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
#2851
Mario H. Acuña
#141007
Overall Influence
#2852
Anthony William Leonard
#141056
Overall Influence
#2853
Joseph Helszajn
#141063
Overall Influence
1934 - 2019 (85 years)
Joseph Helszajn , was Professor of Microwave Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. He was best known for his work on non-reciprocal microwave circuits and devices, such as yttrium iron garnet isolatorss and circulators. During his tenure, Helszajn has authored multiple engineering textbooks on non-reciprocal microwave devices.
Go to Profile#2854
Gert Cauwenberghs
#141090
Overall Influence
#2855
Kenneth H. Fischbeck
#141202
Overall Influence
#2856
Robert. A. Jacobson
#141206
Overall Influence
#2857
Yan Chen
#141220
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Yan Chen is a Chinese American behavioral and experimental economist. She is Daniel Kahneman Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, research professor in the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and distinguished visiting professor at the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, where she directs the Economics Science and Policy Experimental Lab. She is a former president of the Economic Science Association, an international organization of experimental economists.
Go to Profile#2858
Steven De Feyter
#141231
Overall Influence
#2859
John Hall Richards
#141312
Overall Influence
#2860
Lee Armus
#141338
Overall Influence
#2861
Paul-emile Pilet
#141409
Overall Influence
#2862
Joseph Johnson III
#141497
Overall Influence
1940 - 2017 (77 years)
Joseph Andrew Johnson III was an American physicist and professor at the Florida A&M University. He was a founding member of the National Society of Black Physicists. He was awarded the 1995 American Physical Society Edward Bouchet award and the 2016 Yale University Bouchet Leadership Award Medal.
Go to Profile#2863
Fasiha Kanwal
#141555
Overall Influence
#2864
Ehud Grossman
#141600
Overall Influence
#2865
Stephen Michael Cohen
#141650
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
#2866
Jonathan Brent Hanson
#141685
Overall Influence
#2867
Robert Dreicer
#141687
Overall Influence
#2868
Ufuk Topcu
#141776
Overall Influence
#2869
Lan Yang
#141778
Overall Influence
Lan Yang is a Chinese-born physicist specializing in optics. Lan Yang earned her bachelor's and first master's of science degrees at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1997 and 1999, respectively. She completed a second master's degree in materials science at the California Institute of Technology in 2000, and remained at Caltech to pursue a doctorate in applied physics, which she obtained in 2005. Lan Yang began teaching at the Washington University in St. Louis in 2007, as an assistant professor. She became an associate professor in 2012, then a full professor in 2014, as Edwin H.
Go to Profile#2870
Michael A. Geeves
#141922
Overall Influence
#2871
Richard J. Hanson
#141955
Overall Influence
#2872
Lester William Clem
#142027
Overall Influence
#2873
Arvind Varma
#142203
Overall Influence
#2874
David Laidlaw
#142236
Overall Influence
David Hales Laidlaw is an American computer scientist. He is currently Professor of Computer Science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2014 he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for contributions to data visualization and analytics. In 2019, he was named to the IEEE Visualization Academy.
Go to Profile#2875
David George Hitlin
#142349
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
David George Hitlin is a professor at the California Institute of Technology, specializing in experimental particle physics. He was educated at Columbia University, where he received his B.A. in 1963, and Ph.D. in 1968.
Go to Profile#2876
Christina Birch
#142445
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (39 years)
Christina Marie Birch is an American professional racing cyclist and NASA astronaut candidate. Early life and career Birch grew up in Gilbert, Arizona, and graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, biochemistry, and molecular biophysics. Birch began cycling with the MIT cycling team while working on her PhD. While at MIT she won the 2014 USA Cycling collegiate cyclocross division two national championship. Birch also represented the JAM Fund cyclocross team from 2011-2015.
Go to Profile#2877
Rodney J. Douglas
#142542
Overall Influence
#2878
Kristen Marhaver
#142652
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (43 years)
Kristen Marhaver is a marine biologist studying coral reefs and specializing in coral ecology, reproduction, and conservation. Marhaver is a senior scientist at CARMABI Marine Research Station. Marhaver was part of the group of scientists that successfully used frozen Elkhorn coral sperm to fertilize live coral eggs to raise the first lab-reared juveniles in nurseries. Some of the sperm and eggs were from geographically isolated corals of the same species. Their success allows for the possibility of breeding corals to be more resistant to increasing ocean water temperatures by breeding cora...
Go to Profile#2879
James K. Knowles
#142654
Overall Influence
#2880
Ian R. Joughin
#142767
Overall Influence
#2881
Friedrich Stephan
#142898
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (84 years)
Dr. Friedrich Karl Stephan is an American academic who is a circadian physiologist. He is the Curt P. Richter Distinguished Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Florida State University. His research focuses on localization and function of biological clocks in vertebrates, light and food as entraining signals for circadian rhythms, obesity, sleep, and reproduction. He is credited as the discoverer of the suprachiasmatic nucleus .
Go to Profile#2882
Gloria Choi
#143052
Overall Influence
Gloria Choi is an American neuroscientist and neuroimmunologist and the Samuel A. Goldblith Career Development Professor in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Choi is known for elucidating the role of the immune system in the development of autism spectrum disorder-like phenotypes. Her lab currently explores how sensory experiences drive internal states and behavioural outcomes through probing the olfactory system as well as the neuroimmune system.
Go to Profile#2883
Jian Cao
#143449
Overall Influence
Jian Cao is a materials scientist and mechanical engineer whose research includes the mechanical behavior and manufacturing of sheet metal and woven composite materials, including dieless deformation and laser additive manufacturing processes. She is Cardiss Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University and director of the Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation.
Go to Profile#2884
Michael Spedding
#143536
Overall Influence
#2885
Clyde A. Iii Hutchison
#143656
Overall Influence
#2886
Michael A. Mallin
#143727
Overall Influence
Michael A. Mallin is an American biologist. He is currently a Research Professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2007. His highest cited paper, Solution-phase synthesis of sub-10 nm Au− Ag alloy nanoparticles, has been cited 409 times, according to GoogleScholar. His current research interests are environmental and ocean management and pollution.
Go to Profile#2887
Sriram Subramaniam
#143765
Overall Influence
#2888
Adam J. Burgasser
#143767
Overall Influence
#2889
Elke Arenholz
#143806
Overall Influence
Elke Arenholz is a German American physicist working in the field magnetic materials and X-ray spectroscopy, where she pioneered the use of superconducting vector magnets to study X-ray magnetic circular dichroism . She is the associate director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source .
Go to Profile#2890
Robert Kerns
#143869
Overall Influence
Robert D. Kerns is an American clinical psychologist, academic and author. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Neurology and Psychology at Yale University and Senior Research Scientist of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. He is also a Program Director of National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs Pain Management Collaboratory Coordinating Center.
Go to Profile#2891
Stephen Grand
#143905
Overall Influence
Stephen P. Grand is an American geologist, currently the Carleton Professor of Geophysics at University of Texas at Austin. Education Ph.D. in Geophysics, Caltech, April, 1986BSc. in Physics, McGill University, 1978
Go to Profile#2892
Paul Manneville
#144013
Overall Influence
#2893
Richard W. Pogge
#144032
Overall Influence
#2894
Matthew Shum
#144050
Overall Influence
Matthew Shou-Chung Shum is an American economist. He is the William D. Hacker Professor of Economics at the California Institute of Technology since 2023. He is married and has four children. Early life Shum was born on February 21, 1970, in Houston, Texas.
Go to Profile#2895
Tao Han
#144110
Overall Influence
#2896
Richard M. Goldstein
#144170
Overall Influence
#2897
Gordon P. Garmire
#144196
Overall Influence
#2898
Humberto Terrones
#144200
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
#2899
Lawrence T. Scott
#144272
Overall Influence
#2900
Alberto Elfes
#144530
Overall Influence
