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
#29501
Horace Lunt
#29513
Overall Influence
1918 - 2010 (92 years)
Horace Gray Lunt was a linguist in the field of Slavic Studies. He was Professor Emeritus at the Slavic Language and Literature Department and the Ukrainian Institute at Harvard University. Born in Colorado Springs, Lunt attended Harvard College , the University of California , Charles University in Prague , and Columbia University . As a student of Roman Jakobson at Columbia, he joined the Harvard University faculty in 1949 together with his mentor. There he taught the course on Old Church Slavonic grammar for four decades, creating what has become the standard handbook on it, now in its sev...
Go to Profile#29502
Eddy Arnold
#29514
Overall Influence
1918 - 2008 (90 years)
Richard Edward Arnold was an American country music singer. He was a Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones. He sold more than 85 million records. A member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame , Arnold ranked 22nd on Country Music Television's 2003 list of "The 40 Greatest Men of Country Music."
Go to Profile#29503
Raymond C. Stevens
#29515
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Raymond C. Stevens is an American chemist and structural biologist, Founder, CEO and Board Member of Structure Therapeutics; Founding Director of the at ShanghaiTech University; Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, and Founding Director of the Bridge Institute at the University of Southern California; Board Member, Danaher Corporation.
Go to Profile#29504
Naresh Dalal
#29516
Overall Influence
Naresh Dalal is a physical chemist who specializes in materials science. He is the Dirac Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University, where he is affiliated with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
Go to Profile#29505
Virginia Tilley
#29517
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Virginia Tilley is an American political scientist specialising in the comparative study of ethnic and racial conflict. She is Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in the US.
Go to Profile#29506
Jeff Kingston
#29518
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jeffrey "Jeff" Kingston is an American professor at Temple University, Japan Campus in Tokyo and an author. He has written a number of books, wrote regularly for The Japan Times, and frequently comments on Asian affairs in mass media outlets.
Go to Profile#29507
Ge Fei
#29519
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Ge Fei is the pen-name for Liu Yong , a Chinese novelist who is considered one of the preeminent experimental writers during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Biography Ge Fei was born in Dantu, Jiangsu, in 1964. He graduated from East China Normal University in 1985. He received his PhD in 2000.
Go to Profile#29508
Garth Ennis
#29520
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Garth Ennis is a Northern Irish–American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon, his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise, and The Boys with artist Darick Robertson. He has collaborated with artists such as Dillon and Glenn Fabry on Preacher, John McCrea on Hitman, Marc Silvestri on The Darkness, and Carlos Ezquerra on both Preacher and Hitman. His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including nominations for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Go to Profile#29509
Gertrud Schüpbach
#29521
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Trudi Schüpbach is a Swiss-American molecular biologist. She is an Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, where her laboratory studies molecular and genetic mechanisms in fruit fly oogenesis.
Go to Profile#29510
Freddie Hubbard
#29522
Overall Influence
1938 - 2008 (70 years)
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.
Go to Profile#29511
Perry Farrell
#29523
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Perry Farrell is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the frontman of the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction. Farrell created the touring festival Lollapalooza as part of a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction in 1991; it has since evolved into an annual destination festival. Farrell continues to produce Lollapalooza with partners William Morris Agency and C3 Presents. He has also led the alternative rock groups Porno for Pyros and Satellite Party.
Go to Profile#29512
Gerald R. Allen
#29524
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Gerald Robert "Gerry" Allen is an American-born Australian ichthyologist. His career began in 1963, when he spent a semester at the University of Hawaii, where he also received a PhD in marine zoology in 1971. In 1972, Allen wrote his doctoral thesis on the systematics and biology of the anemone fish.
Go to Profile#29513
Jeffrey Vitter
#29525
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jeffrey Scott Vitter is a U.S. computer scientist and academic administrator. Born in 1955 in New Orleans, Vitter has served in several senior higher education administration posts. He is a former chancellor of the University of Mississippi . He assumed the chancellor position on January 1, 2016. His formal investiture to the chancellorship took place on November 10, 2016, at the University of Mississippi's Oxford Campus.
Go to Profile#29514
Gerhard Andersson
#29526
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Gerhard Andersson is a Swedish psychologist, psychotherapist and Professor of clinical psychology at Linköping University. He was previously affiliated researcher at Karolinska Institutet. He was a co-recipient of the Nordic Medical Prize in 2014.
Go to Profile#29515
Wolfram Saenger
#29527
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Wolfram Saenger is a German biochemist and protein crystallographer. In his research career spanning over 30 years he has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, Harvard University and the Free University of Berlin, where he led the Institute for Crystallography research until his retirement in 2011. A recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honor awarded for achievements in research in Germany, and the Humboldt Prize , he is best known for his research on X-ray crystallography of membrane proteins and protein-nucleic acid complexes.
Go to Profile#29516
Yves Laszlo
#29528
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Yves Laszlo is a French mathematician working in the University of Paris-Sud. He specializes in algebraic geometry. Laszlo obtained his Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of Paris-Sud under the supervision of Arnaud Beauville. He started the Fondation Mathématique Jacques Hadamard in 2011, and directed it until 2012.
Go to Profile#29517
Steve Mac
#29529
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Steve McCutcheon , known professionally as Steve Mac, is a British record producer, songwriter and musician. A multi-award-winning producer, he is one of the most prolific songwriters and record producers in modern British music, with contributions to 30 number one singles in the UK Singles Chart.
Go to Profile#29518
Anis Mansour
#29530
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
Anis Mansour, also transliterated as Anīs Manṣūr was an Egyptian writer. Biography Mansour was born in Al-Mansoura on 18 August 1924. He obtained his BA in philosophy at Cairo University in 1947 and started his journalistic career. He joined the staff of the newspaper Al Asas, later joining many other newspapers and magazines such as Rose al-Yousef and Al-Ahram. He served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine Akher Saa from 1970 to 1976. He became the editor-in-chief of the October magazine in 1976.
Go to Profile#29519
Kate McKinnon
#29531
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Kate McKinnon Berthold is an American actress, comedian, impressionist, and writer. She was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2012 to 2022, where she became known for her character work and celebrity impressions. For her work on the series, she was nominated for ten Primetime Emmy Awards, including one for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics and nine for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, winning in 2016 and 2017.
Go to Profile#29520
Rebecca M. Henderson
#29532
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Rebecca M. Henderson, FBA is a British economist, currently the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard Business School. She teaches Reimagining Capitalism in the Master of Business Administration Program.
Go to Profile#29521
Vickie Guerrero
#29533
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Vickie Lynn Benson , better known as Vickie Guerrero, is an American professional wrestling personality and manager and retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenure with WWE. She most recently worked for All Elite Wrestling as the manager of Nyla Rose and Marina Shafir.
Go to Profile#29522
Joseph Jankovic
#29534
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Joseph Jankovic is an American neurologist and professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is the Distinguished Chair in Movement Disorders and founder and director of the Parkinson's Disease Center and Movement Disorders Clinic.
Go to Profile#29523
Ann Douglas
#29535
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ann Douglas is an American literary historian who specializes in intellectual history. She is the Parr Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Biography Douglas attended Milton Academy, received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and B.Phil. from the University of Oxford. She taught at Princeton University from 1970 to 1974 and was the first woman to teach in Princeton's English department and the first woman to be offered assistant professorship at Harvard. She then joined Columbia's faculty. Her research interests include 20th-century American intellectual and cultural history.
Go to Profile#29524
Matthew Crawford
#29536
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Matthew B. Crawford is an American writer and research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Early life and education Crawford majored in physics as an undergraduate, then turned to political philosophy. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#29525
Chris Taylor
#29537
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Christopher Thornton Taylor is an Australian comedy writer, performer and broadcaster from Sydney. As a member of The Chaser, he is best known for co-writing and appearing on satirical ABC Television shows CNNNN and The Chaser's War on Everything . He formerly co-hosted the drive radio show Today Today on Triple J with fellow Chaser member Craig Reucassel, and in 2007, he wrote the musical comedy Dead Caesar. Taylor also hosted the mini documentary series 'Australia's Heritage: National Treasures'. In 2010, with his Chaser colleague Andrew Hansen, Taylor made a musical comedy series for Tri...
Go to Profile#29526
Hideki Matsui
#29538
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Hideki Matsui, nicknamed "Godzilla", is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder and designated hitter who played baseball in Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball . He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.
Go to Profile#29527
Roma Agrawal
#29539
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Roma Agrawal is an Indian-British-American chartered structural engineer based in London. She has worked on several major engineering projects, including the Shard. Agrawal is also an author and a diversity campaigner, championing women in engineering.
Go to Profile#29528
Sehadete Mekuli
#29540
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Sehadete Mekuli , also spelled Sadete Mekuli, was a Yugoslavian-born Albanian gynecologist, professor, and public figure. She became known for tending to the injured students of the 1981 protests in Kosovo, when Albanians demanded more autonomy within the Yugoslav federation. As a result of her actions, she was denied a full professorship at the University of Pristina School of Medicine and was forced into early retirement in 1988. She is the inspiration for the character of Teuta Shkreli in Ismail Kadare's 1985 novel The Wedding Procession Turned to Ice .
Go to Profile#29529
Walter Hayman
#29541
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Walter Kurt Hayman FRS was a British mathematician known for contributions to complex analysis. He was a professor at Imperial College London. Life and work Hayman was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Roman law professor Franz Haymann and Ruth Therese Hensel, daughter of mathematician Kurt Hensel. He was a great-grandson of acclaimed composer Fanny Mendelssohn. Because of his Jewish heritage, he left Germany, then under Nazi rule, alone by train in 1938. He continued his schooling at Gordonstoun School, and later at St John's College, Cambridge under John Edensor Littlewood and his doctoral advisor Mary Cartwright.
Go to Profile#29530
Miranda Cheng
#29542
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Miranda Chih-Ning Cheng is a Taiwanese-born and Dutch-educated mathematician and theoretical physicist who works as an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam. She is known for formulating the umbral moonshine conjectures and for her work on the connections between K3 surfaces and string theory.
Go to Profile#29531
Ronan Fanning
#29543
Overall Influence
1941 - 2017 (76 years)
Ronan Fanning was an Irish historian. Biography The son of an Irish doctor and English Montessori teacher, Fanning was educated at St Michael's College, Dublin and C.B.C. Monkstown. He received his undergraduate degree from UCD and his doctoral thesis on "Balfour and Unionism" from Cambridge University. He was Fulbright Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC in 1976-1977, researching the triangular relationship between Britain, Ireland and the US.
Go to Profile#29532
Sarah Drew
#29544
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Sarah Drew is an American actress and director. She played Hannah Rogers in The WB family drama series Everwood and Dr. April Kepner in the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy . Early life Drew was born and raised in Stony Brook, New York, where she attended The Stony Brook School. Her mother, Dr. Jeannie Drew, is now teaching biology at an independent private school for girls in Manhattan. Her father, Rev. Charles Drew, is the senior pastor at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in New York City. Her brother, Allen Drew, is a pastor at Mt. Airy Community Church in Philadelphia and director of an a cappella group at Germantown Friends School.
Go to Profile#29533
Cillian Murphy
#29545
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early notable film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later , the dark comedy Intermission , the thriller Red Eye , the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley , and the science fiction thriller Sunshine . He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto , which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Go to Profile#29534
Peter Salmon
#29546
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Peter Salmon is a British television producer and executive. He is Chief Creative Officer of global content creator, producer and distributor Endemol Shine Group, leading the company’s creative direction globally and overseeing the Group’s UK business. Prior to taking his current role in April 2016, Salmon was Director of BBC Studios, the corporation's production arm, and before that held a number of senior BBC roles including Chief Creative Officer of BBC Vision, effectively overseeing all of BBC television's in-house programme production, and Director of BBC North.
Go to Profile#29535
Caroline Lucas
#29547
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Caroline Patricia Lucas is a British politician who has twice led the Green Party of England and Wales and has been the Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election. She was re-elected in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections, increasing her majority each time.
Go to Profile#29536
John Warner
#29548
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
John Charles Warner is an American chemist, educator, and entrepreneur, best known as one of the founders of the field of green chemistry. Warner worked in industry for nearly a decade as a researcher at Polaroid Corporation, before moving to academia where he worked in various positions at University of Massachusetts Boston and Lowell. Warner is co-founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer at the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, as well as co-founder and President of Beyond Benign. He is the recipient of the 2014 Perkin Medal, widely acknowledged as the highest honor in A...
Go to Profile#29537
Atul Gurtu
#29549
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Atul Gurtu is a high energy physicist in India. He joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , Mumbai, in 1971, and retired in 2011 as a senior professor, after a career spanning four decades in particle physics research.
Go to Profile#29538
Jean Mercer
#29550
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Jean Mercer is an American developmental psychologist and professor emerita of psychology at Stockton University. Founder of the advocacy group Advocates for Children in Therapy, she is known as an advocate for adopted children and those who come from the foster care system, and as an outspoken critic of attachment therapy.
Go to Profile#29539
Cyril O'Regan
#29551
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Cyril J. O'Regan is an Irish Catholic writer and the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. O'Regan studied at University College Dublin gaining a BA and MA. He studied at Yale University earning an MA, MLitt and PhD.
Go to Profile#29540
Gheorghe Păun
#29552
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Gheorghe Păun is a computer scientist from Romania, prominent for work on membrane computing and the P system. Păun studied mathematics at the University of Bucharest, obtaining an MSc. in 1974 and a PhD in 1977 under the direction of Solomon Marcus. He has been a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy since 1990. Păun was elected a member of the Academia Europaea in 2006, and a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 2012. He supervised the PhD thesis of 5 students. In 2016, he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa Scientiarum.
Go to Profile#29541
Ai Sugiyama
#29553
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
is a Japanese former tennis player. She reached the world No. 1 ranking in women's doubles on the WTA Tour and had a career-high singles ranking of world No. 8, achieved on February 9, 2004. In her career, she won six singles and 38 doubles titles, including three Grand Slam titles , and one Grand Slam mixed doubles title . Sugiyama held the all-time record, for both male and female players, for her 62 consecutive Grand Slam main-draw appearances, until she was surpassed by Roger Federer at the 2015 Wimbledon Championships.
Go to Profile#29542
Adriana Iliescu
#29554
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Adriana Iliescu is a Romanian retired university teacher, philologist and author of children's novels. She received international media attention in 2005, when she gave birth to daughter Eliza at age 66, making her the oldest birth mother in the world until this record was broken in 2006 by María del Carmen Bousada de Lara. Eliza, who was delivered at Giuleşti Maternity Hospital on 16 January 2005 in Bucharest, is Iliescu's biological child, since she gestated in Iliescu's womb but was conceived by an ovum and sperm donated anonymously.
Go to Profile#29543
Włodzimierz Borodziej
#29555
Overall Influence
1956 - 2021 (65 years)
Włodzimierz Borodziej was a Polish historian and writer specializing in contemporary European history with particular focus on Polish-German relations. Borodziej was a professor of humanistic sciences, and former prorector of the Warsaw University. He was the Polish-side Chairman of German-Polish Textbook Commission from 1997 to 2007.
Go to Profile#29544
Roma Mitchell
#29556
Overall Influence
1913 - 2000 (87 years)
Dame Roma Flinders Mitchell, was an Australian lawyer, judge and state governor. She was the first woman to hold a number of positions in Australia – the country's first woman judge, the first woman to be a Queen's Counsel, a chancellor of an Australian university and the Governor of an Australian state.
Go to Profile#29545
Maria Baghramian
#29557
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Maria Baghramian is an Irish philosopher who is the Professor of American Philosophy in the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin . She was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010 and a member of the RIA Council from 2015 to 2018. Baghramian has published ten authored and edited books as well as articles and book chapters on topics in epistemology and twentieth century American Philosophy. She was the Chief Editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies from 2003 to 2013.
Go to Profile#29546
Stephen Wizner
#29558
Overall Influence
Stephen Wizner is the William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He also has a Special Appointment as the Sackler Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University. Teaching Wizner teaches several clinical courses, including Advanced Advocacy for Children and Youth, Advanced Immigration Legal Services, and the Community Lawyering Clinic.
Go to Profile#29547
William Shaw
#29559
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
William H. Shaw was born on July 31, 1948. He is a professor and former Chair of the Philosophy Department at San Jose State University. He is the author of Marx's Theory of History, Business Ethics, 4th ed., Moral Issues in Business, 8th ed. , and Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism.
Go to Profile#29548
James W. Douglass
#29560
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
James W. "Jim" Douglass is an American author, activist, and Christian theologian. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University. He and his wife, Shelley Douglass, founded the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and Mary’s House, a Catholic Worker house in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1997 the Douglasses received the Pacem in Terris Award.
Go to Profile#29549
Sheldon Patinkin
#29561
Overall Influence
1935 - 2014 (79 years)
Sheldon Arthur Patinkin was a chair of the Theater Department of Columbia College Chicago, artistic director of the Getz Theater of Columbia College, Artistic Consultant of The Second City and of Steppenwolf Theatre and co-director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Summer Ensemble Workshops.
Go to Profile#29550
Robert Roosa
#29562
Overall Influence
1918 - 1993 (75 years)
Robert Vincent Roosa was an American economist and banker. He served as Treasury Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs during the Kennedy administration. He believed the U.S. dollar should be the world's leading currency and reference point because the United States was the leading political and economic power.
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