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).
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List of the most influential people
#30151
Erick M. Carreira
#30163
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Erick M. Carreira is a Cuban-born American organic chemist and professor at ETH Zürich. He is known for his research group's work in total synthesis projects, particularly asymmetric synthesis of complex natural products. He became the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2021.
Go to Profile#30152
Athelstan Spilhaus
#30164
Overall Influence
1911 - 1998 (87 years)
Athelstan Frederick Spilhaus was a South African-Americann geophysicist and oceanographer. Among other accomplishments, Spilhaus is credited with proposing the establishment of Sea Grant Colleges at a meeting of the American Fisheries Society in 1963 as a parallel to the successful land-grant university system, which he claimed was "one of the best investments this nation ever made. The same kind of imagination and foresight should be applied to the exploration of the sea."
Go to Profile#30153
Matt Dillon
#30165
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Matthew Raymond Dillon is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award nomination and Grammy nomination. Dillon made his feature film debut in Over the Edge and established himself as a teen idol by starring in the films My Bodyguard , Little Darlings , three of five S. E. Hinton book adaptations Tex , Rumble Fish and The Outsiders as well as The Flamingo Kid . From the late 1980s onward, Dillon achieved further success, starring in Drugstore Cowboy , Singles , The Saint of Fort Washington , To Die For , Beautiful Girls , In & Out , There's Something About Mary , and Wild Things .
Go to Profile#30154
Mitchell Sogin
#30166
Overall Influence
Mitchell Sogin is an American microbiologist. He is a distinguished senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research investigates the evolution and diversity of single-celled organisms.
Go to Profile#30155
Yoel Hoffmann
#30167
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Yoel Hoffmann was an Israeli Jewish contemporary author, editor, scholar and translator. Held a title of a professor of Japanese poetry, Buddhism, and philosophy at the University of Haifa in Israel and lived in Galilee.
Go to Profile#30156
Franz Schurmann
#30168
Overall Influence
1926 - 2010 (84 years)
Herbert Franz Schurmann was an American sociologist and historian who was best known for his research and writings about Communist China during the Cold War period. Schurmann taught at the University of California, Berkeley, in the departments of Sociology and History for 38 years. He also served a term as the head of the Center for Chinese Studies. He was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, and was the first American professor to visit Hanoi during the bombing raids there. He co-founded the Pacific News Service in 1970 together with author Orville Schell, serving as editor and commentator...
Go to Profile#30157
Humberto Gatica
#30169
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Humberto Gatica is a Chilean-born American recording engineer, mixing engineer and record producer, best known for his work with Celine Dion, Chicago, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Cher and Michael Bublé. Gatica's international collaborations include producing artists singing in over six languages.
Go to Profile#30158
Bruno Le Maire
#30170
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Bruno Le Maire is a French politician, writer, and former diplomat who has served as Minister of the Economy and Finance since 2017 under President Emmanuel Macron. A former member of The Republicans , which he left in 2017 to join La République En Marche! , he was Secretary of State for European Affairs from 2008 to 2009 and Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Le Maire is also a noted author, with his book Des hommes d'État winning the 2008 Edgar Faure Prize.
Go to Profile#30159
Bob Kane
#30171
Overall Influence
1915 - 1998 (83 years)
Robert Kane was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman and most early related characters for DC Comics. He was inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996.
Go to Profile#30160
Sabri Ergun
#30172
Overall Influence
1918 - 2006 (88 years)
Sabri Ergun was a Turkish chemical engineer. He is known for the Ergun equation, which expresses the pressure drop across a packed bed. Biography Sabri Ergun was born on 1 March 1918 in Gerede in the Ottoman Empire . He moved to the United States in 1943. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from Columbia University and a D.Sc. degree from the Vienna University of Technology in 1956. He was married to Dorothy Karns in 1948, and they had three children: David, Robert and James. Ergun served as a staff member of the Coal Research Laboratory at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and was employed by the U.S.
Go to Profile#30161
Horst Sachs
#30173
Overall Influence
1927 - 2016 (89 years)
Horst Sachs was a German mathematician, an expert in graph theory, a recipient of the Euler Medal . He earned the degree of Doctor of Science from the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in 1958. Following his retirement in 1992, he was professor emeritus at the Institute of Mathematics of the Technische Universität Ilmenau.
Go to Profile#30162
Peter Gavin Hall
#30174
Overall Influence
1951 - 2016 (65 years)
Peter Gavin Hall was an Australian researcher in probability theory and mathematical statistics. The American Statistical Association described him as one of the most influential and prolific theoretical statisticians in the history of the field. The School of Mathematics and Statistics Building at The University of Melbourne was renamed the Peter Hall building in his honour on 9 December 2016.
Go to Profile#30163
Adam Cohen
#30175
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Adam Ezra Cohen is a Professor of Chemistry, Chemical Biology, and Physics at Harvard University. He has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and been selected by MIT Technology Review to the TR35 list of the world's top innovators under 35.
Go to Profile#30164
McCoy Tyner
#30176
Overall Influence
1938 - 2020 (82 years)
Alfred McCoy Tyner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy award winner. Unlike many of the jazz keyboardists of his generation, Tyner very rarely incorporated electric keyboards or synthesizers into his work. Tyner has been widely imitated, and is one of the most recognizable and influential jazz pianists of all time.
Go to Profile#30165
René Étiemble
#30177
Overall Influence
1909 - 2002 (93 years)
René Ernest Joseph Eugène Étiemble was a French essayist, scholar, novelist, and promoter of Middle Eastern and Asiann cultures. Known commonly by his family name alone, Etiemble held the coveted Chair of Comparative Literature, in 1955, at the Institute of General and Comparative Literature in the pre-1968 Sorbonne University and continued in his post as a tenured Professor at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University from 1956 to 1978. His doctoral dissertation on the Myth of Rimbaud and his many interpreters world-wide won him fame in 1952. However, one critic thinks Étiemble's derisive tone and some ill-founded conjectures about Rimbaud's later life undermine the book's credibility today.
Go to Profile#30166
Thomas Ambrosio
#30178
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Thomas Ambrosio is a professor of political science in the Criminal Justice and Political Science Department at North Dakota State University. He teaches courses in international relations and international law.
Go to Profile#30167
John Sebastian
#30179
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
John Benson Sebastian is an American singer, songwriter and musician who founded the rock band the Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969 and scored a U.S. No. 1 hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back."
Go to Profile#30168
Bruce Rittmann
#30180
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bruce E. Rittmann is Regents' Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for pioneering the development of biofilm fundamentals and contributing to their widespread use in the cleanup of contaminated waters, soils, and ecosystems.
Go to Profile#30169
Hans Ostrom
#30181
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Hans Ansgar Ostrom is an American professor, writer, editor, and scholar. Ostrom is a professor of African American Studies and English the University of Puget Sound , where he teaches courses on African-American literature, creative writing, and poetry as a genre. He is known for his authorship of various books on African-American studies and creative writing, and novels including Three to Get Ready, Honoring Juanita, and Without One, as well as The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976–2006.
Go to Profile#30170
Kent C. Berridge
#30182
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Kent C. Berridge is an American academic, currently working as a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. Berridge was a joint winner of the 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.
Go to Profile#30171
Joseph Gallian
#30183
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Joseph A. Gallian is an American mathematician, the Morse Alumni Distinguished University Professor of Teaching in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Go to Profile#30172
Eleanor Jorden
#30184
Overall Influence
1920 - 2009 (89 years)
Eleanor Harz Jorden was an American linguistics scholar and an influential Japanese language educator and expert. Born Eleanor Harz, she married William Jorden, reporter and diplomat; the marriage ended in divorce.
Go to Profile#30173
Tommy Steele
#30185
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Sir Thomas Hicks , known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recorded a string of hit singles including "Rock with the Caveman" and the chart-topper "Singing the Blues" . Steele's rise to fame was dramatised in The Tommy Steele Story , the soundtrack of which was the first British album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. With collaborators Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, Steele received the 1958 Ivor Novello Award for Most Outstanding Song of the Year for "A Handful of Songs".
Go to Profile#30174
Alice H. Lichtenstein
#30186
Overall Influence
Alice Hinda Lichtenstein is an American professor and researcher in nutrition and heart disease. In 2006, Shape magazine named Lichtenstein one of ten "Women Who Shaped the World". In 2019, Tamar Haspel called her a "grande dame of nutrition."
Go to Profile#30175
Laurence Chisholm Young
#30187
Overall Influence
1905 - 2000 (95 years)
Laurence Chisholm Young was a British mathematician known for his contributions to measure theory, the calculus of variations, optimal control theory, and potential theory. He was the son of William Henry Young and Grace Chisholm Young, both prominent mathematicians. He moved to the US in 1949 but never sought American citizenship.
Go to Profile#30176
Taraneh Javanbakht
#30188
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Taraneh Javanbakht is an Iranian scientist and polymath. Early life and education Javanbakht was born in Tehran in 1974 and grew up there. She first graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Shahid Beheshti in 1996. In 2002 she was awarded her first Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the Pierre and Marie Curie University. She moved to the University of Montreal to continue her postdoctoral work. Whilst in Canada, Javanbakht has studied for additional Masters qualifications at Université du Québec à Montréal: for molecular biology in 2011 and for the study of logic in the Depar...
Go to Profile#30177
Mike Gallagher
#30189
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mike Gallagher is an American radio host and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Mike Gallagher Show, a nationally syndicated radio program that airs throughout the United States on Salem Radio Network and is also a FOX News Channel Contributor and guest host. According to Talkers magazine, Gallagher is the ninth most-listened-to radio talk show host in the United States.
Go to Profile#30178
James J. Bull
#30190
Overall Influence
James Jeffrey Bull is Johann Friedrich Miescher Regents Professor in Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is best known for his influential 1983 monograph, Evolution of Sex Determining Mechanisms.
Go to Profile#30179
Charles B. Rangel
#30191
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Charles Bernard Rangel is an American politician who was a U.S. representative for districts in New York City from 1971 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second-longest serving incumbent member of the House of Representatives at the time of his retirement, having served continuously since 1971. As its most senior member, he was also the Dean of New York's congressional delegation. Rangel was the first African American Chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee. He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Go to Profile#30180
Barry Everitt
#30192
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Barry John Everitt, is a British neuroscientist and academic. He was Master of Downing College, Cambridge , and Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge . He is now emeritus professor and Director of Research. From 2013 to 2022, he was provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust at Cambridge University.
Go to Profile#30181
Denis Williams
#30193
Overall Influence
1923 - 1998 (75 years)
Denis Williams was a Guyanese painter, author and archaeologist. Biography Dr. Denis Joseph Ivan Williams, C.C.H., Hon. D. Lit., M.A., called by his friends "Sonny" Williams, was born in Georgetown, Guyana, where he received his early education; he was granted a Cambridge Junior School Certificate in 1940 and a Cambridge Senior School Certificate in 1941. His promise as a painter won him a two-year British Council Scholarship to the Camberwell School of Art in London in 1946. He lived in London for the next 10 years, during which he taught fine art as a lecturer at the Central School of Art and visiting tutor at the Slade School of Art.
Go to Profile#30182
Douglas R. Lowy
#30194
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Douglas R. Lowy is the current Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute and Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology within the Center for Cancer Research at NCI. Lowy served as Acting Director of NCI between April 2015 and October 2017 following the resignation of Harold E. Varmus, M.D., and again between April and November 2019, while Director Norman Sharpless served as the Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He resumed the role of Acting Director on May 1, 2022, when Sharpless stepped down until October 3, 2022 when Monica Bertagnolli was appointed Director.
Go to Profile#30183
Barry Hindess
#30195
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Barry Hindess was an Emeritus Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Australian National University. He was for many years an academic sociologist in the UK and has published widely on social and political theory, and on the history of political thought.
Go to Profile#30184
Roland Lazenby
#30196
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Roland Lazenby is an American sportswriter and educator. Biography Lazenby has written more than five dozen nonfiction books, mainly about basketball and American football. These include Fifty Years of the Final Four: Golden Moments of the NCAA basketball tournament , The Lakers: A Basketball Journey , Bull Run! The Story of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls , Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls , Mad Game, The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant , Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long Strange Journey , Johnny Unitas: The Best There Ever Was , Tom Brady: Sudden Glory , The S...
Go to Profile#30185
Cozy Powell
#30197
Overall Influence
1947 - 1998 (51 years)
Cozy Powell was an English drummer who made his name with major rock bands and artists such as The Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group, Gary Moore, Graham Bonnet, Brian May, Whitesnake, Emerson, Lake & Powell, and Black Sabbath.
Go to Profile#30186
Pedro Castillo
#30198
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
José Pedro Castillo Terrones is a Peruvian politician, former elementary school teacher, and union leader who served as the President of Peru from 28 July 2021 to 7 December 2022. Castillo attempted to illegally dissolve Congress through a self-coup on 7 December 2022 while citing Congress' efforts to block his attempted policies, resulting in the legislative body impeaching and removing him from office the same day.
Go to Profile#30187
Conrad J. Wethmar
#30199
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Conrad Johannes Wethmar is a systematic theologian, reformed theologian and emeritus professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is guest editor of Verbum et Ecclesia. Biography He was born in Florida, Gauteng, west of Johannesburg, South Africa. He finished B.A. at the Stellenbosch University in 1964, received B.A. in Greek in 1966, B.A. in philosophy in 1968, B.Th. in 1968, M.A. in 1969, and Licentiate in Theology in 1969. Studying at Stellenbosch University he was influenced by Johan Heyns. In order to study Systematic Theology, he went to Netherlands in 1970 and received Doctoraal Examen Theologie in 1972 and Th.
Go to Profile#30188
Larry Robinson
#30200
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Larry Clark Robinson is a Canadian former ice hockey coach, executive and player. His coaching career includes head coaching positions with the New Jersey Devils , as well as the Los Angeles Kings. For his play in the National Hockey League with the Montreal Canadiens and Los Angeles Kings, Robinson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1995. He was also inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2017, Robinson was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players". Larry is the brother of Moe Robinson.
Go to Profile#30189
Richard Wallace
#30201
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Richard S. Wallace is an American author of AIML and Botmaster of A.L.I.C.E. . He is also the founder of the A.L.I.C.E Artificial Intelligence Foundation. Dr. Wallace's work has appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, CNN, ZDTV and in numerous foreign language publications across Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Go to Profile#30190
Phil Hartman
#30202
Overall Influence
1948 - 1998 (50 years)
Philip Edward Hartman was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, he joined the comedy group the Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character, Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on R...
Go to Profile#30191
Gerald N. Rosenberg
#30203
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Gerald N. Rosenberg is an American political science and law professor at the University of Chicago, and the author of the 1991 book The Hollow Hope. Education and career A Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of Dartmouth College, he holds an M.A. degree in Politics and Philosophy from Oxford University, a J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. He is also a member of the Washington, D.C. bar.
Go to Profile#30192
Naseem Hamed
#30204
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Naseem Hamed , nicknamed Prince Naseem and Naz, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2002. He held multiple featherweight world championships, including the WBO title from 1995 to 2000; the IBF title in 1997; and the WBC title from 1999 to 2000. He also reigned as lineal champion from 1998 to 2001; IBO champion from 2002 to 2003; and held the European bantamweight title from 1994 to 1995. In 2015, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#30193
Mylan Engel
#30205
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mylan Engel Jr. is a full professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Biography Born in Alabama and educated at Vanderbilt University and the University of Arizona, he was hired by Northern Illinois University in 1988. Engel has also served as guest professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria and University of Maribor, Slovenia .
Go to Profile#30194
Paul Nelson
#30206
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Paul A. Nelson is an American philosopher, noted for his advocacy of the pseudosciences of young earth creationism and intelligent design. Biography Nelson is the grandson of the creationist author and Lutheran minister Byron Christopher Nelson and edited a book of his grandfather's writings. He is married to Suzanne Nelson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University.
Go to Profile#30195
Robin Milner-Gulland
#30207
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert Rainsford "Robin" Milner-Gulland, FBA, FSA, is a British scholar of Russian and Byzantine literature, culture, and art. His main areas of expertise are Russian modern & medieval cultural history, modern Russian literature , Russian & Byzantine art history, the Russian language, English romanesque art & architecture and Sussex history. He is currently the Emeritus Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Sussex.
Go to Profile#30196
Komaruddin Hidayat
#30208
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Komaruddin Hidayat is an Indonesian academic and intellectual. He has been rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta since 2006. His intellectual ability was demonstrated at several study and research institutions. Apart from his academic work, he was also a columnist in the mass media.
Go to Profile#30197
Chris Smith
#30209
Overall Influence
Christopher Smith is an English radio newsreader. He is most famous for presenting Newsbeat on BBC Radio 1 and co-hosting the That's What He Said podcast alongside Greg James. Early life Smith was born in Kettering, England and grew up in Raunds, where he was a Bus Prefect. He studied English at Queen's University Belfast and was offered on-the-job training at a radio station afterwards. Then, he started reading the news on air.
Go to Profile#30198
Runoko Rashidi
#30210
Overall Influence
1954 - 2021 (67 years)
Runoko Rashidi was a historian, essayist, author and public lecturer based in Los Angeles, California, and Paris, France. He is the author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations] and the editor of Unchained African Voices, a collection of poetry and prose by Death Row inmates at California's San Quentin maximum-security prison. He was a member of the editorial board of Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies , and he held an honorary doctorate of divinity from Amen-Ra Theological Seminary . He also supported the work of controversial scholars like the late Iva...
Go to Profile#30199
M. Thomas Inge
#30211
Overall Influence
1936 - 2021 (85 years)
M. Thomas Inge was an American academic. He was the Robert Emory Blackwell Professor of Humanities at Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where he taught, edited, and wrote about Southern literature and culture, American humor and comic art, film and animation, Asian literature, and William Faulkner.
Go to Profile#30200
Jaap Wessels
#30212
Overall Influence
1939 - 2009 (70 years)
Jacobus Wessels was a Dutch mathematician and Professor of Stochastic Operations Research at the Eindhoven University of Technology, known for his contributions in the field of Markov decision processes.
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