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
#28151
Henry H. Bauer
#28162
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Henry Hermann Bauer is an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University . He is the author of several books and articles on fringe science, arguing in favor of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and against Immanuel Velikovsky, and is an AIDS denialist. Following his retirement in 1999, he was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a fringe science publication. Bauer also served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech, generating controversy by criticising affirmative action.
Go to Profile#28152
A. H. de Oliveira Marques
#28163
Overall Influence
1933 - 2007 (74 years)
António Henrique Rodrigo de Oliveira Marques was a Portuguese historian. Life Oliveira Marques was born in the 'freguesia' of S. João do Estoril, Cascais. He studied history and philosophy and graduated in 1956 from the University of Lisbon with a thesis entitled A Sociedade em Portugal nos Séculos XII a XIV . After training in the University of Würzburg, in Germany, he would start teaching the following year at the University of Lisbon and received his doctorate in 1960. His PhD dissertation was entitled Hansa e Portugal na Idade Média .
Go to Profile#28153
Wes Borland
#28164
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Wesley Louden Borland is an American rock musician. He is the guitarist and backing vocalist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the alternative and industrial rock band Black Light Burns, and the co-founder of the experimental metal band Big Dumb Face.
Go to Profile#28154
Greg Kinnear
#28165
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gregory Buck Kinnear is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in As Good as It Gets . Kinnear has appeared in many popular films, including Sabrina , You've Got Mail , Nurse Betty , Someone like You , We Were Soldiers, Auto Focus , Stuck on You , Robots , Little Miss Sunshine, Invincible , Green Zone, The Last Song , Heaven Is for Real , Misbehaviour and television roles, such as Friends, Talk Soup, Modern Family, House of Cards, Rake, and the miniseries The Stand . Kinnear portrayed John F. Kennedy in The Kennedys , and Joe Biden in ...
Go to Profile#28155
Joanna Michlic
#28166
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Joanna Beata Michlic is a Polish social and cultural historian specializing in Polish-Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland. An honorary senior research associate at the Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at University College London , she focuses in particular on the collective memory of traumatic events, particularly as it relates to gender and childhood.
Go to Profile#28156
Michael Klonsky
#28167
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Michael Klonsky is an American educator, author, and political activist. He is known for his work with the Students for a Democratic Society, the New Communist Movement, and, later, the small schools movement.
Go to Profile#28157
Paul Thompson
#28168
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Paul Thompson is a British sociologist and oral historian. Prior to his recent retirement, he held the position of Research Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. Thompson is regarded as a pioneer in social science research, particularly due to the development of life stories and oral history within sociology and social history.
Go to Profile#28158
David Ignatow
#28169
Overall Influence
1914 - 1997 (83 years)
David Ignatow was an American poet and editor. Life David Ignatow was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 7, 1914, and spent most of his life in the New York City area. He died on November 17, 1997, aged 83, at his home in East Hampton, New York. His papers are held at University of California, San Diego.
Go to Profile#28159
Amos Hawley
#28170
Overall Influence
1910 - 2009 (99 years)
Amos Henry Hawley was an American sociologist. Hawley studied extensively how human populations interacted with their changing environments along with the growth of populations. He focused his studies on the behavior of populations in terms of organization, development, and change over space and time.
Go to Profile#28160
Sam Brinton
#28171
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Samuel Otis Brinton is an American nuclear engineer and LGBTQ activist. They served as the deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy from June to December 2022. Brinton is no longer employed by the Office of Nuclear Energy after being charged with luggage theft twice.
Go to Profile#28161
Nancy Sherman
#28172
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Nancy Sherman is a distinguished university professor and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. She was also the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy. Sherman is the author of several books, and her views on military ethics have been influential.
Go to Profile#28162
Charles J. McCann
#28173
Overall Influence
1926 - 2015 (89 years)
Charles J. McCann was the first president of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. McCann was born in Bristol, Connecticut. He received a Ph.D. in English and organization and management from Yale University. He also received a master's degree from New York University.
Go to Profile#28163
Wilfried de Beauclair
#28174
Overall Influence
1912 - 2020 (108 years)
Wilfried de Beauclair was a Swiss-born German engineer and computer scientist. His work on automated computing technology makes him one of the first-generation computer pioneers. Biography De Beauclair was born on 4 April 1912 in Ascona, Switzerland, as the second son of the painting couple Alexander Wilhelm de Beauclair and Friederike de Beauclair. He grew up with his brother Gotthard de Beauclair in the artists' colony on Monte Verità. In 1920, his mother moved with the two children to Darmstadt, where the family came from. From 1921 to 1930 he went to school in Darmstadt.
Go to Profile#28164
Lai-Sang Young
#28175
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Lai-Sang Lily Young is a Hong Kong-born American mathematician who holds the Henry & Lucy Moses Professorship of Science and is a professor of mathematics and neural science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. Her research interests include dynamical systems, ergodic theory, chaos theory, probability theory, statistical mechanics, and neuroscience. She is particularly known for introducing the method of Markov returns in 1998, which she used to prove exponential correlation delay in Sinai billiards and other hyperbolic dynamical systems.
Go to Profile#28165
Jay Weiss
#28176
Overall Influence
Jay Michael Weiss is an American psychologist. He graduated from Lafayette College with a B.A. in Psychology in 1962, and Yale University with a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1967. Awards 1984 MacArthur Fellows ProgramSociety of Behavioral Medicine Fellow
Go to Profile#28166
Susan J. Douglas
#28177
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Susan J. Douglas is an American feminist columnist, and cultural critic who writes about gender issues, media criticism and American politics. She has published five books on American history, and is currently Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Go to Profile#28167
Baruch Modan
#28178
Overall Influence
1932 - 2001 (69 years)
Prof. Baruch Modan was an Israeli medical scientist. Prof. Modan made significant findings in the field of oncology and was an expert on the effects of radiation. Prof. Modan worked with various types of cancer, and in 1974 demonstrated that the chances of getting breast cancer increase for anyone who has had X-ray dosages as low as 1.6 rem. He was an expert on treating cancer among children.
Go to Profile#28168
Jakob Stoustrup
#28179
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Jakob Stoustrup is a Danish researcher employed at Aalborg University, where he serves as professor of control theory at the Department of Electronic Systems. Education Jakob Stoustrup received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics in 1991, both from the Technical University of Denmark.
Go to Profile#28169
Bolaji Idowu
#28180
Overall Influence
1913 - 1993 (80 years)
E Bolaji Idowu was the third native-born leader of the Methodist Church Nigeria, serving from 1972 to 1984. He is also well known for his ethnographic and theological studies of the Yoruba people. Life Idowu was born on 28 September 1913, in Ikorodu, Lagos State, Nigeria. His early education was at the Anglican and Methodist schools in Ikorodu. There, he met the Rev. A. T. Ola Olude and was converted to Christianity. After finishing at Wesley College in Ibadan, he became headmaster at the primary school in Remo, Ogun State. He was ordained in 1942.
Go to Profile#28170
Huimin Zhao
#28181
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as well as the leader of the Biosystems Design research theme in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. His research focuses on directed evolution, metabolic engineering, bioinformatics and high throughput technologies.
Go to Profile#28171
Kyle Orton
#28182
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Kyle Raymond Orton is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for Purdue, where he started four straight bowl games. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft. After an injury to Bears starter Rex Grossman, Orton was pressed into service as the starting quarterback during his rookie year, starting the first 14 games of the 2005 season, but was replaced by Grossman for the playoffs that year. Orton did not play at all in 2006, and sparingly in 2007. He regained his starting job from Grossman in 2008, but the team finished a disappointing 9–7 and out of the playoffs.
Go to Profile#28172
Andrés Ortiz-Osés
#28183
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
Andrés Ortiz-Osés was a Spanish philosopher. He was the founder of symbolic hermeneutics, a philosophical trend that gave a symbolic twist to north European hermeneutics. He was born in Tardienta, studied theology in Comillas and Rome, and then moved to The Institute of Philosophy in Innsbruck where he earned a Ph.D. in hermeneutics.
Go to Profile#28173
Ping-hui Liao
#28184
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ping-hui Liao is Chuan-liu Chair Professor in Taiwan Studies at the Department of Literature of the University of California, San Diego . Prior to taking the chair professor position at UCSD, he was a distinguished professor at National Tsing Hua University and also Director General of the National Science Council Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was also a visiting professor at Columbia University during the 2001–02 academic year and before that a visiting scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 1996-97 and Princeton University in 1991–92. He graduated from Tunghai University in 1976.
Go to Profile#28174
Fernando Hierro
#28185
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Fernando Ruiz Hierro is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a centre-back, sweeper or defensive midfielder. He is the current sporting director of Liga MX club C.D. Guadalajara. He is considered one of the greatest defenders of his generation.
Go to Profile#28175
Javier Suárez
#28186
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Javier Suárez Bernaldo de Quirós is a Spanish economist who is known for his specialization in financial crises. He studied economics at the Complutense University of Madrid and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Go to Profile#28176
Kurt Rambis
#28187
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Darrell Kurt Rambis is a Greek-American former professional basketball player and coach who is a senior basketball adviser for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . As a player, he won four NBA championships while playing power forward for the Lakers. Rambis was a key member of the Showtime era Lakers and was extremely popular for his hard-nosed blue collar play. With his trademark black horn-rimmed glasses, Rambis complemented the flashy Hollywood style of the Showtime era Lakers.
Go to Profile#28177
Thomas Ehrlich
#28188
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Thomas Ehrlich is a consulting professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. From 2000 to 2010 he was a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He has previously served as president of Indiana University, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dean of Stanford Law School. He was also the first president of the Legal Services Corporation in Washington, D.C., and the first director of the International Development Cooperation Agency, reporting to President Carter. After his tenure at Indiana University, he was a Distinguished University Scholar at California State University and taught regularly at San Francisco State University.
Go to Profile#28178
Emma Stone
#28189
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Emily Jean "Emma" Stone is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2017, she was the world's highest-paid actress and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Go to Profile#28179
Jane Root
#28190
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jane Fairbairn Root is a creative executive in the media industry, who has run major television networks on both sides of the Atlantic. As Controller of BBC Two , she was the first woman to be a channel controller for the BBC, and was later President of Discovery Networks in the United States.
Go to Profile#28180
Masayoshi Yamaguchi
#28191
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Masayoshi Yamaguchi is a Japanese scientist and researcher in the biomedical fields related to biochemistry, endocrinology, metabolism, nutrition, pharmacology and toxicology. Career He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Shizuoka College of Pharmacy in 1971, and obtained his Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1976 in Japan. He was engaged as a research associate and assistant professor in Shizuoka College from 1973 to 1987, as assistant professor in the University of Shizuoka School of Pharmaceutical Sciences from 1987 to 1991, as associate professor in the University of Shizuoka's Grad...
Go to Profile#28181
Stan Mikita
#28192
Overall Influence
1940 - 2018 (78 years)
Stanley Mikita was a Slovak-born Canadian ice hockey player for the Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hockey League, generally regarded as the best centre of the 1960s. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players. In 1961, he became the first Slovak-born player to win the Stanley Cup.
Go to Profile#28182
Harry Pitt
#28193
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Sir Harry Raymond Pitt FRS was a British mathematician. Harry Raymond Pitt was born in West Bromwich in 1914, the son of Harry and Harriet Pitt. He attended King Edward's School, Stourbridge, before going up to Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#28183
Abdol-Aziz Mirza Farmanfarmaian
#28194
Overall Influence
1920 - 2013 (93 years)
Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian was an Iranian architect, offspring of Iranian nobleman Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma and a member of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. In 1976, the company known as AFFA was created for the design of the Aryamehr Stadium which after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 was renamed to Azadi Stadium.
Go to Profile#28184
Maurice Sartre
#28195
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Maurice Sartre is a French historian, an Emeritus professor of ancient history at the François Rabelais University, a specialist in ancient Greek and Eastern Roman history, especially the Hellenized Middle East, from Alexander to Islamic conquests.
Go to Profile#28185
Wilhelm Klingenberg
#28196
Overall Influence
1924 - 2010 (86 years)
Wilhelm Paul Albert Klingenberg was a German mathematician who worked on differential geometry and in particular on closed geodesics. Life Klingenberg was born in 1924 as the son of a Protestant minister. In 1934 the family moved to Berlin; he joined the Wehrmacht in 1941. After the war, he studied mathematics at the University of Kiel, where he finished his Ph.D. in 1950 with , with a thesis in affine differential geometry.
Go to Profile#28186
Michael Ghil
#28197
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael Ghil is an American and European mathematician and physicist, focusing on the climate sciences and their interdisciplinary aspects. He is a founder of theoretical climate dynamics, as well as of advanced data assimilation methodology. He has systematically applied dynamical systems theory to planetary-scale flows, both atmospheric and oceanic. Ghil has used these methods to proceed from simple flows with high temporal regularity and spatial symmetry to the observed flows, with their complex behavior in space and time. His studies of climate variability on many time scales have used a ...
Go to Profile#28187
Josef H. Neumann
#28198
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Josef H. Neumann is a German Art Photographer, media designer and art historian. He invented the chemogram, an experimental artform involving manipulating chemicals in film photography. Life Education From 1967 to 1970 Josef H. Neumann was apprenticed at the photographer Gustav Wenning in his birthplace Rheine. From 1974 to 1978 he studied visual communication at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences, after completing his degree as a photo designer in 1978 with a degree and intermediate diploma in journalism, philosophy and art history at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster ...
Go to Profile#28188
Ola Vincent
#28199
Overall Influence
1925 - 2012 (87 years)
Olatunde Olabode Vincent was a Nigerian economist and banker who was Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria between 1977 and 1982. Birth and education Vincent was born on 16 May 1925 in Lagos. He attended CMS Grammar School, Lagos . He served in the Nigerian Armed Forces between 1942 and 1946, and then worked in the Financial Secretary's Office, Lagos between 1946 and 1956. In 1951 he attended the Administrative Staff College in England, and from 1953 to 1956 he studied at the University of Manchester. From 1957 to 1960 he was a part-time lecturer in Economics at the University of Ibadan.
Go to Profile#28189
Massimo Pallottino
#28200
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Massimo Pallottino was an Italian archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization and art. Biography Pallottino was a student of Giulio Quirino Giglioli and worked early in his career on the Temple of Apollo at Veii. In essence Pallottino created the modern discipline of Etruscology and trained many of its leading practitioners. He published a massive corpus of material during his career and established a research center in Rome, today known as C.N.R. per l'Archeologia etrusco-italica. He was also influential in establishing the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi e Italici and its journal, Studi Etruschi.
Go to Profile#28190
Louis Dupré
#28201
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Louis Dupré was a Belgian-American philosopher, professor at Yale University. Life and work Dupré was born in Veerle/Laakdal, Belgium, studied at the University of Louvain where he graduated in 1956. His doctoral dissertation on The Starting Point of Marxist Philosophy received the University’s biennial J.M. Huyghe prize in social studies. Receiving a study grant from the Danish Government he went to Kopenhagen to do research on Kierkegaard. In 1958 he emigrated to the USA and taught modern philosophy at Georgetown University until 1973 when he was appointed T. Lawrason Riggs professor in th...
Go to Profile#28191
Beverly Donofrio
#28202
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Beverly Ann Donofrio is an American memoirist, children's author, and creative writing teacher known for her 1992 best selling memoir, Riding in Cars with Boys. The memoir was adapted into the 2001 film Riding in Cars with Boys, directed by Penny Marshall, with Drew Barrymore portraying Donofrio.
Go to Profile#28192
Didier Auriol
#28203
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Didier Auriol is a French former rally driver. Born in Montpellier and initially an ambulance driver, he competed in the World Rally Championship throughout the 1990s. He became World Rally Champion in 1994, the first driver from his country to do so. He was a factory candidate for Lancia, Toyota and Peugeot among others, before losing his seat at Škoda at the end of 2003. His sister Nadine was also involved in rallying as a co-driver, while his brother Gerrard was also a former rally driver.
Go to Profile#28193
Karla Jessen Williamson
#28204
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Karla Jessen Williamson is an assistant professor of educational foundations at the University of Saskatchewan. Formerly, she was the executive director of the Arctic Institute of North America , the first woman and first Inuk to hold the position. Fluent in Danish, English, and Greenlandic, she is an educator and researcher on cross-culturalism, multiculturalism, antiracism, and Aboriginal epistemology.
Go to Profile#28194
Katya Echazarreta
#28205
Overall Influence
1995 - Present (31 years)
Katya Celeste Echazarreta González is a Mexican electrical engineer, science communicator, and Citizen Astronaut. She worked at NASA, first as an intern during her university undergraduate career, then later as a test lead for the Europa Clipper Ground Support Equipment group. She has contributed to a total of five NASA missions. Around 2019, Echazarreta began uploading engineering-related content to Instagram, later expanding her platforms to YouTube and TikTok.
Go to Profile#28195
Yonas Beyene
#28206
Overall Influence
Yonas Beyene is an Ethiopian archaeologist. He is known for his works on the Paleolithic archaeology of Konso and the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Recently, he prepared the Nomination Files that eventually led to the registration of the Konso Cultural Landscape of southern Ethiopia in UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2011.
Go to Profile#28196
Susan L. Carney
#28207
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Susan Laura Carney is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Early life and education Born in Waltham, Massachusetts, Carney grew up attending public schools in Lexington and Weston, Massachusetts. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College, cum laude, in 1973, and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 1977. After graduating from law school, Carney worked as a law clerk for Judge Levin H. Campbell of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Go to Profile#28197
Richie Sambora
#28208
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Richard Stephen Sambora is an American musician, singer, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Bon Jovi from 1983 to 2013. He and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi formed the main songwriting unit for the band. He has also released three solo albums: Stranger in This Town in 1991, Undiscovered Soul in 1998, and Aftermath of the Lowdown released in September 2012.
Go to Profile#28198
Djibril Cissé
#28209
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Djibril Cissé is a French former professional footballer who played as a forward. He started his career at AC Arles in 1989, at the age of eight. After seven years at the club, he had a six-month spell at Nîmes Olympique, before moving to AJ Auxerre, joining the club's youth system. Cissé spent two years in the system, before graduating to the first team in 1998. After playing for Auxerre for six seasons, scoring 90 goals in 166 appearances, he moved to Premier League club Liverpool in 2004.
Go to Profile#28199
Murray Edelman
#28210
Overall Influence
1919 - 2001 (82 years)
Murray Jacob Edelman was an American political scientist known for his research on symbolic politics and political psychology. Career Edelman received a bachelor's degree in social sciences from Bucknell University in 1941, a master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1942 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois in 1948. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois that year, and remained there until he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1966. Edelman was awarded a University Houses chair in 1971, which he named for George Herbert Mead, an inspiration for much of his own work on symbolic politics.
Go to Profile#28200
Phaedon Avouris
#28211
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Phaedon Avouris is a Greek chemical physicist and materials scientist. He is an IBM Fellow and was formerly the group leader for Nanometer Scale Science and Technology at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.
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