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
#30301
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
#30313
Overall Influence
1911 - 2005 (94 years)
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen , known as Joh Bjelke-Petersen or simply Sir Joh, was a conservative Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, during which time the state underwent considerable economic development. He has become one of the most well-known and controversial figures of 20th-century Australian politics because of his uncompromising conservatism , political longevity, and the institutional corruption of his government.
Go to Profile#30302
Alan Billings
#30314
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Alan Roy Billings is an Anglican priest and Labour politician who is currently the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Early life and education Billings was born into a working-class family in Leicester in 1942. His father, Paul Billings, worked at Imperial Typewriters and his mother, Dorothy , at Byfords Hosiery. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys, Leicester. He went on to study Theology and Philosophy at Emmanuel College, Cambridge , receiving a BA degree. He holds a Certificate in Education from Bristol University and further degrees from Leicester University a...
Go to Profile#30303
Shibley Telhami
#30315
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Shibley Telhami is an American professor in the department of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a nonresident senior fellow of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Go to Profile#30304
Leo Pfeffer
#30316
Overall Influence
1910 - 1993 (83 years)
Leo Pfeffer was an American lawyer, constitutional scholar, and humanist who was active in movement for religious freedom in the United States, and was one of leading legal proponents of the separation of church and state.
Go to Profile#30305
Inez Fung
#30317
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Inez Fung is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of California, Berkeley, jointly appointed in the department of earth and planetary science and the department of environmental science, policy and management. She is also the co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.
Go to Profile#30306
Robert Litzenberger
#30318
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Robert Litzenberger is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is best known for establishing the use of state prices in financial economics. Biography Litzenberger studied at Wagner College before going on to earn an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and receiving his PhD from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill three years later in 1969.
Go to Profile#30307
Chuan-Chih Hsiung
#30319
Overall Influence
1916 - 2009 (93 years)
Chuan-Chih Hsiung , also known as Chuan-Chih Hsiung, C C Hsiung, or Xiong Quanzhi, was a Chinese-born American mathematician specializing in differential geometry. He was Professor of Mathematics at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States.
Go to Profile#30308
Daniel J. O'Keefe
#30320
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Daniel J. O'Keefe is an American communication and argumentation theory scholar. He is the Owen L. Coon Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research concerns persuasion and argumentation, with a focus on meta-analytic synthesis of research concerning persuasive message effects. This program of work often addresses the question of whether normatively good argumentation contributes to persuasive success.
Go to Profile#30309
Andrew Schlafly
#30321
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Andrew Layton Schlafly is an American lawyer and Christian conservative activist. He is the founder and owner of the wiki encyclopedia project Conservapedia. He is the son of the conservative activist and lawyer Phyllis Schlafly.
Go to Profile#30310
David Mason
#30322
Overall Influence
1926 - 2011 (85 years)
David Mason was an English orchestral, solo and session trumpet player. He played the flugelhorn for the premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams's ninth symphony and the piccolo trumpet solo on the Beatles' song "Penny Lane".
Go to Profile#30311
Nicolas Grimal
#30323
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Nicolas-Christophe Grimal is a French Egyptologist. Biography Nicolas Grimal was born to Pierre Grimal in 1948. After his Agrégation in Classics in 1971, he obtained a PhD in 1976 and a Doctorat d'État in 1984. He has been a professor at the Sorbonne from 1988 to 2000.
Go to Profile#30312
Ronda Chervin
#30324
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Ronda Chervin is a Catholic author, international speaker and Professor of Philosophy. She is the author of over 80 books concerning the matters of Catholic thought, practice and spirituality, including Taming the Lion Within: 5 Steps From Anger to Peace, Last Call: Fourteen Men Who Dared Answer, and her autobiography, En Route to Eternity. A widow, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, she is originally from New York.
Go to Profile#30313
Roseanne Barr
#30325
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy before gaining acclaim in the television sitcom Roseanne . She won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work on the show.
Go to Profile#30314
Bruce Wampold
#30326
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Bruce E. Wampold is Emeritus Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. and Director of the Research Institute at Modum Bad Psychiatric Center, Vikersund, Norway. Education Wampold received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Washington, his M.Ed. in educational psychology from the University of Hawaiʻi, and his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology and has an Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University.
Go to Profile#30315
Kim Hoeckele
#30327
Overall Influence
Kim Hoeckele is a multimedia artist living in New York, New York whose mediums include performance art, photography, found objects and video art. Early life and education Kim Hoeckele received her B.F.A. in Photography from Georgia State University and received her M.F.A. in studio art from Hunter College in New York, in 2012.
Go to Profile#30316
Liya Shakirova
#30328
Overall Influence
1921 - 2015 (94 years)
Liya Zakirovna Shakirova was a Soviet and Russian linguist, professor of pedagogical science and teacher-methodologist. She worked at Kazan State Pedagogical Institute from 1948 until her retirement in 2003 and authored approximately 420 scientific articles that included textbooks on Russian language teaching methology, teaching methods and manuals for students and teachers at universities. Shakirova received the Order of Lenin, the Medal "Veteran of Labour" and the Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" in her lifetime.
Go to Profile#30317
Charles Dance
#30329
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Walter Charles Dance is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. Dance started his career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company before appearing in film and television. For his services to drama he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.
Go to Profile#30318
Suh Yongsun
#30330
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Suh Yongsun, also Yong Sun Suh or Seo Young-Sun , is a Korean painter and sculptor. In his art he mainly portrays human existence. Suh lives and has his main studio in Gyeonggido near Seoul. Life Suh Yongsun studied Fine Arts at Seoul National University from 1975 to 1982 and worked as a professor at the College of Fine Arts at this University from 1986 to 2008. After withdrawing from his long-time professorship, he was elected Korea's Artist of the Year for 2009 and honored with a solo show at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea.
Go to Profile#30319
Roger A. Pielke Jr.
#30331
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Roger A. Pielke Jr. is an American political scientist and professor, and was the director of the Sports Governance Center within the Department of Athletics at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Go to Profile#30320
Rainer Kattel
#30332
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Rainer Kattel is an Estonian academic and science administrator. He is Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, UCL, and Research Professor and Chair of Innovation Policy and Technology Governance at Tallinn University of Technology. In 2015-16, he was a Visiting Professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute.
Go to Profile#30321
Octavio Augusto Ceva Antunes
#30333
Overall Influence
Octávio Augusto Ceva Antunes was a professor of chemistry and pharmaceutics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who had published over 200 scientific articles during his veteran career at the university. Antunes had also served as consultant to the World Health Organization for the production of anti-HIV drugs for four years until 2008. He was among 228 passengers aboard Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France, which disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009. His wife Patricia Nazareth Antunes and their 3-year-old son Matthew were also aboard.
Go to Profile#30322
Bob Daisley
#30334
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Robert John Daisley is an Australian musician and songwriter. A bass guitarist, he is perhaps best known for his intermittent relationship with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, for whom he contributed bass, co-production and songwriting throughout the 1980s. Daisley has also worked with prominent rock acts including Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Gary Moore, Chicken Shack and Uriah Heep, among others. In 2013, he published his autobiography entitled For Facts Sake which has received outstanding reviews.
Go to Profile#30323
Jean-François Bayart
#30335
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jean-François Bayart is a French political scientist and former director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. His specialty is the comparative historical sociology of the state.
Go to Profile#30324
Guido Zappa
#30336
Overall Influence
1915 - 2015 (100 years)
Guido Zappa was an Italian mathematician and a noted group theorist: his other main research interests were geometry and also the history of mathematics. Zappa was particularly known for some examples of algebraic curves that strongly influenced the ideas of Francesco Severi.
Go to Profile#30325
Miroslav Verner
#30337
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Miroslav Verner is a Czech egyptologist, who specializes in the history and archaeology of Ancient Egypt of the Old Kingdom and especially of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. Verner is a specialist on the archaeology of the Old Kingdom pyramids, and published one of the fundamental syntheses on the subject, in a new, updated edition in 2021.
Go to Profile#30326
Satyan Devadoss
#30338
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Satyan L. Devadoss is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Applied Mathematics and Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Diego. His research concerns topology and geometry, with inspiration coming from theoretical physics, phylogenetics, and scientific visualization.
Go to Profile#30327
Ley Sander
#30339
Overall Influence
Josemir W. Sander, also known as Ley Sander, is the ES Professor of Neurology and Clinical Epilepsy at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, Institute of Neurology of University College London. He is Honorary Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead for Epilepsy at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London and at the Epilepsy Society's Sir William Gowers Assessment Centre in Buckinghamshire. Sander is Head of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Neurosciences, London and Medical Director of the Epilepsy Society, based at the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy.
Go to Profile#30328
Thomas J. Biersteker
#30340
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Thomas J. Biersteker is an American political scientist and a notable constructivism scholar. He became the first Curt Gasteyger Professor of International Security at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland in 2007, where he is also a member of the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding. He is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Social Science Research Council and is on the Editorial Board of Stability: International Journal of Security and Development. His more recent work included advising the United Nations...
Go to Profile#30329
Nuccio Ordine
#30341
Overall Influence
1958 - 2023 (65 years)
Nuccio Ordine was an Italian literary critic who was professor of Italian literature at the University of Calabria. He was one of the world's top experts on the Renaissance and the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Go to Profile#30330
Leah Remini
#30342
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Leah Marie Remini is an American actress. She starred as Carrie Heffernan on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens and as Vanessa Celluci in the CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait , both alongside Kevin James. Remini coproduced and hosted the A&E documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath , for which she won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special. She also cohosted the daytime talk show The Talk . Remini's films include the comedy Old School , the mystery comedy Handsome , and the romantic comedy Second Act .
Go to Profile#30331
Roman Popadiuk
#30343
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Roman Popadiuk is an American diplomat of Ukrainian descent. Popadiuk served as the first United States Ambassador to Ukraine under George H. W. Bush, from 1992 to 1993. From 2015 until 2017, he was a principal at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP's subsidiary Morgan Lewis Consulting, and prior to 2015 he was the principal at Bingham Consulting. Since late 2018 Popadiuk has been the president of the Diplomacy Center Foundation which oversees the development of the National Museum of American Diplomacy.
Go to Profile#30332
Michael L. Klein
#30344
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Michael Lawrence Klein is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Science and director of the Institute for Computational Molecular Science in the college of science and technology at Temple University in Philadelphia, US. He was previously the Hepburn Professor of Physical Science in the Center for Molecular Modeling at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, he serves as the dean of the college of science and technology and has since 2013.
Go to Profile#30333
James Crotty
#30345
Overall Influence
1940 - 2023 (83 years)
James R. Crotty was an American Post-Keynesian macroeconomist whose research in theory and policy attempts to integrate the complementary analytical strengths of the Marxian and Keynesian traditions. He has made contributions to the social structure of accumulation theory; the implications of radical uncertainty for macro theory and theories of financial markets.
Go to Profile#30334
Charles A. Holloway
#30346
Overall Influence
Charles Arthur Holloway has been a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business since 1968 and has been a member of SRI International's board of directors since 2003. In 1990, he founded the Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing at Stanford. He is also a co-founder of the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and serves on the boards of Annuity Systems, Freedom Financial Corporation, Lexy, Neato Robots and Occam.
Go to Profile#30335
Werner Nachtigall
#30347
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Werner Nachtigall is a German zoologist and biologist. After graduating from high school in Augsburg, he studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in the fields of natural sciences biology, physics, chemistry and geography with a diploma in Technical Biology and Bionics. From 1959 to 1961, he was research assistant at the Radiobiology Institute in Neuherberg, later in the Zoological Institute of the University of Munich. His research interests during this time gave rise to questions that later led to the foundation of the field of bionics in Germany. In 1967, he was a visiting pro...
Go to Profile#30336
Felicitas Goodman
#30348
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Felicitas D. Goodman was an American linguist and anthropologist. She was a highly regarded expert in linguistics and anthropology and researched and explored Ecstatic Trance Postures for many years. She studied the phenomenon of "speaking in tongues" in Pentecostal congregations in Mexico. She is the author of such well-received books as Speaking in Tongues and Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences. Her work has been published mostly in the United States and Germany.
Go to Profile#30337
Albert R. Broccoli
#30349
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
Albert Romolo Broccoli , nicknamed "Cubby", was an American film producer who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career. Most of the films were made in the United Kingdom and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and Eon Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the producer of many of the James Bond films. He and Harry Saltzman saw the films develop from relatively low-budget origins to large-budget, high-grossing extravaganzas, and Broccoli's heirs continue to produce new Bond films.
Go to Profile#30338
Max Nemni
#30350
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Max Nemni is a Canadian political scientist and writer, best known for a series of biographies of former Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau which he cowrote with his wife Monique Nemni. He is a retired professor of political science at Université Laval, and a former coeditor of Cité Libre.
Go to Profile#30339
David Miles
#30351
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
David Kenneth Miles is a British economist. Born in Swansea, he has spent his working life in London, in teaching, business and the public sector. He is a professor at Imperial College London, and was Chief UK Economist of Morgan Stanley bank from October 2004 to May 2009. He was appointed to the Bank of England's interest-rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee from 1 June 2009 to June 2012 and again from June 2012 to 31 August 2015, before being replaced by Gertjan Vlieghe. According to the Bank of England, "As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy.".
Go to Profile#30340
Gretchen Daily
#30352
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Gretchen C. Daily is an American environmental scientist and tropical ecologist. She has contributed to understanding humanity's dependence and impacts on nature, and to advancing a systematic approach for valuing nature in policy, finance, management, and practice around the world. Daily is co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project, a global partnership that aims to mainstream the values of nature into decision-making of people, governments, investors, corporations, NGOs, and other institutions. Together with more than 300 partners worldwide, the Project is pioneering s...
Go to Profile#30341
Daniela Gioseffi
#30353
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Daniela Gioseffi is a poet, novelist and performer who won the American Book Award in 1990 for Women on War; International Writings from Antiquity to the Present . She has published 16 books of poetry and prose and won a PEN American Center's Short Fiction prize , and The John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry .
Go to Profile#30342
Oleh Hornykiewicz
#30354
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Oleh Hornykiewicz was an Austrian biochemist. Life Oleh Hornykiewicz was born in 1926 in Sykhiw , then in Poland . In 1951, he received his M.D. degree from the University of Vienna and joined the faculty of his alma mater the same year and worked there ever since. He also served for twenty years as chairman of the Institute of Biochemical Pharmacology. In 1967, he began a long association with the University of Toronto in Canada and, in 1992, he was named professor emeritus at that institution.
Go to Profile#30343
David Agard
#30355
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David A. Agard is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. He earned his B.S. in molecular biochemistry and biophysics from Yale University and his Ph.D. in biological chemistry from California Institute of Technology. His research is focused on understanding the basic principles of macromolecular structure and function. He is a scientific director of the Institute for Bioengineering, Biotechnology, and Quantitative Biomedical Research and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1986.
Go to Profile#30344
Akira Arimura
#30356
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
was a professor of medicine at Tulane University, and the founding Director of the university's Hébert Research Center, working on neuroendocrinology and biochemistry research. He died in 2007 of multiple myeloma. His books have been collected by libraries worldwide.
Go to Profile#30345
Justin Gatlin
#30357
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Justin Alexander Gatlin is a retired American sprinter who competed in the 60 meters, 100 meters, and 200 meters. He is the 2004 Olympic Champion in the 100 meters, the 2005 and 2017 World Champion in the 100 meters, the 2005 World Champion in the 200 meters, and the 2019 World Champion in the 4 x 100 meters relay. In addition, Gatlin is the 2003 and 2012 World Indoor Champion in the 60 meters. He is a 5-time Olympic medalist and a 12-time World Championship medalist. At the World Athletics Relays, Gatlin won two gold medals in the 4 x 100 meters relay in 2015 and 2017. Gatlin is also a record 3-time Diamond League Champion in the 100 meters.
Go to Profile#30346
Chip Young
#30358
Overall Influence
1938 - 2014 (76 years)
Chip Young was an American session guitarist, and later record producer who worked primarily out of Nashville, Tennessee. Biography Chip Young was born Jerry Marvin Stembridge in Atlanta, Georgia and was famous for his thumb-style guitar picking. Young played on records by Eddy Arnold, Bobby Bare, J. J. Cale, Guy Clark, Skeeter Davis, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Louvin, Charlie McCoy, Ronnie Milsap, Willie Nelson, The Oak Ridge Boys, Dolly Parton, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Charley Pride, Leon Russell, Earl Scruggs, Nancy Sinatra, Tanya Tucker, Tony Joe White, and many more.
Go to Profile#30347
Paul Hume
#30359
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Paul Chandler Hume was an American music critic and author who specialized in classical music. He was the music editor for The Washington Post from 1946 to 1982. Life and career Hume was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 13, 1915. Hume attended the University of Chicago, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1937 after studying music and English.
Go to Profile#30348
Rüdiger Thiele
#30360
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele is a German mathematician and historian of mathematics, known for his historical research on Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem. Education and career Thiele studied mathematics, physics, and psychology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and received his promotion there in 1973. He then worked in the publishing business in Leipzig for B. G. Teubner Verlag and Salomon Hirzel Verlag. From 1986 to 2008 he worked at the Karl-Sudhoff-Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften at the University of Leipzig. He has held visiting positions at the...
Go to Profile#30349
Brian J. McVeigh
#30361
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Brian J. McVeigh is a scholar of Asia who specializes in Japanese pop art, education, politics, and history. He is also a theorist of cultural psychology and historical changes in human mentality. He received his doctorate in 1991 from Princeton University's Department of Anthropology. While a graduate student, he studied under Julian Jaynes whose influence is apparent in his research. He taught at the University of Arizona until 2013 and is a licensed mental health counselor. Currently he is researching how a Jaynesian psychology can be developed for therapeutic purposes, as seen in his S...
Go to Profile#30350
Luca Turin
#30362
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Luca Turin is a biophysicist and writer with a long-standing interest in bioelectronics, the sense of smell, perfumery, and the fragrance industry. Early life and education Turin was born in Beirut, Lebanon on 20 November 1953 into an Italian-Argentinian family, and raised in France, Italy and Switzerland. His father, Duccio Turin, was a UN diplomat and chief architect of the Palestinian refugee camps, and his mother, Adela Turin , is an art historian, designer, and award-winning children's author. Turin studied Physiology and Biophysics at University College London and earned his PhD in 1978.
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