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
#29551
Paul Demaret
#29563
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Paul Demaret is a university professor and former rector of the College of Europe, located in Bruges and Natolin . Biography Demaret holds a PhD in law from the University of Liège, an LL.M. from Columbia Law School and a JSD from UC Berkeley. He defended his doctorate of law at the University of Liège.
Go to Profile#29552
Carol K. Hall
#29564
Overall Influence
Carol Klein Hall is an American chemical engineer, the Camille Dreyfus Distinguished University Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. Her research involves biomolecule simulation, self-assembly of soft materials, and the design of synthetic peptides.
Go to Profile#29553
Maria Forsyth
#29565
Overall Influence
Maria Forsyth is an Australian chemist. She is a research professor at the University of the Basque Country and an Alfred Deakin Fellow at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia where she holds the Chair in Electromaterials and Corrosion Sciences.
Go to Profile#29554
Rakim
#29566
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
William Michael Griffin Jr. , better known by his stage name Rakim , is an American rapper. One half of golden age hip hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential and skilled rappers of all time.
Go to Profile#29555
Edith Brown Weiss
#29567
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Edith Brown Weiss is an American lawyer and legal scholar, known for her contributions on International Law; specifically International Environmental Law. From 1994–1996, she served as President of the American Society of International Law. She has worked for many international organizations, including the World Bank, where she was part of the Inspection Panel from 2002–2007, and the United Nations Environment Programmer's International Advisory Council on Environmental Justice. Currently, she is the Francis Cabell Brown Professor of International Law at Georgetown University; she has been a faculty member at Georgetown since 1978.
Go to Profile#29556
Mark Kishlansky
#29568
Overall Influence
1948 - 2015 (67 years)
Mark Kishlansky was an American historian of seventeenth-century British politics. He was the Frank Baird, Jr. Professor of History at Harvard University. Education and academic career Kishlansky was born in Brooklyn. He completed his undergraduate degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1970. He proceeded to graduate study under David Underdown at Brown University, receiving his M.A. in 1972 and his PhD in 1977. His PhD thesis was titled "The Emergence of Radical Politics in the English Revolution". From 1975 to 1991 he taught at the University of Chicago, successively as instructor and professor.
Go to Profile#29557
Ellen Thomas
#29569
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ellen Thomas is an American peace activist. She first became involved with the White House Peace Vigil on April 13, 1984. The daughter of a US Marine, Thomas was born in Brooklyn and grew up in California. She became opposed to nuclear weapons during her childhood. In protest at the policies of the United States government, she became a tax resister by simply living below the income tax threshold.
Go to Profile#29558
Pete Waterman
#29570
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Peter Alan Waterman is an English record producer, songwriter, radio and club DJ, television personality, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman production and songwriting team, he wrote and produced many hit singles. He is the owner of significant collections of both historic and commercial railway locomotives and rolling stock.
Go to Profile#29559
Howard Lasnik
#29571
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Howard Lasnik is a distinguished university professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Maryland. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology , Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1972, and took up his present post at the University of Maryland in 2002.
Go to Profile#29560
Zheng Jie
#29572
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Zheng Jie is a retired Chinese tennis player. In May 2009, she achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 15. Zheng is one of the most successful tennis players from China. She won four singles titles on the WTA Tour – Hobart in 2005, Estoril, Stockholm in 2006, and Auckland in 2012. She also won 15 career doubles titles, eleven of them with Yan Zi, including Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2006. She won the bronze medal in doubles with Yan Zi at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Her career-high doubles ranking is world No. 3. Zheng reached the singles semifinals at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, where she defeated world No.
Go to Profile#29561
Max Cavalera
#29573
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Massimiliano Antonio "Max" Cavalera is a Brazilian musician. He co-founded the heavy metal band Sepultura in 1984 with his brother Igor Cavalera, and was the band's lead singer and rhythm guitarist until his departure in 1996. He currently plays in the heavy metal bands Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, Killer Be Killed and Go Ahead and Die. Cavalera was also involved in a short-lived side project called Nailbomb.
Go to Profile#29562
Glen Matlock
#29574
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Glen Matlock is an English musician, best known for being the bass guitarist in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He is credited as a songwriter on 10 of the 12 songs on the Sex Pistols' only officially released studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, although he had left the band early in the recording process, credited as bassist and backing vocalist on only one song on the album, "Anarchy in the U.K.". However, on the bootleg album Spunk, Matlock played bass on all the songs, which included earlier studio recordings of 10 of the 12 songs tha...
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Felicitas Hoppe
#29575
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Felicitas Hoppe is a German writer. She received the Georg Büchner Prize in 2012. Biography Early years Felicitas Hoppe was born in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, and grew up there. After her Abitur she studied literature, rhetorics and theology: from 1982 to 1984 at the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, from 1984 to 1986 at the University of Oregon and from 1987 to 1990 at the Freien Universität Berlin. In 2006 she was a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. She worked as a dramaturge and journalist. Since 1996 she has been a freelance writer living in Berlin.
Go to Profile#29564
Charlie Weis
#29576
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Charles Joseph Weis Sr. is a former American football coach. He was the head coach for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 2005 to 2009 and the Kansas Jayhawks from 2012 to 2014. He also served as an offensive coordinator in the National Football League for the New York Jets, New England Patriots, and Kansas City Chiefs. Weis currently hosts "Airing It Out," along with Bob Papa, on Sirius XM NFL Radio.
Go to Profile#29565
Rumiko Takahashi
#29577
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
is a Japanese manga artist. With a career of several commercially successful works, beginning with Urusei Yatsura in 1978, Takahashi is one of Japan's best-known and wealthiest manga artists. Her works are popular worldwide, where they have been translated into a variety of languages, with over 200 million copies in circulation. She has won the Shogakukan Manga Award twice, once in 1980 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 2001 for Inuyasha, and the Seiun Award twice, once in 1987 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 1989 for Mermaid Saga. She also received the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in 2019, becoming the second woman and second Japanese to win the prize.
Go to Profile#29566
Imogen Heap
#29578
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music. Heap classically trained in piano, cello, and clarinet starting at a young age. She began writing songs at the age of 13 and, while attending boarding school, taught herself music production. After being discovered by manager Mickey Modern while attending the BRIT School, Heap signed to independent record label Almo Sounds at the age of 18 and later began working with experimental pop band Acacia. She released her debut album, an alternative rock record, I Megaphone, in 1998.
Go to Profile#29567
Sorana Cîrstea
#29579
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Sorana Mihaela Cîrstea is a Romanian professional tennis player. In singles, she achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 21 on 12 August 2013. In doubles, her career-high ranking is No. 35, which she reached on 9 March 2009. Her biggest achievements include reaching the quarterfinals at the 2009 French Open, the quarterfinals at the 2023 US Open, and the final at the 2013 Rogers Cup.
Go to Profile#29568
Brenda Lee
#29580
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Brenda Mae Tarpley , known professionally as Brenda Lee, is an American singer. Performing rockabilly, pop and country music, she had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s and is ranked fourth in that decade, surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Ray Charles. She is known for her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry" and 1958's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", which has become a Christmas standard.
Go to Profile#29569
Chanchal Kumar Majumdar
#29581
Overall Influence
1938 - 2000 (62 years)
Chanchal Kumar Majumdar was an Indian condensed matter physicist and the founder director of S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. Known for his research in quantum mechanics, Majumdar was an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies – the Indian National Science Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, India, and the Indian Academy of Sciences – as well a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society.
Go to Profile#29570
Steve Garvey
#29582
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Steven Patrick Garvey is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1987. Garvey began his major league career with the Dodgers in 1969. He won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1974 and was the National League Championship Series MVP in 1978. Garvey won his only World Series ring as a member of the Dodgers' 1981 Series-winning squad.
Go to Profile#29571
Magdalena Götz
#29583
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Magdalena Götz is a German neuroscientist. She is noted for her study of glial cells and holds a chair at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich's Department of Physiology. She is involved in the field of adult neurogenesis. Götz discovered that glial cells are neural stem cells in the developing mammalian brain. Current investigations study the mechanisms involved in determining how adult neural stem cells are specified. Götz current work focuses on refining ways to reprogram glial cells into neurons in organisms with traumatic brain injury. The German Stem Cell Network published an intervi...
Go to Profile#29572
Biman Prasad
#29584
Overall Influence
Biman Prasad is a Fijian politician and economist who has served as the leader of the National Federation Party since 2014, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance since 2022. Early life and education Prasad was born in Dreketi in Vanua Levu and was educated at Muanidevo Indian School, Dreketi Junior Secondary School and Labasa College. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and economics from the University of the South Pacific, he pursued a Masters of Commerce from the University of New South Wales and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Queensland.
Go to Profile#29573
R. Travis Osborne
#29585
Overall Influence
1913 - 2013 (100 years)
Robert Travis Osborne was an American psychologist. He was professor emeritus of psychology at University of Georgia, and director of the Pioneer Fund, an organization prominently described as white supremacist in nature, from 2000 until his death.
Go to Profile#29574
Roger Willemsen
#29586
Overall Influence
1955 - 2016 (61 years)
Roger Willemsen was a German author, essayist and TV presenter. Biography Willemsen was born and passed his Abitur in Bonn. He studied German philology , philosophy and history of art in Bonn, Munich and Vienna and was awarded a scholarship by the Evangelisches Studienwerk. He did his postgraduate studies on Robert Musil and received his PhD.
Go to Profile#29575
Clifford V. Johnson
#29587
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Clifford Victor Johnson is a British theoretical physicist and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara department of Physics. Biography Johnson was born in London, England, and lived in Montserrat for 10 years. From an early age, Johnson was interested in electronics. He would spend time reading on the subject, and designing small machinery such as radios. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Imperial College London in 1989 and he completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Southampton in 1992.
Go to Profile#29576
Dennis Sharp
#29588
Overall Influence
1933 - 2010 (77 years)
Dennis Sharp was a British architect, professor, curator, historian, author and editor. His obituary in The Guardian stated that he 'was well-known as an architectural historian, teacher and active defender of the environment. However, his reputation in those fields rather overshadowed his considerable success as a working architect and his long-term commitment to environmentally friendly building'.
Go to Profile#29577
Dennis Johnson
#29589
Overall Influence
1954 - 2007 (53 years)
Dennis Wayne Johnson , nicknamed "DJ", was an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's Seattle SuperSonics, Phoenix Suns, and Boston Celtics. He was a coach of the Los Angeles Clippers and an alumnus of Dominguez High School, Los Angeles Harbor College and Pepperdine University.
Go to Profile#29578
Nazir Jairazbhoy
#29590
Overall Influence
1927 - 2009 (82 years)
Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy was a professor of folk and classical music of South Asia at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was the founding chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology. He was appointed professor of music at UCLA in 1975, and retired in 1994. He was president of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
Go to Profile#29579
Bruce Kuklick
#29591
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Bruce Kuklick is an American historian. He currently serves as the Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in diplomatic and intellectual history of the United States and the history of philosophy.
Go to Profile#29580
Ofer Feldman
#29592
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ofer Feldman is an Israeli-Japanese Professor of Political Psychology and Political Behavior at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. Ofer Feldman was born in Israel and moved to Japan in 1982. In 1994 he became a Japanese citizen. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1987. Since then he has published numerous academic papers in various international journals. In addition, he has published, edited and co-edited 23 books and monographs on Japanese political behavior and communication, political psychology, political discourse and political leadership and personality. He is the 1993 Recipient of the Erik H.
Go to Profile#29581
Adam Bielański
#29593
Overall Influence
1912 - 2016 (104 years)
Adam Bielański was a Polish chemist and professor of Jagiellonian University. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was the author of several university-level books on inorganic chemistry, many of which are standard textbooks for students at most universities in Poland.
Go to Profile#29582
Mitsuo Sawamoto
#29594
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Mitsuo Sawamoto is a Japanese chemist specializing in the field of polymer chemistry, Emeritus Professor at Kyoto University, professor at Chubu University. He is co-recipient of the Franklin Institute Award in Chemistry in 2017 with Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, for their independent discover of Atom-transfer radical-polymerization .
Go to Profile#29583
Brett Bodine
#29595
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Brett Elias Bodine III is an American former stock car racing driver, former driver of the pace car in Cup Series events, and current NASCAR employee. Brett is the younger brother of 1986 Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine and the older brother of 2006 and 2010 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Todd Bodine. He was born in Chemung, New York. Brett has been named one of the 50 greatest NASCAR modified drivers of all time, was the runner-up for the 1986 Xfinity Series championship, and collected a total of five Xfinity Series wins and sixteen pole positions. Brett made 480 Cup series star...
Go to Profile#29584
Francisco Calvo Serraller
#29596
Overall Influence
1948 - 2018 (70 years)
Francisco Calvo Serraller was a Spanish art historian. Life He was born in 1948 in Madrid. Career Calvo Serraller completed his Doctorate in Philosophy and Literature specializing in History at the Complutense University. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando from 2001 until his death. He was Director of the Prado Museum. He was a regular contributor to the newspaper El País, since its founding in 1976.
Go to Profile#29585
Henry Gleitman
#29597
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Henry Gleitman was a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Personal life Gleitman obtained both his bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology: the bachelor's degree from the City College of New York, and his master's from the University of California. Henry Gleitman was wed to another psychologist, Lila R. Gleitman. Together, they penned a book together called Phrase and Paraphrase. The book was released in 1970. He fathered two daughters. Their names are Ellen Luchette and Claire Gleitman. Gleitman was born in Leipzig, Germany. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#29586
David Ebershoff
#29598
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
David Ebershoff is an American writer, editor, and teacher. His debut novel, The Danish Girl, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name in 2015, while his third novel, The 19th Wife, was adapted into a television movie of the same name in 2010.
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Thomas E. Hill
#29599
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Thomas English Hill Jr. is Emeritus Kenan Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a specialist in ethics, political philosophy, history of ethics and the work of Immanuel Kant. He has also a Past-President of the American Philosophical Association.
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Alice Agogino
#29600
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Alice Merner Agogino is an American mechanical engineer known for her work in bringing women and people of color into engineering and her research into artificial intelligence, computer-aided design, intelligent learning systems, and wireless sensor networks.
Go to Profile#29589
Siddhartha Chib
#29601
Overall Influence
Siddhartha Chib is an econometrician and statistician, the Harry C. Hartkopf Professor of Econometrics and Statistics at Washington University in St. Louis. His work is primarily in Bayesian statistics, econometrics, and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.
Go to Profile#29590
Arseniy Yatsenyuk
#29602
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk is a Ukrainian politician, economist and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine twice – from 27 February 2014 to 27 November 2014 and from 27 November 2014 to 14 April 2016.
Go to Profile#29591
Richard Yates
#29603
Overall Influence
1926 - 1992 (66 years)
Richard Yates was an American fiction writer identified with the mid-century "Age of Anxiety". His first novel, Revolutionary Road, was a finalist for the 1962 National Book Award, while his first short story collection, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, brought comparisons to James Joyce. Critical acclaim for his writing, however, was not reflected in commercial success during his lifetime.
Go to Profile#29592
Yasir Suleiman
#29604
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Yasir Suleiman CBE is the Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is a Palestinian Arab living in the diaspora. Suleiman holds degrees from Amman University, the University of St Andrews, and Durham University. He lectures on topics related to the Middle East. He was selected to be a trustee of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction .
Go to Profile#29593
Sverre Bagge
#29605
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Sverre Håkon Bagge is a Norwegian historian. He took his doctorate with the thesis Den politiske ideologi i Kongespeilet, published in 1979. From 1974 to 1991 he worked as an associate professor at the University of Bergen, and he became a professor there in 1991. Since 2003 he is the leader of the Centre for Medieval Studies, Bergen.
Go to Profile#29594
Patrick Stump
#29606
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Patrick Martin Stumph , known professionally as Patrick Vaughn Stump, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Fall Out Boy, originally from Wilmette, Illinois.
Go to Profile#29595
Ingeborg Heuser
#29607
Overall Influence
Ingeborg Heuser was a German dancer, choreographer and teacher who worked primarily in the Southwest United States. She is credited with popularizing and promoting ballet in El Paso, Texas. Biography Heuser was born in Berlin and her mother encouraged her love of the arts at a young age. Heuser began training in ballet at the age of seven. She started as an apprentice in the Deutsche Oper Corps de Ballet when she was 12 and made her solo debut at age 15. Heuser moved to the United States in 1949. First she worked in California and later she attended the University of Arizona in Tucson as a "s...
Go to Profile#29596
James Newton Howard
#29608
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
James Newton Howard is an American film composer, music producer and keyboardist. He has scored over 100 films and is the recipient of a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine nominations for Academy Awards. His film scores include Pretty Woman , The Fugitive , Space Jam , Dinosaur , Peter Pan , King Kong , Batman Begins and its sequel The Dark Knight which he composed with Hans Zimmer, The Hunger Games franchise , Fantastic Beasts trilogy , and Jungle Cruise . He has collaborated extensively with directors M. Night Shyamalan and Francis Lawrence, having scored eight of Shyamalan's films since The Sixth Sense and all of Lawrence's films since I Am Legend .
Go to Profile#29597
Robert A. Baron
#29609
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Robert Alan Baron is Professor of Management and the Spears Chair of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business. He studied psychology at City University of New York and received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1968. He is co-author of the textbook Social Psychology , published by Allyn & Bacon, as well as numerous other books and journal articles. Dr. Baron has held faculty appointments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue, the University of Minnesota, Texas, South Carolina, Washington, Princeton University, and Oxford University.
Go to Profile#29598
Richard Anthony Jefferson
#29610
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Richard Anthony Jefferson is an American-born molecular biologist and social entrepreneur who developed the widely used reporter gene system GUS, conducted the world's first biotech crop release, proposed the Hologenome theory of evolution, pioneered Biological Open Source and founded The Lens. He is founder of the social enterprise Cambia and a professor of Biological Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2003 he was named by Scientific American as one of the world's 50 most influential technologists, and is renowned for his work on making science-enabled innovation more widely accessible.
Go to Profile#29599
Laura Silber
#29611
Overall Influence
Laura Silber is the Vice President for Advocacy and Communications at the Open Society Foundations, where she runs the Communications department and oversees advocacy strategy and public identity. Since 2007 she has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Go to Profile#29600
Anne Ferguson
#29612
Overall Influence
Anne Ferguson is an Australian judge and former lawyer who has served as Chief Justice of Victoria since 2 October 2017. She was first appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court in 2010. Early life Ferguson was educated at the Brigidine Sisters’ Killester College in Springvale where she was academic dux. She studied Arts and Law at Monash University, winning the Supreme Court Prize as the top student in her graduating class. Ferguson was also appointed Editor of the Monash University Law Review.
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