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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people
#31051
Carmine Infantino
#31063
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Carmine Michael Infantino was an American comics artist and editor, primarily for DC Comics, during the late 1950s and early 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comic Books. Among his character creations are the Black Canary and the Silver Age version of DC superhero the Flash with writer Robert Kanigher, the stretching Elongated Man with John Broome, Barbara Gordon the second Batgirl with writer Gardner Fox, Deadman with writer Arnold Drake, and Christopher Chance, the second iteration of the Human Target with Len Wein.
Go to Profile#31052
Michael Boddicker
#31064
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael Lehmann Boddicker is an American film composer and session musician, specializing in electronic music. He is a three times National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Most Valuable Player "Synthesizer" and MVP Emeritus, he was awarded a Grammy as a songwriter for "Imagination" from Flashdance in 1984. He is the president of The Lehmann Boddicker Group.
Go to Profile#31053
Graeme Le Saux
#31065
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Graeme Pierre Le Saux is an English former professional footballer and television pundit. As a versatile left sided player he played most of his career at left back with two spells at Chelsea, Blackburn Rovers, Southampton, and for the England national football team.
Go to Profile#31054
Canan Dağdeviren
#31066
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Canan Dağdeviren is a Turkish academic, physicist, material scientist, and Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where she currently holds the LG Career Development Professorship in Media Arts and Sciences. Dagdeviren is the first Turkish scientist in the history of the Harvard Society to become a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. As a faculty member, she directs her own Conformable Decoders research group at the MIT Media Lab. The group works at the intersection of materials science, engineering and biomedical engineering. They create...
Go to Profile#31055
Bonnie Seeman
#31067
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Bonnie Seeman is known for her ceramic work. Early life and education She received a BFA in ceramics in 1991 from the University of Miami and an MFA in ceramics in 1996 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Go to Profile#31056
Meemann Chang
#31068
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Meemann Chang also known as Zhang Miman, is a Chinese paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology . She completed her undergraduate studies at Moscow University and completed her PhD thesis entitled 'The braincase of Youngolepis, a Lower Devonian crossopterygian from Yunnan, south-western China' at Stockholm University. She was the first woman to become head of IVPP in 1983. For her many career achievements, she received an honorary degree from the University of Chicago in 2011 and the Romer-Simpson Medal from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2016...
Go to Profile#31057
Rolf-Dieter Postlep
#31069
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Rolf-Dieter Postlep is a German economist and President of the University of Kassel from 2000 to 2015. Education Rolf-Dieter Postlep completed his secondary education in 1965 at the Ratsgymnasium in Wolfsburg. He then trained as a banker at the Frankfurter Bank in Frankfurt am Main, Hessen. In 1969 he began studying at the University of Marburg and graduated in 1973 with a degree in economics.
Go to Profile#31058
Boris Vadimovich Sokolov
#31070
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Boris Sokolov , is a historian and a Russian literature researcher . In 1979 he graduated from the department of geography of the Moscow State University, specialising in economic geography. His works have been translated into Japanese, Polish, Latvian and Estonian. He has also translated literary works from various languages.
Go to Profile#31059
Boyd Haley
#31071
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Boyd Eugene Haley is an American anti-vaccine activist and retired professor of chemistry at the University of Kentucky. Education and career A native of Greensburg, Indiana, Haley graduated from its New Point High School in 1959. Four years later, he received a bachelor's degree from Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, and then entered a teaching fellowship at Howard University. Thereafter, he served as a U.S. Army medic a few years.
Go to Profile#31060
Stefan Berger
#31072
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Stefan Berger is the Director of the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Chairman of the committee of the Library of the Ruhr Foundation. He is Professor of Social History at the Ruhr University. He specializes in nationalism and national identity studies, historiography and historical theory, comparative labour studies, and the history of industrial heritage.
Go to Profile#31061
Lonnie Carton
#31073
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Lonnie Carton is a family therapist and an educational consultant best known for "The Learning Center", a long-running daily feature on CBS Radio which provided strategies for successful parenting. Biography Carton was born in Baltimore on August 25, 1930. She grew up in Baltimore and attended Johns Hopkins University, getting her bachelor's degree in 1950. She later received a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1959.
Go to Profile#31062
Renate Jaeger
#31074
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Renate Jaeger is a German lawyer and a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights. Her term at the Court expired on 30 December 2010. Early life Jaeger was born in Darmstadt, a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, and studied law at Cologne, Munich and Lausanne. In 1968, after completing her legal training, she became a judge at the Sozialgericht of Düsseldorf in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Sozialgericht is the lowest of three courts dealing with social security matters, the higher courts being the Landessozialgericht and national Bundessozialgericht .
Go to Profile#31063
Leontyne Price
#31075
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American spinto soprano who was the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, where she was the first African American to be a leading performer. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala; at La Scala, she was also the first African American to sing a leading role. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Verdi's Aida.
Go to Profile#31064
Jorge Sampaio
#31076
Overall Influence
1939 - 2021 (82 years)
Jorge Fernando Branco de Sampaio was a Portuguese lawyer and politician who was the 18th President of Portugal from 1996 to 2006. Sampaio was a member of the Socialist Party, a party which he led between 1989 and 1992. He served as the Mayor of Lisbon from 1990 to 1995 and High-Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations between 2007 and 2013.
Go to Profile#31065
CC Sabathia
#31077
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Carsten Charles Sabathia Jr. is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, and New York Yankees. Sabathia batted and threw left-handed.
Go to Profile#31066
Jonathan Woodgate
#31078
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Jonathan Simon Woodgate is an English football manager and former player who is currently the First Team Coach at EFL Championship club, Middlesbrough. Woodgate began his career at Middlesbrough but moved to Leeds United at the age of sixteen. He was sold to Newcastle United for £9 million in 2003, where he impressed despite injury problems. His performances in Europe for Newcastle led to Real Madrid signing him for £13.4 million in 2004. Injuries blighted his time in Madrid, and throughout his career, and he failed to make a single appearance in the entire 2004–05 season. On his debut for Re...
Go to Profile#31067
Kenneth Silverman
#31079
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Kenneth Eugene Silverman was an American biographer and educator. He won a Pulitzer Prize and a Bancroft Prize for his 1984 biography of Cotton Mather, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. Silverman, who specialized in Colonial American literature, was a professor of English at New York University until his retirement in 2001.
Go to Profile#31068
Lars Løkke Rasmussen
#31080
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Lars Løkke Rasmussen is a Danish politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2022. He previously served as the 25th Prime Minister of Denmark from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2015 to 2019. He was the leader of the liberal Venstre party from 2009 to 2019.
Go to Profile#31069
Kenneth S. Reightler Jr.
#31081
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Kenneth Stanley Reightler Jr. is a former NASA astronaut. Early life and education Reightler was born March 24, 1951, in Patuxent River, Maryland, but considers Virginia Beach, Virginia, to be his hometown. Married to the former Maureen Ellen McHenry, a psychotherapist; they have two daughters. He enjoys sailing, especially racing Chesapeake Bay Log Canoes, reading, music, hiking, and travel. His father, Mr. Kenneth S. Reightler Sr., and mother, Evelyn, are deceased. Maureen's mother, Mrs. Jean W. McHenry, and her father, Commander William H. McHenry , are deceased. He graduated from Bayside ...
Go to Profile#31070
Robert H. Strotz
#31082
Overall Influence
1922 - 1994 (72 years)
Robert Henry Strotz was an American economist who served as the 13th President of Northwestern University from 1970 to 1984. During his tenure, Northwestern grew in terms of faculty and student, "made capital improvements of more than $142 million", and doubled the value of the school's endowment.
Go to Profile#31071
Françoise Dürr
#31083
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Françoise Dürr is a retired French tennis player. She won 50 singles titles and over 60 doubles titles. Durr played with an unorthodox backhand, which she played with an Eastern forehand grip and her index finger extended up the handle. She is also noted for having an unorthodox serve that "might not have registered on a radar gun" according to her official Tennis Hall of Fame biography.
Go to Profile#31072
Ron Jaworski
#31084
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ronald Vincent Jaworski, nicknamed "Jaws", is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League from 1973 to 1989 during which he played for the Los Angeles Rams, Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins, and Kansas City Chiefs. As quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1981, Jaworski led the Eagles to their first ever Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XV.
Go to Profile#31073
Gunther Schuller
#31085
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Gunther Alexander Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City, the son of German parents Elsie and Arthur E. Schuller, a violinist with the New York Philharmonic. He studied at the Saint Thomas Choir School and became an accomplished French horn player and flute player. At age 15, he was already playing horn professionally with the American Ballet Theatre followed by an appointment as principal hornist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra , and then the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, where he stayed until 1959.
Go to Profile#31074
Hilary Robinson
#31086
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Hilary Robinson is a British academic and art theorist. She is Professor of Feminism, Art, and Theory at Loughborough University's School of Social Sciences and Humanities. She was Dean of the School of Art and Design and a professor at Middlesex University, and previously served as Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on the history, theory, and practice of feminist art.
Go to Profile#31075
Neil Young
#31087
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Neil Percival Young is a Canadian and American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining the folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the beginning of his solo career, often with backing by the band Crazy Horse, he has released critically acclaimed albums such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere , After the Gold Rush , Harvest , On the Beach , and Rust Never Sleeps . He was also a part-time member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with whom he recorded the chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu.
Go to Profile#31076
Joachim von Braun
#31088
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Joachim von Braun is a German agricultural scientist and currently director of a department of the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn and President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#31077
Uffe Haagerup
#31089
Overall Influence
1949 - 2015 (66 years)
Uffe Valentin Haagerup was a mathematician from Denmark. Biography Uffe Haagerup was born in Kolding, but grew up on the island of Funen, in the small town of Fåborg. The field of mathematics had his interest from early on, encouraged and inspired by his older brother. In fourth grade Uffe was doing trigonometric and logarithmic calculations. He graduated as a student from Svendborg Gymnasium in 1968, whereupon he relocated to Copenhagen and immediately began his studies of mathematics and physics at the University of Copenhagen, again inspired by his older brother who also studied the same subjects at the same university.
Go to Profile#31078
James A. Anderson
#31090
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
James A. Anderson is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Brain Science at Brown University. His multi-disciplinary background includes expertise in psychology, biology, physics, neuroscience and computer science. Anderson received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1967.
Go to Profile#31079
Wendell Lovett
#31091
Overall Influence
1922 - 2016 (94 years)
Wendell Harper Lovett was a Pacific Northwest architect and teacher. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Lovett entered the University of Washington program in architecture in 1940, but his college years were interrupted by wartime service. He graduated from the University of Washington with a B.Arch in 1947. While at Washington he was significantly influenced by Professor Lionel Pries. Lovett attended MIT for one year, studying under Alvar Aalto and receiving his M.Arch. in June 1948. He returned to Seattle and after a brief apprenticeship, opened his own practice.
Go to Profile#31080
Henrik Lundqvist
#31092
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Henrik Lundqvist is a Swedish former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played his entire 15-season career with the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League . Before winning the Vezina Trophy in 2012, he was nominated in each of his first three seasons, and is the only goaltender in NHL history to record eleven 30-win seasons in his first twelve seasons. He holds the record for most wins by a European-born goaltender in the NHL. His dominating play during his rookie season resulted in the New York media and Rangers fans giving him the nickname "King Henrik". During the 2006 Winter O...
Go to Profile#31081
Geoffrey M. Cooper
#31093
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Geoffrey M. Cooper is professor of biology at Boston University. He served as chair of the department of biology for a number of years, and subsequently as associate dean of the faculty for the natural sciences in the university's college of arts & sciences.
Go to Profile#31082
Rubén Blades
#31094
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna , known professionally as Rubén Blades , is a Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Son Cubano salsa to his music, creating "thinking persons' dance music". Blades has written dozens of hit songs, including "Pedro Navaja" and "El Cantante" . He has won eleven Grammy Awards out of seventeen nomin...
Go to Profile#31083
Jack D. Fischer
#31095
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Jack David Fischer is an American engineer, test pilot and a former NASA astronaut. Fischer was selected in June 2009 as a member of the NASA Astronaut Group 20 and qualified as an astronaut in 2011. He made his first spaceflight in April 2017, as a flight engineer for Expedition 51/52 on the International Space Station.
Go to Profile#31084
Stanton Wortham
#31096
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Stanton E.F. Wortham is a teacher, scholar, and documentary film producer who is the inaugural Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean American professor at Boston College Lynch School of Education. Biography Wortham previously work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, where he was the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor and associate dean for academic affairs. He spent 18 years as a professor and administrator at Penn, where he served twice as interim dean of the Graduate School of Education and won awards for teaching excellence, including the University of Pennsylvania...
Go to Profile#31085
George Blumenthal
#31097
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
George R. Blumenthal is an American astrophysicist, astronomer, professor, and academic administrator. He was the tenth chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Biography Blumenthal was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 20, 1945, to Lillian and Marcel Blumenthal, the owners of a small Venetian blinds operation. He was interested in science at a very early age and recalls the launch of the Soviet Sputnik I satellite in 1957. Blumenthal holds a B.S. in physics from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, San Diego.
Go to Profile#31086
Greg Oden
#31098
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Gregory Wayne Oden Jr. is an American former professional basketball player. Oden, a 7'0" center, played college basketball at Ohio State University for one season, during which the team was the Big Ten Conference regular season champion and Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament champion with Oden as the tournament MOP. Additionally, Oden and the Buckeyes were the tournament runner-up in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.
Go to Profile#31087
Daniel P. Aldrich
#31099
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Daniel P. Aldrich is an academic in the fields of political science, public policy and Asian studies. He is currently full professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University. Aldrich has held several Fulbright fellowships, including a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Applied Public Policy at Flinders University in Australia in 2023, a Fulbright Specialist in Trinidad-Tobago in 2018, a Fulbright research fellowship at the University of Tokyo's Economic's Department for the 2012–2013 academic year, and a IIE Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship in Tokyo in 2002–2003. His...
Go to Profile#31088
Shimon Glick
#31100
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Shimon M. Glick is an American-born Israeli physician. Personal life Glick was born in New Jersey. He and his wife Brenda have six children including Yehuda Glick who is a rabbi and former Knesset member.
Go to Profile#31089
Margaret Donaldson
#31101
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Margaret Caldwell Donaldson was a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Donaldson was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where she gained a Ph.D. in 1956, and continued as a teacher after graduating. She traveled to Memphis Tennessee to guest-lecture and teach at Rhodes College during the 1962–1963 school year. In 1980, she was appointed professor of developmental psychology. Her main research interest has always been in the study of human thought and language. At Edinburgh, Professor Donaldson oversaw the development of research in developmental psychol...
Go to Profile#31090
Bernard Moss
#31102
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Bernard Moss is a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the United States National Institutes of Health. He is the Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Viral Diseases and of the NIAID Genetic Engineering Section. He is known for his work on poxviruses.
Go to Profile#31091
Yolanda Lastra
#31103
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Yolanda Lastra de Suárez is a Mexican linguist specializing in the descriptive linguistics of the indigenous languages of Mexico. She obtained her PhD degree in 1963 from Cornell University, her dissertation written under the guidance of Charles F. Hockett treating the syntax of Cochabamba Quechua in Bolivia. She was married to Argentinian linguist Jorge A. Suárez .
Go to Profile#31092
John Geanakoplos
#31104
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
John Geanakoplos is an American economist, and the current James Tobin Professor of Economics at Yale University. Background and education John Geanakoplos was born to a Greek-American family of scholars. His father was the late Professor Emeritus at Yale Deno Geanakoplos , a renowned Greek-American historian of Byzantine cultural and religious history, and his mother, Effie Geanakoplos, was an instructor in psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. In 1970 Geanakoplos won the United States Junior Open Chess Championship. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Yale University in 1975 , and his M.A.
Go to Profile#31093
Barbara Burke Hubbard
#31105
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Barbara Burke Hubbard is an American science journalist, mathematics popularizer, textbook author, and book publisher, known for her books on wavelet transforms and multivariable calculus. Life Burke Hubbard is the daughter of Los Angeles Times reporter Vincent J. Burke, and spent a year in high school living in Moscow when Burke was stationed there in 1964. She was an undergraduate at Harvard University, initially majoring in biology but switching to English, and graduating in 1969. She became a science writer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a journalist for The Ithaca Jour...
Go to Profile#31094
Gary Williams
#31106
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Gary Bruce Williams is an American university administrator and former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at the University of Maryland, the Ohio State University, Boston College, and American University. In 2002, he led Maryland to win the NCAA tournament championship. Williams retired after the 2010–11 season.
Go to Profile#31095
Paul Westphal
#31107
Overall Influence
1950 - 2021 (71 years)
Paul Douglas Westphal was an American basketball player, head coach, and commentator. Westphal played in the National Basketball Association from 1972 to 1984. Playing the guard position, he won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics in 1974. Westphal played in the NBA Finals again in 1976 as a member of the Phoenix Suns. His NBA career also included stints with the Seattle SuperSonics and the New York Knicks. In addition to being a five-time All-Star selection, Westphal earned three All-NBA First Team selections and one Second Team honor.
Go to Profile#31096
Albert P. Pisano
#31108
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#31097
Susan Kemp
#31109
Overall Influence
Susan Patricia Kemp is a New Zealand social work academic. Academic career Kemp completed a bachelor's degree in sociology and psychology at Massey University, a master's degree in sociology at the University of Auckland, and a second master's degree at Columbia University. She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia in 1994 with a dissertation titled Social Work and Systems of Knowledge: the Concept of Environment in Social Casework Theory. Later the same year she joined the teaching staff at the University of Washington, where she remained until her retirement in June 2020.
Go to Profile#31098
Alvin Robertson
#31110
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Alvin Cyrrale Robertson is an American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association from 1984 to 1993, and for one final season in 1995–96. Robertson holds the record for the most steals per game played, averaging 2.71 steals per game for his career and is the only player to ever have a season of 300 or more steals which he accomplished in the 1985–86 season. He is also the only guard in NBA history to have recorded a quadruple-double.
Go to Profile#31099
Chris Pratt
#31111
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Christopher Michael Pratt is an American actor. He rose to prominence for playing Andy Dwyer in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation . He also appeared in The WB drama series Everwood and had supporting roles in the films Wanted , Jennifer's Body , Moneyball , Zero Dark Thirty , and Her .
Go to Profile#31100
Jinlong Gong
#31112
Overall Influence
Jinlong Gong is a Chinese chemist and professor of chemical engineering at Tianjin University. He is best known for his work in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis, surface science, and hydrogen energy.
Go to Profile