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
#31301
David M. Goldschmidt
#31313
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
David M. Goldschmidt is an American mathematician specializing in group theory. Goldschmidt received in 1969 from the University of Chicago a Ph.D. under John Griggs Thompson with thesis On the 2-exponent of a finite group. From 1969 to 1971 he was a Gibbs Instructor at Yale University. From 1971 to 1989 he was on the faculty of the mathematics department at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989–1991 he was Deputy Director and in 1991 he became Director of the Institute for Defense Analyses's Center for Communication Research in Princeton, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#31302
Daevid Allen
#31314
Overall Influence
1938 - 2015 (77 years)
Christopher David Allen , known professionally as Daevid Allen, sometimes credited as Divided Alien, was an Australian musician. He was co-founder of the psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine and Gong .
Go to Profile#31303
Wayne Mardle
#31315
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Wayne Elliot Mardle is an English former professional darts player who played in events of the Professional Darts Corporation and British Darts Organisation . He was runner-up in three PDC majors, losing to Phil Taylor on each occasion. He was also a five-time world semi-finalist. He currently works as a pundit and commentator.
Go to Profile#31304
Abul Khair Kashfi
#31316
Overall Influence
1932 - 2008 (76 years)
Muhammad Abul Khair Kashfi was a Pakistani author, researcher, critic, linguist and scholar of Urdu literature and linguistics. Career He remained associated with the University of Karachi as Professor and chairman in the Department of Urdu from 1958 to 1994. He was also a Visiting Professor at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Japan. After retirement Kashfi devoted his time to writing, guiding research, public speaking and media appearances.
Go to Profile#31305
Reinhart Ahlrichs
#31317
Overall Influence
1940 - 2016 (76 years)
Reinhart Ahlrichs was a German theoretical chemist. Biography Ahlrichs was born on the 16 January 1940 in Göttingen. He studied Physics at the University of Göttingen and received his PhD in 1968 with W. A. Bingel. From 1968-69 he was assistant at Göttingen with Werner Kutzelnigg and from 1969-70 Postdoctoral Fellow with C. C. J. Roothaan at the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#31306
Mark Lloyd
#31318
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Mark Lloyd is a former associate general counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the Federal Communications Commission of the United States from 2009-2012. He was previously the vice president for strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Lloyd was also an affiliate professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, and in the years from 2002-2004 Lloyd was a visiting lecturer at MIT where he conducted research and taught about communications policy.
Go to Profile#31307
Paula T. Hammond
#31319
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Paula Therese Hammond is a David H. Koch Professor in Engineering and the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . She was the first woman and person of color appointed as head of the Chemical Engineering department. Her laboratory designs polymers and nanoparticles for drug delivery and energy-related applications including batteries and fuel cells.
Go to Profile#31308
Samuel Waxman
#31320
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Samuel Waxman is the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor of Medicine , Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, and the Distinguished Service Professor of Oncological Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where he has been a member of the faculty for over 30 years.
Go to Profile#31309
Nick Trefethen
#31321
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Lloyd Nicholas Trefethen is an American mathematician, professor of numerical analysis and head of the Numerical Analysis Group at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. Education Trefethen was born 30 August 1955 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of mechanical engineer Lloyd M. Trefethen and codebreaker, poet, teacher and editor Florence Newman Trefethen. Trefethen attended Phillips Exeter Academy.
Go to Profile#31310
Peter Armitage
#31322
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
Peter Armitage CBE is a statistician specialising in medical statistics. Peter Armitage attended Huddersfield College and went on to read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Armitage belonged to the generation of mathematicians who came to maturity in the Second World War. He joined the weapons procurement agency, the Ministry of Supply where he worked on statistical problems with George Barnard.
Go to Profile#31311
Eyal Benvenisti
#31323
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Eyal Benvenisti is an attorney and legal academic, and Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge. He was formerly Anny and Paul Yanowicz Professor of Human Rights at Tel Aviv University's faculty of law. Since 2003 he has been part of the Global Law Faculty at New York University School of Law. He is the founding co-editor of Theoretical Inquiries in Law , where he served as Editor in Chief . He has also served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of International Law, and International Law in Domestic Courts.
Go to Profile#31312
Nancy Krieger
#31324
Overall Influence
Nancy Krieger is an American epidemiologist who is professor of social epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Education and career Raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Krieger studied biochemistry as an undergraduate at Harvard University and earned a master's degree at the University of Washington. Krieger received her PhD in epidemiology from University of California, Berkeley in 1989. She joined the faculty of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 1995. In 2004, she became an ISI highly cited rese...
Go to Profile#31313
Alice Eagly
#31325
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Alice H. Eagly is the James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences Emerita and emerita professor of psychology at Northwestern University. She is also a fellow at the Institute of Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her primary research focus is social psychology, as well as personality psychology and Industrial Organizational Psychology. She was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Go to Profile#31314
Adolph P. Yushkevich
#31326
Overall Influence
1906 - 1993 (87 years)
Adolph-Andrei Pavlovich Yushkevich was a Soviet historian of mathematics, leading expert in medieval mathematics of the East and the work of Leonhard Euler. He is a winner of George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for a lifetime of scholarly achievement.
Go to Profile#31315
Dominik Perler
#31327
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Dominik Perler is a Swiss philosopher. He was born in Freiburg im Üechtland Perler studied philosophy at the University of Fribourg, University of Bern and University of Göttingen. After finishing his PhD thesis at the University of Fribourg in 1991, Perler was a visiting scholar at Cornell University and at UCLA. After he was granted Habilitation in 1995 at the University of Göttingen, he became professor at the University of Basel in 1997. In 2003 Perler took up a professorship in theoretical philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#31316
Vicki Feaver
#31328
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Vicki Feaver is an English poet. She has published three poetry collections. Feaver's poem "Judith", from her book, Handless Maiden, was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. The book was also the recipient of a Heinemann Prize and shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Feaver was also a recipient of a Cholmondeley Award.
Go to Profile#31317
Peter Davison
#31329
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett , known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms. He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan Farnon in the BBC's television adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small stories.
Go to Profile#31318
Kathryn Zeiler
#31330
Overall Influence
Kathryn M. Zeiler is the Nancy Barton Scholar and Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. Zeiler's work primarily focuses on health law, torts law, law and economics, medical malpractice, and disclosure law.
Go to Profile#31319
Henryk Szlajfer
#31331
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Henryk Szlajfer – Polish economist and political scientist of Jewish origin, professor at the University of Warsaw, in the years 1993–2008, director of the Department of Strategy and Policy Planning, then of the American Department and archive at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appointed by then Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek as an ambassador ad personam, former ambassador-head of the Polish Permanent Representation to the OSCE, IAEA and other international organizations in Vienna.
Go to Profile#31320
David Steadman
#31332
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
David William Steadman is a paleontologist and ornithologist, and serves as the curator of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida. His research has concentrated on the evolution, biogeography, conservation, and extinction of tropical birds, particularly in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. He has also authored over 180 scientific publications. He has conducted a number of digs at prehistoric sites and uncovered widescale extinctions caused by humans in the early stages of colonisation. He has conducted several expeditions to the Galápagos Islands, and...
Go to Profile#31321
David E. Wellbery
#31333
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
David E. Wellbery is an American professor of German Studies at the University of Chicago. As of 2022 he is the chair of the department of Germanic Studies and holds the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professorship in the department. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Go to Profile#31322
Eduardo Lago
#31334
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Eduardo Lago is a Spanish novelist, translator, and literary critic, born in Madrid and currently living in Manhattan, New York, United States. In 2002, he was the recipient of the Bartolomé March Award for Excellence in Literary Criticism for his critical comparison of three Spanish translations of James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses. In 2006, he won the Premio Nadal, Spain's oldest and most prestigious literary award, for his first novel, Llámame Brooklyn . For many years, he interviewed North American writers for the literary supplement Babelia in the Spanish newspaper El País. He returned to te...
Go to Profile#31323
Samuel H. Preston
#31335
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Samuel Hulse Preston is an American demographer and sociologist. He is one of the leading demographers in the United States. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1968. Preston is a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the former dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1987. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986 and the American Philosophical Society in 1992.
Go to Profile#31324
Arseny Mironov
#31336
Overall Influence
1917 - 2019 (102 years)
Arseny Dmitrievich Mironov was a Russian scientist, aerospace engineer, and aviator. He was one of the oldest researchers in aircraft aerodynamics and flight testing, a Gromov Flight Research Institute director from 1981 to 1985, a recipient of the Stalin Prize in 1948 and the USSR State Prize in 1976, and an honorary citizen of Zhukovsky.
Go to Profile#31325
Mathias Nilsson
#31337
Overall Influence
Mathias Nilsson is a Swedish chemist and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Manchester. His research in general is based on physical chemistry and analytical chemistry, specifically on development and application of novel methods in Liquids NMR Spectroscopy
Go to Profile#31326
Jim Ward
#31338
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
James Mark Ward is an American body piercer. In a 2004 documentary, entitled The Social History of Piercing, MTV called him "the granddaddy of the modern body piercing movement." Early years Ward was born in 1941 in Western Oklahoma and moved to Colorado when he was eleven. In 1967, in New York he joined the New York Motorbike Club, a gay S&M group, and experimented with nipple piercing. During this time he also studied jewelry making. Ward then moved to Colorado, where he joined the gay Rocky Mountaineer Motorcycle Club and further experimented with piercing, genital in particular. In 1973, Ward moved to West Hollywood where he met Doug Malloy.
Go to Profile#31327
Nick Matzke
#31339
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nicholas J. Matzke is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education and served an instrumental role in NCSE's preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. One of his chief contributions was discovering drafts of Of Pandas and People which demonstrated that the term "intelligent design" was later substituted for "creationism". This became a key component of Barbara Forrest's testimony. After the trial he co-authored a commentary in Nature Immunology, was interviewed on Talk of the Nation, and was profiled in Seed as one ...
Go to Profile#31328
Jonathan A. Campbell
#31340
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jonathan Atwood Campbell is an American herpetologist. He is currently professor of biology at University of Texas at Arlington. He was a distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas.
Go to Profile#31329
Gordon H. Chang
#31341
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gordon Hsiao-shu Chang is an American historian and writer. He is a professor and vice provost at Stanford University. Early life and education Born in British Hong Kong, Chang earned a degree in history from Princeton University. Chang earned his PhD in history from Stanford University.
Go to Profile#31330
W. Wallace Cleland
#31342
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
William Wallace Cleland Life and education Cleland was born in 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his A.B. from Oberlin College in 1950 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1953 and 1955, respectively. He was an avid stamp collector and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Philately by the Smithsonian Institution in 2008. Cleland died on March 6, 2013, after falling on ice.
Go to Profile#31331
Alexandra Navrotsky
#31343
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Alexandra Navrotsky is a physical chemist in the field of nanogeoscience. She is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society . She was a board member of the Earth Sciences and Resources division of the NAS from 1995 until 2000. In 2005, she was awarded the Urey Medal, by the European Association of Geochemistry. In 2006, she was awarded the Harry H. Hess Medal, by the American Geophysical Union. She is currently the director of NEAT ORU , a primary program in nanogeoscience. She is distinguished professor at University of Calif...
Go to Profile#31332
Louis Sass
#31344
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Louis A. Sass is a professor of Clinical Psychology at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University who specializes in severe psychopathology, philosophy and psychology, and psychology and the arts. Sass has served on the faculty of Rutgers University since 1983 and has been a visiting professor at a wide range of institutions both in the United States and abroad. He has been published widely, and his book Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought has been called "a new landmark in the study of the modern era.". The ...
Go to Profile#31333
Mario d'Angelo
#31345
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Mario d’Angelo is a French academic, management consultant and author, born in 1954 with Italian and German ancestry. His work in the field of culture and the creative industries is in the line with the system analysis and interdisciplinarity approach . His empirical researches are focused on the European context.
Go to Profile#31334
Nikola Jokić
#31346
Overall Influence
1995 - Present (31 years)
Nikola Jokić is a Serbian professional basketball player who is a center for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "the Joker", and hailed as one of the biggest draft steals in NBA history, he is regarded as one of the greatest players and centers of all time. A five-time NBA All-Star, he has been named to the All-NBA Team on five occasions , and won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons. He represents the Serbian national team, with which he won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Go to Profile#31335
Terry Melcher
#31347
Overall Influence
1942 - 2004 (62 years)
Terrence Paul Melcher was an American record producer who was instrumental in shaping the mid-to-late 1960s California Sound and folk rock movements. His best-known contributions were producing the Byrds' first two albums Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! , as well as most of the hit recordings of Paul Revere & the Raiders and Gentle Soul. He is also known for his collaborations with Bruce Johnston and for his association with the Manson Family.
Go to Profile#31336
Mark Jaccard
#31348
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Mark Kenneth Jaccard is a Canadian energy economist and author. He develops and applies models that assess sustainability policies for energy and material. Jaccard is a professor of sustainable energy in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.
Go to Profile#31337
Frank Vogel
#31349
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Frank Paul Vogel is an American professional basketball coach who is the head coach for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association . He previously served as the head coach for the Orlando Magic, Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Lakers, leading the Lakers to an NBA championship in 2020. Vogel began his career as an assistant coach for the Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics.
Go to Profile#31338
Denis O'Brien
#31350
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Denis O'Brien was an American attorney, best-known as the business manager of George Harrison of the Beatles and co-founder of the film studio HandMade Films. Biography O'Brien was born on September 12, 1941, and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Ruth O'Brien and Albert James O'Brien. Albert was Vice Chairman of the Board at Ralston Purina, and also Chairman of the Board of Union Bank of Illinois, Union Illinois Company, and the State Bank of Jerseyville, Illinois, a bank that he gained control of in 1974. Denis became President and CEO of the bank in 1997, but was ousted two years l...
Go to Profile#31339
David J. Thomson
#31351
Overall Influence
David J. Thomson is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Queen's University in Ontario and a Canada Research Chair in statistics and signal processing, formerly a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs. He is a professional engineer in the province of Ontario, a fellow of the IEEE and a chartered statistician. He holds memberships of the Royal Statistical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Statistical Society of Canada and the American Geophysical Union and, in 2009, received a Killam Research Fellowship . In 2010, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Go to Profile#31340
Troy Brown
#31352
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Troy Fitzgerald Brown is an American football coach and former player who is the wide receivers and kick returners coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League . He played as a wide receiver and return specialist for 15 seasons in the NFL, spending his entire career with the Patriots. Brown played college football at Marshall University and was selected by the Patriots in the eighth round of the 1993 NFL Draft. During his New England tenure, he was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2001 and was a member of the franchise's first three Super Bowl-winning teams. In 2020, Brown rejoined the Patriots as an offensive assistant.
Go to Profile#31341
Sandra Eaton
#31353
Overall Influence
Sandra Eaton is an American chemist and professor at the University of Denver, known for her work on electron paramagnetic resonance. Education Eaton completed her bachelor's degree in chemistry at Wellesley College in 1968. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Wellesley and published her undergraduate research. She earned a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972.
Go to Profile#31342
Lester G. Telser
#31354
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Lester Greenspan Telser was an American economist and Professor Emeritus in Economics at the University of Chicago. Education and career He was a native of the Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago and a graduate of the Chicago Public Schools and Roosevelt University, where he studied under Abba Lerner. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956, with Milton Friedman as his principal thesis supervisor. He taught briefly at Iowa State University and was conscripted into the United States Army in which he served from 1956 to 1958. He was a member of the University of Chicago faculty from 1958 .
Go to Profile#31343
Jan Kodeš
#31355
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jan Kodeš is a Czech former professional tennis player. A three-time major singles champion, Kodeš was one of the premier players in the early 1970s. Kodeš's greatest success was achieved on the clay courts of the French Open, where he won the singles title in 1970 and 1971. However, he also won Wimbledon on grass courts in 1973, although the tournament was largely boycotted by top players that year over the ban of Nikola Pilić by the International Lawn Tennis Federation .
Go to Profile#31344
Anastasija Sevastova
#31356
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Anastasija Sevastova is a professional tennis player from Latvia. She reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. 11 in October 2018, after reaching her first Premier Mandatory final at the China Open. She has won four singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as 13 singles and four doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.
Go to Profile#31345
Patricia Bell-Scott
#31357
Overall Influence
Patricia Bell-Scott is an American scholar of women's studies and black feminism. She is currently a professor emerita of women's studies and human development and family science at the University of Georgia. As an author, she has been widely collected by libraries worldwide.
Go to Profile#31346
Kevin Tuite
#31358
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Kevin Tuite is a full Professor of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal. He is a citizen of both Canada and Ireland. His special interest is in Caucasian linguistics, and he has occasionally published on the topic of Georgian mythology.
Go to Profile#31347
Giuseppe Sermonti
#31359
Overall Influence
1925 - 2018 (93 years)
Giuseppe Sermonti was an Italian professor of genetics. Sermonti is well known for his criticism of natural selection as the deciding factor of human biology. Biography Early life and career Born in Rome, graduated in agriculture and genetics, he entered the Superior Institute of Health in 1950, founding a department of Microbiological Genetics. He became professor of genetics at the University of Camerino, then at the University of Palermo in 1965, and finally moved to the University of Perugia in 1970, where he was emeritus professor and managed the Genetics Institute of the University from 1974.
Go to Profile#31348
Leslie Scalapino
#31360
Overall Influence
1944 - 2010 (66 years)
Leslie Scalapino was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. One of Scalapino's most critically well-received works is Way , a long poem which won the Poetry Center Award, the Lawrence Lipton Prize, and the American Book Award.
Go to Profile#31349
Samuel Messick
#31361
Overall Influence
1931 - 1998 (67 years)
Samuel J. Messick III was an American psychologist who worked for the Educational Testing Service , known for his contributions to validity theory. Early life Messick was born on April 3, 1931, in Philadelphia. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree, and he earned a PhD from Princeton University.
Go to Profile#31350
Sanjida Khatun
#31362
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Sanjida Khatun is a Bangladeshi musicologist. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2021. Biography Khatun completed her bachelor's in Bengali literature from the University of Dhaka in 1955. She earned her MA degree in Bangla language from Visva Bharati University in 1957.
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