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
#30701
Mark Keane
#30713
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Mark T. Keane is a cognitive scientist and author of several books on human cognition and artificial intelligence, including Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook , Advances in the Psychology of Thinking , Novice Programming Environments , Advances in Case-Based Reasoning ., Case-Based Reasoning: Research & Development .
Go to Profile#30702
Emeli Sandé
#30714
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Adele Emily Sandé, , known professionally as Emeli Sandé, is a Scottish singer and songwriter. Born in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, and raised in Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, by an English mother and a Zambian father, Sandé rose to prominence after being a featured artist on the 2009 track "Diamond Rings" by rapper Chipmunk. It was the first top 10 single on the UK Singles Chart for both of them. In 2010, she was featured on "Never Be Your Woman" by the rapper Wiley, which was another top ten hit. In 2012, she received the Brit Awards' Critics' Choice Award.
Go to Profile#30703
Nancy Grace
#30715
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Nancy Ann Grace is an American legal commentator and television journalist. She hosted Nancy Grace, a nightly celebrity news and current affairs show on HLN, from 2005 to 2016, and Court TV's Closing Arguments from 1996 to 2007. She also co-wrote the book Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System. Grace was also the arbiter of Swift Justice with Nancy Grace in the syndicated courtroom reality show's first season.
Go to Profile#30704
Rao Yi
#30716
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Rao Yi is a Chinese neurobiologist. A Ph.D. graduate from the University of California, San Francisco, Rao held a Helen Hay Whitney fellowship at Harvard University and was on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University before moving back to China to take up the deanship of Peking University's School of Life Sciences in 2007 . He is currently Director and Principal Investigator of IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Peking University.
Go to Profile#30705
Monica Niculescu
#30717
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Monica Niculescu is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked by the Women's Tennis Association as high as 28 in singles and 11 in doubles. Niculescu has won several titles: three singles and ten doubles titles on the WTA Tour, one singles and one doubles title at WTA 125 tournaments, as well as 19 singles and 22 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.
Go to Profile#30706
Keith Maillard
#30718
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Keith Maillard is a Canadian-American novelist, poet, and professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia. He moved to Canada in 1970 and became a Canadian citizen in 1976. Family background Maillard has French, Canadian, and American roots. His Huguenots great grandparents immigrated to Montreal from Lyon, France, in the early 1880s. His Maillard grandfather and two Montreal-born uncles continued the family tradition of glass-blowing, working for Dominion Glass in Montreal and in Redcliff, Alberta.
Go to Profile#30707
Mahela Jayawardene
#30719
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene is a former professional cricketer and captain of the Sri Lankan national cricket team. He is the current consultant coach of the Sri Lankan national team and the head coach of the Indian Premier League franchise Mumbai Indians. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen from Sri Lankan cricket.
Go to Profile#30708
Viktor Žmegač
#30720
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Viktor Žmegač was a Croatian musicologist and scholar. He authored a number of books, articles and essays in the areas of cultural history, literary theory, musicology, art history, and German studies.
Go to Profile#30709
Walt Wolfram
#30721
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Walt Wolfram is an American sociolinguist specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of urban African American English through his work in Detroit in 1969. He is the William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University.
Go to Profile#30710
Paul Hornung
#30722
Overall Influence
1935 - 2020 (85 years)
Paul Vernon Hornung , nicknamed "the Golden Boy", was an American football halfback and kicker who played for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League from 1957 to 1966. He played on teams that won four NFL titles and the first Super Bowl. He is the first Heisman Trophy winner to be selected as the first overall selection in the NFL Draft, play pro football, win the NFL Most Valuable Player award, and be inducted into both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame. Packers coach Vince Lombardi stated that Hornung was "the greatest player I ever coached".
Go to Profile#30711
Martin Uribe
#30723
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Martín Uribe is a professor of economics at Columbia University. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Economics. Biography Uribe is born in Argentina. He received his B.A. from National University of Córdoba, M.A. from University of CEMA in Buenos Aires, and received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994. Uribe joined the Duke University faculty in 2003 after spending five years at the University of Pennsylvania and four years at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He moved to Columbia University in 2008.
Go to Profile#30712
David Sosa
#30724
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
David Sosa is an American philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Analytic Philosophy.
Go to Profile#30713
Ronald K. Siegel
#30725
Overall Influence
1943 - 2019 (76 years)
Ronald Keith Siegel was an American psychopharmacologist who was an associate research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. Siegel was the author of several noted studies and books on psychopharmacology, hallucination, and paranoia. A native of Herkimer, New York, he received his B.A. in sociology from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in psychology from Dalhousie University. He was affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University before joining the research faculty of UCLA in 1972, where he remained until his retirement in 2008.
Go to Profile#30714
Ray Clemence
#30726
Overall Influence
1948 - 2020 (72 years)
Raymond Neal Clemence, was an England international football goalkeeper and part of the Liverpool team of the 1970s. Regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, he is one of few players to have made over 1,000 career appearances, and holds the record for the most clean sheets in the history of football . Winning three European Cups, five League titles, two UEFA Cups, a UEFA Super Cup, an FA Cup and a League Cup with Liverpool, the last of his 665 appearances for the club was the victorious 1981 European Cup Final. In 1981, after being phased out at Liverpool, Clemence joined Tot...
Go to Profile#30715
Jonas Mekas
#30727
Overall Influence
1922 - 2019 (97 years)
Jonas Mekas was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide. Mekas was active in New York City, where he co-founded Anthology Film Archives, The Film-Makers' Cooperative, and the journal Film Culture. He was also the first film critic for The Village Voice.
Go to Profile#30716
Marion Barry
#30728
Overall Influence
1936 - 2014 (78 years)
Marion Shepilov Barry was an American politician who served as mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991 and 1995 to 1999. A Democrat, Barry had served three tenures on the Council of the District of Columbia, representing as an at-large member from 1975 to 1979, in Ward 8 from 1993 to 1995, and again from 2005 to 2014.
Go to Profile#30717
Tiago C. Peixoto
#30729
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Tiago Carneiro Peixoto is a Brazilian political scientist and Senior Governance Specialist at the World Bank, who promotes participatory democracy and digital government around the globe. Recognized as an expert in e-democracy and participatory democracy, he was nominated as one of the most innovative people in democracy, as well as one of the 100 most influential people in digital government.
Go to Profile#30718
Gerald Bray
#30730
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gerald Lewis Bray is a British theologian, ecclesiastical historian and priest in the Church of England. Teaching Born in Montreal, Quebec, on 16 November 1948, Bray holds a BA from McGill University and a MLitt and DLitt from University of Paris-Sorbonne. He was librarian of Tyndale House, Cambridge, from 1975 to 1978 when he was ordained in the Church of England and served in the parish of St Cedd, Canning Town , until 1980. From 1980 to 1992 he taught ecclesiastical history and doctrine at Oak Hill Theological College in London. From 1993 to 2006 he taught at Beeson Divinity School where he is now a research professor.
Go to Profile#30719
Heejung Kim
#30731
Overall Influence
Heejung Kim is a South Korean psychologist and a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on how culture influences humans' thought process. She is co-editor of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.
Go to Profile#30720
José María de Azcárate
#30732
Overall Influence
1919 - 2001 (82 years)
José María de Azcárate y Ristori was a Spanish art historian, author, researcher, curator, and professor, specializing in medieval Castilian art and Renaissance sculpture. Biography Born 18 April 1919 in Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, Spain. His father was a sailor and early in his son's life he moved the family to Cádiz, Spain. He studied at University of Seville and at University of Madrid in the subjects of Philosophy and Literature, eventually earning a doctorate from University of Madrid. He was disciple of Manuel Gómez-Moreno Martinez.
Go to Profile#30721
Thomas Herndon
#30733
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Thomas Herndon is an assistant professor of economics at Loyola Marymount University who became known for critiquing "Growth in a Time of Debt", a widely cited academic paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff supporting the austerity policies implemented by governments in Europe and North America in the early 21st century. His research concluded that these measures may not have been necessary.
Go to Profile#30722
Nate McMillan
#30734
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Nathaniel McMillan is an American basketball coach and former player who previously served as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association . He coached the Seattle SuperSonics from 2000 to 2005, the Portland Trail Blazers from 2005 to 2012, and the Indiana Pacers from 2016 to 2020. He spent his entire 12-year NBA playing career with the SuperSonics, then served as an assistant coach for one-and-a-half years and as head coach for almost five years. His long tenure as a player and coach in Seattle earned him the nickname "Mr. Sonic".
Go to Profile#30723
Norman Swartz
#30735
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Norman Swartz is an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy, Simon Fraser University. He is the author or co-author of multiple books and multiple articles on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He earned a B.A. in physics from Harvard University in 1961, an M.A. in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University in 1965 and a Ph.D. in history of philosophy of science in 1971 also from Indiana University. He uses the term physical law to mean the laws of nature as they truly are and not as they are inferred and described in the practice of science.
Go to Profile#30724
Mark Mothersbaugh
#30736
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mark Allen Mothersbaugh is an American musician. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of the new wave band Devo, whose "Whip It" was a top 20 single in the US in 1980, peaking at No. 14, and which has since maintained a cult following. Mothersbaugh is one of the main composers of Devo's music.
Go to Profile#30725
Lucio Fulci
#30737
Overall Influence
1927 - 1996 (69 years)
Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and spaghetti Westerns, he garnered an international cult following for his giallo and horror films.
Go to Profile#30726
Timea Bacsinszky
#30738
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (37 years)
Timea Bacsinszky is a Swiss former professional tennis player who won four singles titles and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as 13 singles and 14 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. A former top ten singles player, Bacsinszky reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 9, on 16 May 2016.
Go to Profile#30727
Marco Iansiti
#30739
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Marco Iansiti is a professor at the Harvard Business School, whose primary research interest is technology and operations strategy and the management of innovation. He is the David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration, heads the Technology and Operations Management Unit, and chairs the Digital Initiative. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Keystone Strategy, a consultancy focused on strategy, data sciences and economics for technology clients.
Go to Profile#30728
Andreas Zick
#30740
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Andreas Zick is a professor of Socialization and Conflict Research at Faculty of Education Science, Bielefeld University. Academia Zick is a professor for Socialization and Conflict Research at the Faculty of Education Science at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Concurrent with that, he is also the associate member of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence, head of the research training group on Group-Focused Enmity , and associated member of the Faculty of Sociology.
Go to Profile#30729
Pamela Gillies
#30741
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Professor Pamela Gillies is a Scottish academic and educator who served as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University from March 2006 until January 2023. Education The first in her family to go to university, Gillies attended the University of Aberdeen, graduating in 1976 with a BSc in Physiology, a PGCE and a Masters in Education and Philosophy. In 1976 she was awarded a competitive Scottish Home and Health Department Fellowship to train in community health in England. She graduated first with an MMedSci and then subsequently with a PhD in Epidemiology from the Universit...
Go to Profile#30730
Rienzi Crusz
#30742
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Rienzi Crusz was a Canadian poet. Born in Galle, Ceylon , Crusz immigrated to Toronto, Canada in 1965 and soon after began publishing poetry. Though his poetry deals with a wide variety of human experience, Crusz is best known for his poetry that illuminates his experience of immigration, migrancy and the alienation of exile.
Go to Profile#30731
Mary M. Talbot
#30743
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Mary Talbot is a British academic and author. She has written several well received academic works in critical discourse analysis and since 2009 has turned her hand to freelance writing. Her first graphic novel Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, published by Jonathan Cape in 2012 and illustrated by her husband Bryan Talbot won the 2012 Costa biography prize.
Go to Profile#30732
Rajeev Alur
#30744
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Rajeev Alur is an American professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania who has made contributions to formal methods, programming languages, and automata theory, including notably the introduction of timed automata and nested words .
Go to Profile#30733
Josef Haslinger
#30745
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Josef Haslinger is an Austrian writer. Haslinger was born in Zwettl, Lower Austria. He studied philosophy, drama and Germanic studies at the University of Vienna. He received his PhD in 1980. Since then he has been working as a freelance writer. 1976 to 1992 he was co-editor of the literary magazine "Wespennest".
Go to Profile#30734
Arturo Falaschi
#30746
Overall Influence
1933 - 2010 (77 years)
Arturo Falaschi was an Italian geneticist. Biography He graduated in Medicine in 1957 from University of Milan and undertook two post doctoral studies. Firstly, with J. Adler and Har Gobind Khorana in Wisconsin, USA , and later with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford . His main field of research was the replication of DNA. He was Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Pavia ; Director of the Instituto di Genetica Biochimica ed Evoluzionistica, CNR, Pavia ; and Director of the Progetto Finalizzato "Ingegneria Genetica" of the Italian National Research Council . He taught Molecular Biolo...
Go to Profile#30735
Ed McClanahan
#30747
Overall Influence
1932 - 2021 (89 years)
Edward Poage McClanahan was an American novelist, essayist, and professor. Biography McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky on October 5, 1932, to Edward Leroy and Jessie McClanahan. He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky, where the family relocated in 1948. McClanahan attended Washington and Lee University for one year before leaving for Miami University, where he received a B.A. in English in 1955. He briefly attended Stanford University's graduate English program during the 1955–1956 academic year, where he studied under Richard Scowcroft and Malcolm Cowley; after failing to acclimate to the program, he received an M.A.
Go to Profile#30736
Andreas Dress
#30748
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Andreas Dress is a German mathematician specializing in geometry, combinatorics and mathematical biology. Dress earned his PhD from the University of Kiel in 1962, under the supervision of Friedrich Bachmann and Karl-Heinrich Weise. His thesis is entitled Konstruktion metrischer Ebenen.
Go to Profile#30737
G. E. Berrios
#30749
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Germán Elías Berríos FMedSci, FRCPsych is a professor of Psychiatry at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Life Berrios was born in Tacna, Peru, and studied medicine and philosophy at the University of San Marcos. He read Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was a scholar by examination and obtained a BA in 1970. Then he trained in history and philosophy of science under A. Crombie, C. Webster and R. Harré earning a D.Phil. Sci. in 1972 and a MA in 1974. Between 1973 and 1976 he was a Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Leeds. In 1977 he obtained a M.A.
Go to Profile#30738
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin
#30750
Overall Influence
1922 - 2013 (91 years)
Marjorie Anaïs Housepian Dobkin was an author and an English professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. Her books include the novel A Houseful of Love and the history Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City.
Go to Profile#30739
Tom Araya
#30751
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Tomás Enrique Araya Díaz is an American musician, best known as the vocalist and bassist of thrash metal band Slayer. Araya is ranked 58th by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time. Before Slayer was disbanded in 2019, Araya, along with Kerry King, were the only members who stayed in the band since its inception.
Go to Profile#30740
Edward S. Davidson
#30752
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Edward S. Davidson is a professor emeritus in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Research interests His research interests include computer architecture, pipelining theory, parallel processing, performance modeling, intelligent caches, and application tuning. In the 1970s, he developed the reservation table approach to optimum design and cyclic scheduling of pipelines, designed and implemented an eight-node symmetric multiprocessor system in 1976, and developed a variety of systematic methods for modeling performance and enhancing systems, in...
Go to Profile#30741
Terry Porter
#30753
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Terry Porter is an American former college basketball coach and former player in the National Basketball Association . He was most recently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Portland. A native of Wisconsin, he played college basketball at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point before being drafted 24th by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1985 NBA draft. In Portland, he played ten seasons with two All-Star Game appearances. Porter spent 17 years in the NBA as a player. Following his retirement as a player in 2002, he began coaching in the league. Porter has twice been a ...
Go to Profile#30742
Philip Oakey
#30754
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Philip Oakey is an English singer, songwriter and record producer. He is the lead singer, songwriter, and co-founder of the synth-pop band the Human League. Aside from the Human League, Oakey has enjoyed an extensive solo music career and has collaborated with numerous other artists and producers.
Go to Profile#30743
Harald Rose
#30755
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Harald Rose is a German physicist. Rose received in 1964 his physics Diplom in theoretical electron optics under Otto Scherzer at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. From 1976 to 1980 he was principal research scientist at The New York State department of Health. In 1973–1974 he spent one research year at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago and in 1995–1996 one research year at Cornell and the University of Maryland. From 1980 to his retirement in 2000 as professor emeritus, he was active at the University of Darmstadt in the Physics Department. Since 2009 he has held a Carl Zeiss funded Senior Professorship at the University of Ulm.
Go to Profile#30744
Cathy Freeman
#30756
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman is an Aboriginal Australian former sprinter, who specialised in the 400 metres event. Her personal best of 48.63 seconds currently ranks her as the eighth-fastest woman of all time, set while finishing second to Marie-José Pérec's number-four time at the 1996 Olympics. She became the Olympic champion for the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame.
Go to Profile#30745
Donna Gabaccia
#30757
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Donna Rae Gabaccia is an American historian who studies international migration, with an emphasis on cultural exchange, such as food and from a gendered perspective. From 2003 to 2005 she was the Andrew Mellon Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and from 2005 to 2012 she held the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair of Immigration History at the University of Minnesota. During the same period, she was the director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. In 2013, her book, Foreign Relations: Global Perspectives on American Immigration won the Immigration ...
Go to Profile#30746
Chris Hirata
#30758
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Christopher Michael Hirata is an American cosmologist and astrophysicist. Hirata was 13 years old when he won the gold medal in 1996 at the International Physics Olympiad. He received a bachelor's degree in Physics at Caltech in 2001, at the age of 18. He received his PhD under the supervision of Uroš Seljak in 2005 from Princeton University in Astrophysics . From 2005 to 2007 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study. From 2006 to 2012 he was assistant professor and then full professor at Caltech before moving to the Ohio State University the following academic year in the same capacity.
Go to Profile#30747
David Hopwood
#30759
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Sir David Alan Hopwood is a British microbiologist and geneticist. Education Educated at Purbrook Park County High School and Lymm Grammar School, Hopwood gained his Bachelor of Arts degree from St John's College, Cambridge and his PhD from the University of Glasgow in 1973.
Go to Profile#30748
Norbert Frei
#30760
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Norbert Frei is a German historian. He holds the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Jena, Germany, and leads the Jena Center of 20th Century History. Frei's research work investigates how German society came to terms with Nazism and the Third Reich in the aftermath of World War II.
Go to Profile#30749
Tom Paxton
#30761
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than sixty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a music educator as well as an advocate for folk singers to combine traditional songs with new compositions.
Go to Profile#30750
Samuel Estreicher
#30762
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Samuel Estreicher is Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, director of its Center for Labor and Employment and co-director of its Institute of Judicial Administration. He has published dozens of articles and several books on labor law, employment law, employment discrimination law, U.S. foreign relations law, international law, and Supreme Court decisionmaking.
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