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
#28051
Hossein Baharvand
#28062
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Hossein Baharvand is an Iranian stem cell and developmental biologist. He received his B.Sc. in biology from Shiraz University in 1994, and M.Sc. in Developmental Biology from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran in 1996. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Khwarizmi University in 2004. He first joined the Royan Institute in 1995 in which he founded Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology.
Go to Profile#28052
John Tortorella
#28063
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
John Tortorella is an American professional ice hockey coach and former player. He serves as the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League . Tortorella was previously the head coach of the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Vancouver Canucks. He led Tampa Bay to the 2004 Stanley Cup championship.
Go to Profile#28053
Kersten Reich
#28064
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kersten Reich is a German educator and cultural theorist. He was Professor of General Pedagogy from 1979 to 2006 and Professor of International Learning Research at the University of Cologne from 2007 to 2017.
Go to Profile#28054
Melvyn Dubofsky
#28065
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Melvyn Dubofsky is professor emeritus of history and sociology, and a well-known labor historian. He is Bartle Distinguished Professor of History and Sociology at the Binghamton University. Dubofsky helped advance the field of "new labor history," which focuses on the experiences of workers and social movements rather than institutions.
Go to Profile#28055
Ursula von Rydingsvard
#28066
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ursula von Rydingsvard is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating large-scale works influenced by nature, primarily using cedar and other forms of timber.
Go to Profile#28056
Amanda Boyden
#28067
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Amanda Boyden is an American novelist. Born in Northern Minnesota and raised in Chicago and St. Louis, she studied creative writing at the University of New Orleans, where she and her ex-husband, Canadian writer Joseph Boyden, were faculty members until 2012. In addition to writing, Amanda Boyden is a trapeze artist who founded Aerialists, Inc., her own all-female troupe, and performed as Lady Hummingbird.
Go to Profile#28057
Ranasinghe Premadasa
#28068
Overall Influence
1924 - 1993 (69 years)
Sri Lankabhimanya Ranasinghe Premadasa was the third President of Sri Lanka from 2 January 1989 to his assassination. Before that, he served as the prime minister in the government headed by J. R. Jayewardene from 6 February 1978 to 1 January 1989. He was the first person conferred Sri Lanka's highest civilian award Sri Lankabhimanya in 1986 by President Junius Richard Jayewardene.
Go to Profile#28058
William Lucas Root
#28069
Overall Influence
1919 - 2007 (88 years)
William Lucas Root was a noted American information theorist. As an early pioneer in the field, Root was instrumental in providing a mathematical basis for statistical communication theory. Root was born in Iowa, receiving his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in 1940 and master's degree from MIT in 1943, both in electrical engineering. He served as a Marine officer in World War II, in 1952 received his doctorate in mathematics from MIT, and subsequently joined Lincoln Laboratory, serving as head of its analysis group 1959–1961. From 1962 to 1987 he was Professor of Aerospace Engi...
Go to Profile#28059
Bryan Molloy
#28070
Overall Influence
1939 - 2004 (65 years)
Bryan Barnet Molloy was a Scottish chemist, known notably for helping to invent the antidepressant Prozac, a name for fluoxetine. Prozac was introduced in 1988, and has been the world's leading antidepressant.
Go to Profile#28060
Carla Obermeyer
#28071
Overall Influence
Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer is a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist specializing in the study of fertility and HIV. A former associate professor of Population and International Health at Harvard University, Obermeyer was director of the Center for Research on Population and Health at the American University of Beirut as of 2013. She has also worked for the World Health Organization's Department of HIV/AIDS.
Go to Profile#28061
Sylvia Sleigh
#28072
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
Sylvia Sleigh was a Welsh-born naturalised American realist painter who lived and worked in New York City. She is known for her role in the feminist art movement and especially for reversing traditional gender roles in her paintings of nude men, often using conventional female poses from historical paintings by male artists like Diego Vélazquez, Titian, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Her most well-known subjects were art critics, feminist artists, and her husband, Lawrence Alloway.
Go to Profile#28062
Dwight Yoakam
#28073
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dwight David Yoakam is an American country singer-songwriter, actor, and film director. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. Yoakam had considerable success throughout the late 1980s onward, with a total of ten studio albums for Reprise Records. Later projects have been released on Audium , New West, Warner, and Sugar Hill Records.
Go to Profile#28063
Michael Shulman
#28074
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michael "Mike" Shulman is an American associate professor of mathematics at the University of San Diego who works in category theory and higher category theory, homotopy theory, logic as applied to set theory, and computer science.
Go to Profile#28064
Dorothy Hill
#28075
Overall Influence
1907 - 1997 (90 years)
Dorothy Hill, was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist, the first female professor at an Australian university, and the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science. Education Dorothy Hill was born in Taringa, the third of seven children, and grew up in Coorparoo in Brisbane. She attended Coorparoo State School, and then won a scholarship to attend Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She received the Lady Lilley Gold Medal, and the Phyllis Hobbs Memorial Prize in English and History, in 1924.
Go to Profile#28065
Randy Bachman
#28076
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Randolph Charles Bachman is a Canadian guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member of the bands The Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive. Bachman recorded as a solo artist and was part of a number of short-lived bands such as Brave Belt, Union and Ironhorse. He was a national radio personality on CBC Radio, hosting the weekly music show, Vinyl Tap. Bachman was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016.
Go to Profile#28066
Alexander Bogen
#28077
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
Alexander Bogen was a Polish-Israeli visual artist, a decorated leader of partisans during World War II, a key player in 20th century Yiddish culture, and one of the trailblazers for art education and Artists' associations in the emerging state of Israel.
Go to Profile#28067
Sharon Creech
#28078
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Sharon Creech is an American writer of children's novels. She was the first American winner of the Carnegie Medal for British children's books and the first person to win both the American Newbery Medal and the British Carnegie.
Go to Profile#28068
Dean Parks
#28079
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Weldon Dean Parks is an American session guitarist and record producer from Fort Worth, Texas. Parks has one Grammy nomination. Albums Parks was member of the North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher in 1970. In 1980, he was a founding member of the Christian Jazz Fusion band Koinonia. Parks is best known for his many contributions to albums by Steely Dan, Michael Jackson, and Bread. Notably, he played guitar on Steely Dan's Royal Scam track "Haitian Divorce". Parks is also a long-time collaborator on David Foster albums, such as Shadows...
Go to Profile#28069
Peter Landrock
#28080
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Peter Landrock is a Danish cryptographer and mathematician. He is known for his contributions to data encryption methods and codes. Landrock has been active since the 1970s as research scientist and faculty member for Cambridge University and the University of Aarhus and others, and was active for Microsoft and Cryptomathic. He has been visiting professor at Oxford University, Leuven University and Princeton University.
Go to Profile#28070
Craig Morton
#28081
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Larry Craig Morton is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League for 18 seasons, primarily with the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos. He played college football for the California Golden Bears, receiving All-American honors, and was selected by the Cowboys fifth overall in the 1965 NFL Draft. Following nine seasons with the Cowboys, a quarterback controversy with Roger Staubach led to Morton joining the New York Giants for three seasons. He spent his final six seasons as a member of the Broncos, winning NFL Comeback Player of the Ye...
Go to Profile#28071
Stephen Jackson
#28082
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Stephen Jesse Jackson is an American former professional basketball player who played 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association with the New Jersey Nets, Atlanta Hawks, Indiana Pacers, Golden State Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Bobcats, San Antonio Spurs, and Los Angeles Clippers. Jackson won an NBA championship with the Spurs in 2003. Jackson has emerged as a visible activist and spokesman for civil rights during the Black Lives Matter movement.
Go to Profile#28072
John Hughes
#28083
Overall Influence
1950 - 2009 (59 years)
John Wilden Hughes Jr. was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He began his career in 1970 as an author of humorous essays and stories for the National Lampoon magazine. He went on to Hollywood to write, produce and sometimes direct some of the most successful live-action comedy films of the 1980s. He directed such films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck; and wrote the films National Lampoon's Vacation, Mr. Mom, Pretty in Pink, The Great Outdoors, Home Alone, Du...
Go to Profile#28073
Michael Stich
#28084
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Michael Detlef Stich is a German former professional tennis player. He won the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1991, the men's doubles titles at both Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in 1992, and was a singles runner-up at the 1994 US Open and the 1996 French Open. Stich won 18 singles titles and ten doubles titles. His career-high singles ranking was world No. 2, achieved in 1993.
Go to Profile#28074
Max Scherzer
#28085
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Maxwell Martin Scherzer is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball . He has previously played in MLB for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Mets. A right-handed starting pitcher, Scherzer is an eight-time MLB All-Star, has won three Cy Young Awards, has pitched two no-hitters, and won the World Series with the Nationals in 2019, and the Texas Rangers in 2023. Known for his intensity and competitiveness on the field, he is nicknamed "Mad Max" after the film series of the same name.
Go to Profile#28075
Spencer Haywood
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#28086
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Spencer Haywood is an American former professional basketball player and Olympic gold medalist. Haywood is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, being inducted in 2015. Early life Spencer Haywood was born on April 22, 1949, in Silver City, Mississippi. He grew up in poverty and his family worked as sharecroppers.
Go to Profile#28076
Lynne Rudder Baker
#28087
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
Lynne Rudder Baker was an American philosopher and author. At the time of her death she was a Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1944 to Virginia Bennett and James Rudder, she earned her Ph.D. in 1972 from Vanderbilt University after beginning her graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1967. She was a fellow of the National Humanities Center and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars .
Go to Profile#28077
Peter Manley
#28088
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Peter David Manley is an English former professional darts player who played in Professional Darts Corporation events from July 1996 until 2017. He won one major title, the Las Vegas Desert Classic, in 2003, and twice held the number one ranking. He also reached the World Championship final in 1999, 2002 and 2006, losing to Phil Taylor on each occasion. Declining form led to him losing his place on the PDC tour in 2011.
Go to Profile#28078
William S. Hatcher
#28089
Overall Influence
1935 - 2005 (70 years)
William S. Hatcher was a mathematician, philosopher, educator and a member of the Baháʼí Faith. He held a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, and bachelor's and master's degrees from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. A specialist in the philosophical alloying of science and religion, for over thirty years he held university positions in North America, Europe, and Russia.
Go to Profile#28079
Lee Ufan
#28090
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Lee Ufan is a Korean minimalist painter, sculptor, and academic, known for innovative bodies of work emphasizing process, materials, and the experiential engagement of viewer and site, and critiques of European phenomenology.
Go to Profile#28080
Norodom Sihamoni
#28091
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Norodom Sihamoni is King of Cambodia. He became King on 14 October 2004, a week after the abdication of his father, Norodom Sihanouk. He is the eldest son of King Sihanouk and former Queen consort Norodom Monineath and is the fourth monarch from the royal House of Norodom. Before ascending the throne after his selection by a nine-member throne council to become the next monarch, Sihamoni previously served as Cambodia's ambassador to the United Nations and UNESCO. He was educated in Czechoslovakia and was known for his work as a cultural ambassador in Europe and as a classical ballet instructor when he was still prince.
Go to Profile#28081
Cristina Pumplun
#28092
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Cristina M. Pumplun is the missionary vicar of Westerkerk in Amsterdam. Until 2003 she was Secretary of Studies at the Thomas Institute of Tilburg University in Utrecht. Pumplun studied German language and literature at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and then at Universität Passau, Germany. Her Ph.D. thesis investigated German devotional texts of the 17th century, specifically the work of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, and was published as Begriff des Unbegreiflichen: Funktion und Bedeutung der Metaphorik in den Geburtsbetrachtungen der Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg . She taught moder...
Go to Profile#28082
Riccardo Rebonato
#28093
Overall Influence
Riccardo Rebonato is Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School and EDHEC-Risk Institute, Scientific Director of the EDHEC Risk Climate Impact Institute , and author of journal articles and books on Mathematical Finance, covering derivatives pricing, risk management, asset allocation and climate change. Prior to this, he was Global Head of Rates and FX Analytics at PIMCO.
Go to Profile#28083
Bernhard Palsson
#28094
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Bernhard Ørn Palsson is the Galletti Professor of Bioengineering and an adjunct professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Education Palsson received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1984 under the supervision of Edwin N. Lightfoot.
Go to Profile#28084
A. R. Ammons
#28095
Overall Influence
1926 - 2001 (75 years)
Archibald Randolph Ammons was an American poet and professor of English at Cornell University. Ammons published nearly thirty collections of poems in his lifetime. Revered for his impact on American romantic poetry, Ammons received several major awards for his work, including two National Book Awards for Poetry, one in 1973 for Collected Poems and another in 1993 for Garbage.
Go to Profile#28085
John Marenbon
#28096
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
John Alexander Marenbon FBA is a British philosopher and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His principal area of specialization is medieval philosophy. Career He obtained BA, MA, PhD, and DLitt degrees from the University of Cambridge. Since 1978 he has been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a senior research fellow there since 2005. In 2010 he became an honorary professor of medieval philosophy at Cambridge, delivering an inaugural lecture entitled 'When was medieval philosophy?'. He has also taught at Paris-Sorbonne University, been a visiting fellow at both the Centre for Me...
Go to Profile#28086
John Fordham
#28097
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John Fordham is a British jazz critic and writer. As well as being the main jazz critic for The Guardian, he publishes a monthly column for the newspaper. He is the author of several books on jazz, and has reported on it for publications including Time Out, City Limits, Sounds, Jazz UK and The Wire. He is a former editor of Time Out, City Limits and Jazz UK. He has contributed to documentaries for radio and television, as well as regularly to BBC Radio 3's programme Jazz on 3.
Go to Profile#28087
Shlomit C. Schuster
#28098
Overall Influence
1951 - 2016 (65 years)
Shlomit C. Schuster was an Israeli Philosophical Counselor, and considered a pioneer in the Philosophical counseling field. Her first book is considered a source of learning and teaching Philosophical counseling .
Go to Profile#28088
Erhard Heinz
#28099
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Erhard Heinz was a German mathematician known for his work on partial differential equations, in particular the Monge–Ampère equation. He worked as professor in Stanford, Munich and from 1966 until his retirement 1992 at the University of Göttingen.
Go to Profile#28089
Paul L. Schechter
#28100
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Paul L. Schechter is an American astronomer and observational cosmologist. He is the William A. M. Burden Professor of Astrophysics, Emeritus, at MIT. Schechter received his bachelor's degree from Cornell in 1968, and his Ph.D. degree from Caltech in 1975. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Arizona, then went to Harvard as an assistant professor. He moved to his present position at MIT in 1988. Schechter was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003.
Go to Profile#28090
Evgeny Moiseev
#28101
Overall Influence
1948 - 2022 (74 years)
Evgeny Moiseev was a Russian mathematician, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics at Moscow State University , Head of the Department of Functional Analysis and its Applications at MSU CMC, Professor, Dr.Sc.
Go to Profile#28091
Ken Rinaldo
#28102
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Kenneth E. Rinaldo is an American neo-conceptual artist and arts educator, known for his interactive robotics, 3D animation, and BioArt installations. His works include Autopoiesis , and Augmented Fish Reality , a fish-driven robot.
Go to Profile#28092
Diana Fosha
#28103
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Diana Foșha is a Romanian-American psychologist, known for developing accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy , and for her work on the psychotherapy of adults suffering the effects of childhood attachment trauma and abuse.
Go to Profile#28093
Mitchell Miller
#28104
Overall Influence
Mitchell H. Miller, Jr. is an American philosopher. He was, until his retirement in 2013, the Dexter Ferry Professor in Philosophy at Vassar College. The majority of his work concerns the late dialogues of Plato, but he has also written on Hesiod, Parmenides, and Hegel.
Go to Profile#28094
Carolina Cruz-Neira
#28105
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Carolina Cruz-Neira is a Spanish-Venezuelan-American computer engineer, researcher, designer, educator, and a pioneer of virtual reality . She is known for inventing the cave automatic virtual environment . She previously worked at Iowa State University , University of Louisiana at Lafayette , University of Arkansas at Little Rock , and she is currently an Agere Chair Professor at University of Central Florida .
Go to Profile#28095
Ronald W. Jones
#28106
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Ronald Winthrop Jones was an influential international trade economist and retired Xerox Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. His highly acclaimed book Globalization and the Theory of Input Trade summarizes much of his past work and also discusses the recent market trend toward fragmentation and outsourcing of the production process.
Go to Profile#28096
R. Madhavan
#28107
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Ranganathan Madhavan well known as R. Madhavan is an Indian actor, writer, director, and producer who predominantly appears in Tamil and Hindi movies. Over the course of his career, he has been a recipient of several accolades including one National Film Award, four Filmfare Awards South and one Tamil Nadu State Film Award. Currently, he serves as the President of Film and Television Institute of India , Pune.
Go to Profile#28097
Azad Bonni
#28108
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Azad Bonni is a Canadian and American neuroscientist of Kurdish origin. The focus of his research is to understand the mechanisms of neuronal connectivity in the brain. From October 2012 until June 30, 2019, he was the Edison Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine. As of July 1, 2019, he is SVP and head of neuroscience and rare diseases research and early development at Roche in Basel, Switzerland.
Go to Profile#28098
Renata Reisfeld
#28109
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Renata Reisfeld is an Israeli Professor of Chemistry and D.H.C. Enrique Berman Professor of Solar Energy at Institute of Chemistry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, author of 532 scientific papers cited more than 30,000 times.
Go to Profile#28099
Emil R. Unanue
#28110
Overall Influence
1934 - 2022 (88 years)
Emil Raphael Unanue was a Cuban-American immunologist and Paul & Ellen Lacy Professor Emeritus at Washington University School of Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He previously served as chair of the National Academy of Sciences Section of Microbiology and Immunology.
Go to Profile#28100
Kathleen M. Blee
#28111
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Kathleen Marie Blee is an American sociologist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her areas of interest include gender, race and racism, social movements, and sociology of space and place. Special interests include how gender influences racist movements, including work on women in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
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