#27287
António Câmara
#27298
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
António Câmara is a professor at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa and has been a visiting professor at both Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He was a Senior Consultant to the Expo '98 project and Senior Advisor to the National Geographical Information System . He was a member of the engineering team which studied and evaluated the Alqueva Dam's environmental impact. He has been YDreams CEO and founder since the company was created in June 2000. In 2006, Câmara was awarded with the Pessoa.
Go to Profile#27288
Paul Klemperer
#27299
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Paul David Klemperer FBA is an economist and the Edgeworth Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Oxford University. He is a member of the Klemperer family. He works on industrial economics, competition policy, auction theory, and climate change economics and policy.
Go to Profile#27289
Patricia Charache
#27300
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
Patricia Charache was a physician specializing in infectious disease and microbiology. She was a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for more than 50 years, retiring as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Pathology, Medicine, and Oncology.
Go to Profile#27290
Wesley Sneijder
#27301
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Wesley Sneijder is a Dutch retired professional footballer. Due to his excellent playmaking ability, Sneijder was considered one of the best midfielders in the world during his prime. A product of the Ajax Youth Academy, he started his professional career playing for Ajax, with whom he won four trophies and was awarded the Johan Cruyff Trophy in 2004. He was sold to Real Madrid for €27 million in 2007, winning La Liga in his first season with the club, and transferred to Inter Milan for €15 million in 2009. At Inter, he won Serie A, the UEFA Champions League, the FIFA Club World Cup, and two Coppa Italia.
Go to Profile#27291
Wendy Seltzer
#27302
Overall Influence
Wendy Seltzer is an American attorney and, as of January 2023, a staff member at Tucows where she is the Principal Identity Architect. She is known for her many years of work with the World Wide Web Consortium, where, among many roles, she was the chair of the Improving Web Advertising Business Group.
Go to Profile#27292
Karin Mölling
#27303
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Karin Mölling is a German virologist whose research focused on retroviruses, particularly human immunodeficiency virus . She was a full professor and director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the University of Zurich from 1993 to 2008. She is retired but retains affiliations with the University of Zurich and with the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin.
Go to Profile#27293
Ron Walters
#27304
Overall Influence
1938 - 2010 (72 years)
Ronald W. Walters was an American author, speaker and scholar of African-American politics. He was director of the African American Leadership Institute and Scholar Practitioner Program, Distinguished Leadership Scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, and professor in government and politics at the University of Maryland.
Go to Profile#27294
Steve Cropper
#27305
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Steven Lee Cropper , sometimes known as "The Colonel", is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, which backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. He also acted as the producer of many of these records. He was later a member of the Blues Brothers band. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 36th on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, while he has won two Grammy Awards from his seven nominations.
Go to Profile#27295
Ziva Kunda
#27306
Overall Influence
1955 - 2004 (49 years)
Ziva Kunda was an Israeli social psychologist and professor at the University of Waterloo known for her work in social cognition and motivated reasoning. Her seminal paper "The Case for Motivated Reasoning", published in Psychological Bulletin in 1990, posthumously received the Scientific Impact Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Kunda authored the book Social Cognition: Making Sense of People.
Go to Profile#27296
Roberta Kalechofsky
#27307
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Roberta Kalechofsky was an American writer, feminist and animal rights activist, focusing on the issue of animal rights within Judaism and the promotion of vegetarianism within the Jewish community. She was the founder of Jews for Animal Rights and Micah Publications or Micah Books, which specializes in the publication of animal rights, Jewish vegetarian, and Holocaust literature.
Go to Profile#27297
Steven A. Schroeder
#27308
Overall Influence
Steven A. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care at the University of California, San Francisco , where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. He served as the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1990 to 2002. Schroeder is known for his work in promoting smoking cessation strategies.
Go to Profile#27298
Francis Robinson
#27309
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Francis Christopher Rowland Robinson CBE, DL, FRAS is a British historian and academic who specialises in the history of South Asia and Islam. Since 1990, he has been Professor of History of South Asia at the University of London. He has twice been president of the Royal Asiatic Society: from 1997 to 2000, and from 2003 to 2006.
Go to Profile#27299
Marlon Dumas
#27310
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Marlon Gerardo Dumas Menjivar is a Honduran computer scientist, and Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Tartu in Estonia, known for his contributions in the field of Business Process Management.
Go to Profile#27300
Alessio Corti
#27311
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Alessio Corti is a Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College London working in Algebraic Geometry. Corti studied at the University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he gained a diploma in 1987. He obtained his PhD in 1992 at the University of Utah under the supervision of János Kollár.
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