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
#30251
Mami Mizutori
#30263
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mami Mizutori is a Japanese diplomat. She has been the Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction in the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction since March 2018.
Go to Profile#30252
Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
#30264
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Kathleen Marie Eisenhardt is the Stanford W. Ascherman, M.D. Professor and co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University. She is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, having been elected in 2016. In 2012 she was the recipient of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research.
Go to Profile#30253
Syed Akhter Hossain
#30265
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Syed Akhter Hossain is a computer scientist, educator, columnist and technology consultant from Bangladesh. Currently, he is a professor and head of Computer Science and Engineering department at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh .
Go to Profile#30254
Bahru Zewde
#30266
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Bahru Zewde is an Ethiopian historian and author. He writes extensively about modern Ethiopian history and is now an emeritus professor at Addis Ababa University where he once served as the Head of the History Department and the Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.
Go to Profile#30255
Tula Giannini
#30267
Overall Influence
Prof. Tula Giannini is an American academic with subject expertise in musicology, digital culture, and digital heritage. Tula Giannini holds B.M. and M.M. degrees in Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, an M.L.S. degree in Library Science from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. degree in Musicology from Bryn Mawr College. Early in her career, she was a professional flautist. She taught at the Catholic University, Rutgers University, and the University of Hawaiʻi. Director of the Talbott Library at Westminster Choir College, and Head of Collection Management at Adelphi University. She j...
Go to Profile#30256
Franco Nero
#30268
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Francesco Clemente Giuseppe Sparanero , known professionally as Franco Nero, is an Italian actor, producer, and director. His breakthrough role was as the title character in the Spaghetti Western film Django , which made him a pop culture icon and launched an international career that includes over 200 leading and supporting roles in a wide variety of films and television productions.
Go to Profile#30257
John C. Baldwin
#30269
Overall Influence
1948 - 2016 (68 years)
John Charles Baldwin was an American cardiac surgeon and academic administrator. He served as the surgery department chairman at Baylor College of Medicine, as dean of Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine, as president and CEO of the Harvard Immune Disease Institute, and as president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
Go to Profile#30258
Robert Del Naja
#30270
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Robert Del Naja , also known as 3D, is a British artist, musician, singer and songwriter. His mother is English and his father is Italian. They moved to Bristol, St Andrews in 1966. Robert del Naja emerged as a graffiti artist and member of the Bristol collective the Wild Bunch, and later as a founding member and sole consistent member of the band Massive Attack, with which he is still active. In 2009, he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
Go to Profile#30259
Stewart Granger
#30271
Overall Influence
1913 - 1993 (80 years)
Stewart Granger was a British film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.
Go to Profile#30260
Chris Lowe
#30272
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Christopher Sean Lowe is an English musician, singer and songwriter, and co-founder of the synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, which he formed with Neil Tennant in 1981. Biography Lowe attended Arnold School, an independent school in his home town Blackpool, Lancashire. While at school, he played trombone in a seven-piece dance band called One Under the Eight that played old-time favourites like "Hello Dolly", "La Bamba" and "Moon River". Lowe's grandfather had been a trombonist and was a member of comedy jazz troupe The Nitwits. Lowe also learned to play the piano.
Go to Profile#30261
Patrick Dunleavy
#30273
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Patrick John Dunleavy , is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Public Policy within the Government Department of the London School of Economics . He was also Co-Director of Democratic Audit and Chair of the LSE Public Policy Group. In addition Dunleavy is an ANZSOG Institute for Governance Centenary Chair at the University of Canberra, Australia.
Go to Profile#30262
Paul O'Prey
#30274
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Paul Gerard O'Prey is an academic leader and author who was Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Roehampton, London, for fifteen years 2004 - 2019. In 2019 he was appointed chair of the Edward James Foundation, which owns a large rural estate in the South Downs and runs West Dean College of Arts and Conservation. After working in various senior roles at the University of Bristol, in 2004 O'Prey was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roehampton in south-west London, where he was also Professor of Modern Literature.
Go to Profile#30263
Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington
#30275
Overall Influence
1919 - 2018 (99 years)
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Baron Carington of Upton, , was a British Conservative Party politician and hereditary peer who served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982, Chairman of the General Electric Company from 1983 to 1984, and Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. In Margaret Thatcher's first government, he played a major role in negotiating the Lancaster House Agreement that ended the racial conflict in Rhodesia and enabled the creation of Zimbabwe.
Go to Profile#30264
Bobby Unser
#30276
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Robert William Unser was an American automobile racer. At his induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1994, he had the fourth most IndyCar Series wins at 35 . Unser won the 1968 and 1974 United States Automobile Club national championships. He won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb overall title 10 times .
Go to Profile#30265
Klaus Dodds
#30277
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Klaus Dodds is executive dean of the School of Life Sciences and Environment and professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Natolin Warsaw Poland.
Go to Profile#30266
Bruce Gilley
#30278
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Bruce Gilley is a Canadian–American professor of political science and director of the PhD program in Public Affairs and Policy at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. He is the founder and President of the Oregon Association of Scholars, member of the Heterodox Academy and founding signatory of the Oregon Academic Faculty Pledge on Freedom. Gilley gained international acclaim but also a storm of criticism for his highly controversial peer-reviewed article The Case for Colonialism, published in an advance online edition of the scientific journal Third World Quarterly in 2017.
Go to Profile#30267
Farid Hafez
#30279
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Farid Hafez is an Austrian political scientist and holds the endowed chair of Class of 1955 Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Studies at Williams College and senior researcher at Georgetown University's The Bridge Initiative. Before his role at Williams College, he was at the department of political science and sociology at the University of Salzburg.
Go to Profile#30268
Shim Hwa-jin
#30280
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Shim Hwa-jin is a South Korean academic specialising in the history of clothing and textiles. She was president of Sungshin Women's University from 2007 until 2017, when she was imprisoned for embezzlement.
Go to Profile#30269
Douglas W. Rae
#30281
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Douglas Whiting Rae is an American political scientist. He is the Richard Ely Professor of Political Science and Management at Yale University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as Chief Administrative Officer of the City of New Haven, Connecticut in 1990–1991. He has contributed to the BBC, The New Republic, and The New York Times.
Go to Profile#30270
Al Unser
#30282
Overall Influence
1939 - 2021 (82 years)
Alfred Unser was an American automobile racing driver, the younger brother of fellow racing drivers Jerry and Bobby Unser, and father of Al Unser Jr. He was the second of four men to have won the Indianapolis 500 four times , the fourth of five to have won the race in consecutive years, and the winner of the National Championship in 1970, 1983, and 1985. The Unser family has won the Indy 500 a record nine times. He was the only person to have both a sibling and child as fellow Indy 500 winners. Al's nephews Johnny and Robby Unser have also competed in that race. In 1971, he became the only...
Go to Profile#30271
Martin McGuinness
#30283
Overall Influence
1950 - 2017 (67 years)
James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was an Irish republican politician and statesman for Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army during The Troubles. McGuinness was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from May 2007 to January 2017.
Go to Profile#30272
Naomi Breslau
#30284
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
Naomi Breslau was an American sociologist, psychiatric epidemiologist, and professor at Michigan State University. Much of Breslau's work focused on the psychological impact of trauma. Early life Born in Afula in the British Mandate of Palestine, Breslau was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants Shlomo Zeidel and Shoshana Fleischman Zeidel. She later moved to Hadera with her parents, brother and sister. Breslau graduated from law school at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1954. Two years later, she came to New York University with the intention of studying the administration of justice, but she became more interested in sociology, earning a master's degree in 1963.
Go to Profile#30273
Geoffrey Ozin
#30285
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Geoffrey Alan Stuart Ozin FRSC is a British chemist, currently Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Materials Chemistry and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Toronto. Ozin is the recipient of numerous awards for his research on nanomaterials, including the Meldola Medal and Prize in 1972 and the Rutherford Memorial Medal in 1982. He won the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in 2011, the Royal Society of Chemistry's Centenary Prize in 2015, and the Humboldt Prize in 2005 and 2019. He has co-founded three university spin-off companies: Torrovap in 1985, which manufactures m...
Go to Profile#30274
François Zourabichvili
#30286
Overall Influence
1965 - 2006 (41 years)
François Zourabichvili was a French philosopher who specialized in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Baruch Spinoza. Biography François Zourabichvili was the son of composer Nicolas Zourabichvili, nephew of historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, and cousin of author Emmanuel Carrère. He became agrégé in 1989 and earned his PhD in Philosophy in 1999. He taught at a lycée already from 1988 to 2001, was docent at Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III, and a director at the Collège international de philosophie from 1998 to 2004. He committed suicide in 2006 and is buried in the Russian Church of th...
Go to Profile#30275
G. Marius Clore
#30287
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
G. Marius Clore MAE, FRSC, FRS is a British-born, Anglo-American molecular biophysicist and structural biologist. He was born in London, U.K. and is a dual U.S./U.K. Citizen. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a NIH Distinguished Investigator, and the Chief of the Molecular and Structural Biophysics Section in the Laboratory of Chemical Physics of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He is known for his foundational work in three-dimensional protein and nucleic acid stru...
Go to Profile#30276
Eileen de Villa
#30288
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Eileen Patricia de Villa is an American-Canadian physician and public servant who has served as Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto since 2017, leading the Toronto Public Health unit. She is an adjunct professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. De Villa is most well known for her role in Toronto's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was formerly the medical officer of health for Peel Region.
Go to Profile#30277
Dirk Kuyt
#30289
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Dirk Kuijt is a Dutch former professional footballer and was the head coach of Eerste Divisie side ADO Den Haag. Originally starting out as a striker, he played much of his career as a winger. Kuyt began his professional career with Utrecht in 1998 and quickly became part of its first team. He spent five years at the club, and in his final season he won his first senior honour, the KNVB Cup, and was chosen as the season's Dutch Golden Shoe Winner. Following this, he left Utrecht in a €1 million transfer to Feyenoord. He became the club captain in 2005 and was a prolific goalscorer at the Rott...
Go to Profile#30278
Kordell Stewart
#30290
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Kordell Stewart is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 11 seasons, primarily with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nicknamed "Slash", he played college football at Colorado. Stewart achieved recognition for the "Miracle at Michigan", a Hail Mary pass he completed to defeat Michigan in 1994. He was selected by the Steelers in the second round of the 1995 NFL Draft.
Go to Profile#30279
Mervyn Susser
#30291
Overall Influence
1921 - 2014 (93 years)
Mervyn Wilfred Susser was a South African activist, doctor and epidemiologist. His career was closely interwoven with that of his wife, Zena Stein. He is considered as one of the pioneers of epidemiology in the twentieth century.
Go to Profile#30280
Wanda Coleman
#30292
Overall Influence
1946 - 2013 (67 years)
Wanda Coleman was an American poet. She was known as "the L.A. Blueswoman" and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles". Biography Wanda Evans was born in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she grew up during the 1950s and 1960s. She is the eldest of four children. Her parents were George and Lewana Evans, who were introduced to one another at church by his aunt. In 1931, her father had relocated to Los Angeles from Little Rock, Arkansas, after the lynching of a young man who was hung from a church steeple. He was an ex-boxer and long-time friend and sparring partner of Light Heavyweight Champion Archie Moore.
Go to Profile#30281
Colin Riordan
#30293
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Colin Bryan Riordan FLSW is a British academic who has been President and Vice-Chancellor at Cardiff University since 1 September 2012. Education Riordan obtained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1986.
Go to Profile#30282
Vesanto Melina
#30294
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Vesanto Melina is a Canadian Registered Dietitian and co-author of books that have become classics in the field of vegetarian, vegan, and raw foods nutrition, have sold almost a million copies in English and are in nine additional languages . She has presented talks and workshops on various aspects of vegetarian, vegan and raw foods and nutrition for dietitians, health professionals, and vegetarian associations in 17 American states and 9 Canadian provinces, and in 10 countries .
Go to Profile#30283
Hope Solo
#30295
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Hope Amelia Stevens is an American former football goalkeeper. She was a goalkeeper for the United States women's national soccer team from 2000 to 2016, and is a World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. After playing at the collegiate level for the University of Washington, she played professionally for the Philadelphia Charge in the Women's United Soccer Association . When the WUSA folded after her first season, she traveled to Europe to play for the top division leagues in Sweden and France. From 2009 to 2011, she played in the Women's Professional Soccer for Saint Louis Athletica, Atlanta Beat and magicJack.
Go to Profile#30284
Hao Li
#30296
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Hao Li is a computer scientist, innovator, and entrepreneur from Germany, working in the fields of computer graphics and computer vision. He is co-founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc, as well as associate professor of computer vision at the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence . He was previously a Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, and former director of the Vision and Graphics Lab at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He was also a visiting professor ...
Go to Profile#30285
Jessica Mink
#30297
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jessica Mink is an American software developer and a data archivist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. She was part of the team that discovered the rings around the planet Uranus.
Go to Profile#30286
Stephen Dobyns
#30298
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Stephen J. Dobyns is an American poet and novelist born in Orange, New Jersey. Life Dobyns was born on February 19, 1941, in Orange, New Jersey to Lester L., an Episcopal minister, and Barbara Johnston Dobyns. Dobyns was raised in New Jersey, Michigan, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He was educated at Shimer College, transferred to and graduated from Wayne State University in 1964, and received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1967. He has worked as a reporter for the Detroit News.
Go to Profile#30287
David A. Andelman
#30299
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
David A. Andelman is an American journalist, political commentator and author. Biography Born October 6, 1944 to a Jewish family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Selma and Saul Andelman. His father was an attorney. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Andelman was the editor of World Policy Journal from 2008 until 2015. Previously, he served as an executive editor at Forbes.com, as business editor of New York Daily News, as a Washington correspondent for CNBC, and as a reporter, correspondent and bureau chief for The New Yo...
Go to Profile#30288
Madeleine Gagnon
#30300
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Madeleine Gagnon is a Quebec educator, literary critic and writer. Biography She was born in Amqui in the valley of the Matapedia River and was educated at the Collège Notre-Dame d'Acadie in Moncton, at the Université de Montréal and the Université d'Aix-en-Provence. From 1969 to 1982, she taught literature at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She later served as a visiting professor and writer-in-residence at the Université de Montréal, at the Université de Sherbrooke, at the Université du Québec à Montréal and at the Université du Québec à Rimouski.
Go to Profile#30289
Janet Ajzenstat
#30301
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Janet Ajzenstat is professor emeritus of political science at McMaster University. The author of numerous works on Canadian political history, she is best known for The Political Thought of Lord Durham, where she argues that Durham's call for French-Canadian assimilation was consistent with liberal principles.
Go to Profile#30290
Jonathan Dee
#30302
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Jonathan Dee is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. His fifth novel, The Privileges, was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Early life Dee was born in New York City. He graduated from Yale University, where he studied fiction writing with John Hersey.
Go to Profile#30291
Douglas Stanford
#30303
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Douglas Stanford is an American theoretical physicist. He is an associate professor of physics at Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics of Stanford University. His research interests include quantum gravity, quantum field theory and string theory. Stanford was awarded the 2018 New Horizons in Physics Prize by Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation for his work on improving the understanding of quantum mechanics of black holes via chaos theory.
Go to Profile#30292
Daniel Radcliffe
#30304
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (37 years)
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor. He rose to fame at age 12, when he began portraying Harry Potter in the film series of the same name, from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 . The series made him one of the world's highest-paid actors.
Go to Profile#30293
Donald R. Peterson
#30305
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
Donald R. Peterson was professor emeritus of psychology at Rutgers University. Peterson was notable for advocating for a professional doctorate exclusive to professional psychologists, eventually leading to establishment of the Doctor of Psychology degree and programs. Establishing this degree as the standard doctorate for practicing psychologists was not embraced by most psychologists, who were concerned programs would abandon scientific principles in the name of greater clinical training.
Go to Profile#30294
Maurice Trintignant
#30306
Overall Influence
1917 - 2005 (88 years)
Maurice Bienvenu Jean Paul Trintignant was a motor racing driver and vintner from France. He competed in the Formula One World Championship for fourteen years, between 1950 and 1964, one of the longest careers in the early years of Formula One. During this time he also competed in sports car racing, including winning the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Following his retirement from the track Trintignant concentrated on the wine trade.
Go to Profile#30295
Francis Clark Howell
#30307
Overall Influence
1925 - 2007 (82 years)
Francis Clark Howell , generally known as F. Clark Howell, was an American anthropologist. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, F. Clark Howell grew up in Kansas, where he became interested in natural history. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, from 1944 to 1946 in the Pacific Theater. Howell was educated at the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees under the tutelage of Sherwood L. Washburn.
Go to Profile#30296
François Bluche
#30308
Overall Influence
1925 - 2018 (93 years)
François Bluche was a French historian. He painted a largely positive portrait of Louis XIV in his biography, attributing to him substantial cultural and political achievements. Bluche saw Louis as a precursor to enlightened despotism and argued that his reign witnessed the birth of modern France. In his view both Louis' creation of a centralised, powerful monarchy and his wars of conquest benefited the French people. The book was translated into English by Mark Greengrass and published in 1990. Peter Burke labelled Bluche a "neo-traditionalist" who had written a "moderate but firm apologia f...
Go to Profile#30297
Ryan Braun
#30309
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Ryan Joseph Braun is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played his entire career for the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball from 2007 to 2020. Braun also played right field and first base during his career, and was a third baseman during his rookie season.
Go to Profile#30298
Randy Travis
#30310
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Randy Bruce Traywick , known professionally as Randy Travis, is an American country music and gospel music singer. Active from 1978 until being incapacitated by a stroke in 2013, he has recorded 20 studio albums and charted more than 50 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including 16 that reached the No. 1 position. Considered a pivotal figure in the history of country music, Travis broke through in the mid-1980s with the release of his album Storms of Life, which sold more than four million copies. The album established him as a major force in the neotraditional country movement.
Go to Profile#30299
Mark Alan Walker
#30311
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Mark Alan Walker is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy at New Mexico State University, where he occupies the Richard L. Hedden Endowed Chair in Advanced Philosophical Studies. Prior to his professorship at NMSU Prof. Walker taught at McMaster University in the department of philosophy and the Arts & Science Programme. He is the author of Happy-People Pills for All and Free Money for All . Walker founded and was president of the former nonprofit organization Permanent End International , which had been devoted to ending hunger, illiteracy and environmental degradation through the dissemination of modular aquaponics systems for farming.
Go to Profile#30300
Jack Yang
#30312
Overall Influence
Jack Y. Yang is an American computer scientist and biophysicist. As of 2011, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design. Biography Yang received his Ph.D. and MS degrees from Purdue University, West Lafayette, under the supervision of Okan Ersoy and Albert Overhauser , receiving the grade of summa cum laude and the award of Ph.D. thesis of the year in the USA. His post-doctoral training was from Harvard Medical School and Indiana University School of Medicine, and he received training in biostatistics and bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University, and in computer science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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