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
#32051
Mark Pepys
#32063
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sir Mark Brian Pepys is a South African-born British academic of medicine. He was until 2011 Professor of Medicine at University College London and Head of Medicine at the Hampstead Campus and the Royal Free Hospital.
Go to Profile#32052
Donald D. Brown
#32064
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Donald David Brown was an American biologist and one of the founders of molecular embryology. Early life Brown was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Dr. Albert Brown, an ophthalmologist, and Louise Rauh.
Go to Profile#32053
Karen Emmorey
#32065
Overall Influence
Karen Denise Emmorey is a linguist and cognitive neuroscientist known for her research on the neuroscience of sign language and what sign languages reveal about the brain and human languages more generally. Emmorey holds the position of Distinguished Professor in the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University, where she directs the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience and the Center for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience.
Go to Profile#32054
John O'Donohue
#32066
Overall Influence
1956 - 2008 (52 years)
John O'Donohue was an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher. He was a native Irish speaker, and as an author is best known for popularising Celtic spirituality. Early life and education Eldest of four siblings, O'Donohue was reared in west Ireland in the area of Connemara and County Clare, where his father Patrick O'Donohue was a stonemason, while his mother Josie O'Donohue was a housewife.
Go to Profile#32055
Markar Melkonian
#32067
Overall Influence
Markar Melkonian is an Armenian-American writer, lecturer, and solidarity worker. Melkonian's book My Brother's Road: An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia, details the life of his brother, Monte Melkonian, and his role in the struggle for Armenian independence in the 1990s. My Brother's Road was published by I.B. Tauris in 2005 . Translations in Italian, Armenian, Russian, and French are forthcoming. He recently wrote the book 'The Wrong Train: Notes on Armenia since the Counterrevolution' which is an outstanding guide to the English language that offers crucial contextual analysis of the ...
Go to Profile#32056
Andres Metspalu
#32068
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Andres Metspalu is an Estonian geneticist and member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Biography Metspalu was born on 11 March 1951 in Lääne-Viru County. In 1969 he graduated from the Rakke High School. In 1976 he graduated from the University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, as a physician. In 1979 he obtained a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Institute of Molecular Genetics at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev. His thesis was on the structure and function of the Eukaryotic ribosome.
Go to Profile#32057
Branford Marsalis
#32069
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque. From 1992 to 1995 he led the Tonight Show Band.
Go to Profile#32058
Herbert W. Roesky
#32070
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Herbert Roesky is an internationally renowned German inorganic chemist. Biography Professor Herbert W. Roesky was born in 1935 in Laukischken. He obtained his doctorate from Göttingen and worked at Du Pont in the United States before returning to his alma mater where he retired in 2004. He is primarily known for his pioneering work on fluorides of both transitional and normal metals. He has been a Visiting Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Kyoto University, and he has also been a Frontier Lecturer at Texas A&M University at College Station, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Iowa at Iowa City.
Go to Profile#32059
Nadine El-Enany
#32071
Overall Influence
Nadine El-Enany is a writer and legal scholar. She is Professor of Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent. She specializes in migration and refugee law, European Union law, protest and criminal law.
Go to Profile#32060
Robin Osborne
#32072
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Robin Grimsey Osborne, is an English historian of classical antiquity, who is particularly interested in Ancient Greece. Early life He grew up in Little Bromley, attending Little Bromley County Primary School and then Colchester Royal Grammar School. He was an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, where he also took a PhD degree.
Go to Profile#32061
Arleen Schloss
#32073
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Arleen Schloss is an American performance artist, video/film artist, sound poet, director and curator of the lower Manhattan art, video, performance art and music scenes. Schloss began through A's – an interdisciplinary loft space that became a hub for music, exhibitions, performance art, films and videos. In the 1990s A's became A's Wave where website works and other forms of digital media were shown.
Go to Profile#32062
Shengwang Du
#32074
Overall Influence
Shengwang Du is a professor in the department of physics at The University of Texas at Dallas. He is noted for having led a team that performed an experiment showing individual photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, thus apparently removing one approach to time travel.
Go to Profile#32063
Nick Mason
#32075
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Nicholas Berkeley Mason is an English drummer and a founder member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. He has been the only constant member since the band's formation in 1964, and is the only member to appear on every Pink Floyd album. He co-wrote Pink Floyd compositions including "Echoes", "Time", "Careful with That Axe, Eugene", and "One of These Days". In 2018, he formed a new band, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, to perform music from Pink Floyd's early years. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Pink Floyd.
Go to Profile#32064
Gary D. Solis
#32076
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Gary Dean Solis is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and an adjunct professor of law who teaches the laws of war at the Georgetown University Law Center and the George Washington University Law School.
Go to Profile#32065
Giorgio Melchiori
#32077
Overall Influence
1920 - 2009 (89 years)
Giorgio Melchiori CBE FBA was an Italian literary critic and translator. His scholarly work was focused on the Early Modern English literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Early life Melchiori was born on 19 August 1920 in Rome, Italy.
Go to Profile#32066
John Moffat
#32078
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
John W. Moffat is a Canadian physicist. He is currently professor emeritus of physics at the University of Toronto and is also an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo and a resident affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Go to Profile#32067
Moon Duchin
#32079
Overall Influence
Moon Duchin is an American mathematician who works as a professor at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Her mathematical research concerns geometric topology, geometric group theory, and Teichmüller theory. She has done significant research on the mathematics of redistricting and gerrymandering, and founded a research group, MGGG Redistricting Lab, to advance these mathematical studies and their nonpartisan application in the real world of US politics. She is also interested in the cultural studies, philosophy, and history of science. Duchin is one of the core faculty members and serv...
Go to Profile#32068
Heinz Halm
#32080
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Heinz Halm is a German scholar of Islamic Studies, with a particular expertise on early Shia history, the Ismailites and other Shia sects. Life Born and raised in Andernach, Halm studied Islamic and Semitic studies, and medieval and modern history at the University of Bonn, where he was a scholar of Annemarie Schimmel. Following his Ph.D. and a traineeship in journalism at Hessischer Rundfunk, he joined the scholarly project of the , a bilingual collection of geographical and historical maps. In 1980, he was appointed Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of Tübingen.
Go to Profile#32069
Chi-Wang Shu
#32081
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Chi-Wang Shu is the Theodore B. Stowell University Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. He is known for his research in the fields of computational fluid dynamics, numerical solutions of conservation laws and Hamilton–Jacobi type equations. Shu has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge.
Go to Profile#32070
Robert C. Seacord
#32082
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Robert C. Seacord is an American computer security specialist and writer. He is the author of books on computer security, legacy system modernization, and component-based software engineering. Education Seacord earned a Bachelor's degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in December 1983. He has also completed graduate-level courses at Carnegie-Mellon University in software design, creation and maintenance; user interfaces; software project management; formal methods; human factors; operating systems; and entrepreneurship.
Go to Profile#32071
Alula Pankhurst
#32083
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Alula Pankhurst is a British scholar and social development consultant whose main focus is Ethiopia and Ethiopian studies. He has worked in Ethiopia for many years in a variety of positions including as an associate professor of anthropology at Addis Ababa University and as the country director for Young Lives.
Go to Profile#32072
Vintilă Mihăilescu
#32084
Overall Influence
1951 - 2020 (69 years)
Vintilă Mihăilescu was a leading Romanian cultural anthropologist, and a professor at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration. He was the brother of mathematician Preda Mihăilescu.
Go to Profile#32073
Anne Peters
#32085
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Anne Peters is a German-Swiss jurist with a focus on public international law. She is director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, honorary professor at the University of Basel, University of Heidelberg and Free University of Berlin, and at William W. Cook Global Law Professor at Michigan Law School.
Go to Profile#32074
Stefan Kuryłowicz
#32086
Overall Influence
1949 - 2011 (62 years)
Stefan Kuryłowicz was a Polish architect and professor who is widely credited with transforming the architecture and skyline of Warsaw, Poland, in the twenty years following the collapse of Communism in 1989. Media reports have called Kuryłowicz "one of the most influential Polish architects." He and the late architect Jacek Syropolski created the architecture company, Kurylowicz & Associates.
Go to Profile#32075
Alistair MacFarlane
#32087
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Sir Alistair George James MacFarlane was a Scottish electrical engineer and leading academic who served as Principal and Vice Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and Rector, University of the Highlands and Islands.
Go to Profile#32076
Samak Sundaravej
#32088
Overall Influence
1935 - 2009 (74 years)
Samak Sundaravej was a Thai politician who briefly served as the Prime Minister of Thailand and Minister of Defense in 2008, as well as the leader of the People's Power Party in 2008. Early life and family Samak was born in Bangkok, Thailand to Phraya Bamrungratchaboriphan and his wife Khunying Amphan Bamrungratchaboriphan . He was of Chinese ancestry and had five siblings. According to Samak himself, his Chinese ancestors came to Thailand in the late 18th century. Samak studied at Saint Gabriel's College and Assumption Commercial College, then graduated from Faculty of Law, Thammasat University.
Go to Profile#32077
Monique Combescure
#32089
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Monique Combescure , is a French physicist specializing in mathematical physics. In 2001, she became director of research at the Lyon Institute of Nuclear Physics. From 2000 to 2008, she was director of the European Mathematics and Quantum Physics Research Group which aims to promote synergy between theoretical physicists and mathematicians in the field of quantum physics. She received the Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize in 2007 and the rank of Officer of the National Order of Merit in 2011.
Go to Profile#32078
Masachi Osawa
#32090
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Masachi Osawa is a Japanese sociologist and philosopher. Outside Japan, he is best known as a social scientist, often mentioned in reference to sociological and philosophical research on otaku culture and popular Japanese animation series such as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Go to Profile#32079
Charles Taliaferro
#32091
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#32080
Alfredo Lim
#32092
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
Alfredo "Fred" Siojo Lim was a Filipino politician, police officer and lawyer who served as a Senator of the Philippines from 2004 to 2007. He also served as the 19th Mayor of Manila twice: first from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2007 to 2013.
Go to Profile#32081
Frank Brennan
#32093
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Frank Tenison Brennan SJ AO is an Australian Jesuit priest, human rights lawyer and academic. He has a longstanding reputation of advocacy in the areas of law, social justice, refugee protection, reconciliation, and human rights activism.
Go to Profile#32082
Mary Bousted
#32094
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Mary Winefride Bousted is a British trade unionist who was the former Joint General-Secretary of the National Education Union alongside Kevin Courtney. Bousted was previously General Secretary of the teachers' union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers prior to its amalgamation with the National Union of Teachers, forming the NEU.
Go to Profile#32083
João Lobo Antunes
#32095
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
João Lobo Antunes was a Portuguese neurosurgeon. Life and career João Lobo Antunes was born in Lisbon as the second of six sons of João Alfredo de Figueiredo Lobo Antunes , prominent Neurologist and Professor, close collaborator of Egas Moniz, Nobel prize of physiology, and wife Margarida da Beira Cardoso de Melo Machado, daughter of Joaquim José Machado, 70th, 82nd and 91st Governor of Mozambique and 110th Governor of Portuguese India, and wife Mariana Cardoso de Melo. His great-grandfather in male line was an illegitimate son of Bernardo António de Brito Antunes, 1st Viscount of Nazaré. He ...
Go to Profile#32084
Mark Badger
#32096
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Mark Billings Badger , known as Mark Badger, is an American illustrator who has worked as a penciler, inker, cover artist, painter, and occasional colorist in the American comic book industry. In addition to his career as a comic book artist, Badger is a political activist and organizer, often mixing the comic book medium with activism. As an early adapter of digital tools to create comic art, Badger has taken to create web-based comics for the purposes of education and activism. Under these auspices, he is in collaboration with the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice to establish an onlin...
Go to Profile#32085
Michael Thrasher
#32097
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael Thrasher is a British academic, Professor of Politics in the School of Sociology, Politics & Law at the University of Plymouth. He is also Sky News' election analyst. Thrasher was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire in 1953. he received his BA in politics from the University of Liverpool in 1974. He remained in Liverpool to study for his doctoral thesis, "The political theory of English local government, 1834-1972". He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1981. He began lecturing at Plymouth in 1977, becoming Professor of Politics in 1997. He is co-director of the Local Government Chronicle Elec...
Go to Profile#32086
José Tolentino de Mendonça
#32098
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça is a Portuguese prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. A theologian and university professor, he is also regarded as one of the most original voices of modern Portuguese literature and a Catholic intellectual. His work includes poetry, essays and plays that he signs José Tolentino Mendonça.
Go to Profile#32087
Tan Eng Chye
#32099
Overall Influence
Tan Eng Chye is a Singaporean mathematician and university administrator who has been serving as the third president of the National University of Singapore since 2018. Prior to his presidency, he served as the deputy president of academic affairs and provost at the National University of Singapore.
Go to Profile#32088
John Waite
#32100
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
John Charles Waite is a British rock singer and musician. As a solo artist, he has released ten studio albums and is best known for the 1984 hit single "Missing You", which reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the top ten on the UK Singles Chart. He was also the lead vocalist for the successful rock bands The Babys and Bad English.
Go to Profile#32089
Rebecca J. Scott
#32101
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Rebecca Jarvis Scott is an American historian, and Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law, at University of Michigan. Early life and education Scott was born on July 18, 1950, in Athens, Georgia to parents Andrew and Anne Scott. She graduated from Radcliffe College with an A.B., from the London School of Economics with an M.Phil. in economic history and from Princeton University with a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#32090
Gordon Hammes
#32102
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Gordon G. Hammes is a distinguished service professor of biochemistry, emeritus, at Duke University, professor emeritus at Cornell University, and member of United States National Academy of Sciences. Hammes' research involves the study of enzyme mechanisms and enzyme regulation.
Go to Profile#32091
Christopher Budd
#32103
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Christopher John Budd is a British mathematician known especially for his contribution to non-linear differential equations and their applications in industry. He is currently Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath, and was Professor of Geometry at Gresham College from 2016 to 2020.
Go to Profile#32092
Bonnie Jenkins
#32104
Overall Influence
Bonnie Denise Jenkins is an expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and currently serves as the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. During the Obama administration, she was the U.S. Department of State's coordinator for threat reduction programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
Go to Profile#32093
Manuel Caballero
#32105
Overall Influence
1931 - 2010 (79 years)
Manuel Antonio Caballero Agüero was a notable Venezuelan historian, journalist, best-selling author and professor of contemporary Venezuelan History at the Central University of Venezuela. Biography Caballero was born in Barquisimeto, studied history at the Central University of Venezuela and obtained a PhD at University College London. With the publication of his PhD dissertation he became the first Venezuelan author to be published by Cambridge University Press. In 1989 he was invited to teach at Universitá degli Studi di Napoli in Italy. He received the National Award on Journalism and th...
Go to Profile#32094
Jeffery Dangl
#32106
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jeffery Lee Dangl is an American biologist. He is currently John N. Couch Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Education Dangl earned his BAS of Biological Sciences and Modern Literature, MS of Biological Sciences, and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. He completed a postdoc at the Department of Biochemistry, Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung in Köln, Germany.
Go to Profile#32095
Matthew Clarke, Lord Clarke
#32107
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Matthew Gerard Clarke, Lord Clarke, PC Early life Matthew Clarke Lord Clarke was educated at Holy Cross High School Hamilton, and studied at the University of Glasgow . He was admitted as a solicitor in 1972, and lectured in the School of Law of the University of Edinburgh from 1972 to 1978, when he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates. He was Standing Junior Counsel to the Scottish Home and Health Department from 1983 to 1989, in which year he was appointed Queen's Counsel. He served as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey from 1995 to 2000.
Go to Profile#32096
Nobukatsu Fujioka
#32108
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Nobukatsu Fujioka is both a founder and vice president of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform . He was once a professor at the Tokyo University and later moved to Takushoku University. He is now retired.
Go to Profile#32097
Pat Lipsky
#32109
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Pat Lipsky is an American painter associated with Lyrical Abstraction and Color Field Painting. Education Lipsky grew up in New York City. She graduated with a BFA from Cornell University in 1963, receiving an MFA from the Graduate Program in Painting at Manhattan's Hunter College, where she studied with the painter and sculptor Tony Smith.
Go to Profile#32098
Permanand Mohan
#32110
Overall Influence
Permanand Mohan is a senior Computer Science lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of the West Indies, an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of the West Indies. He is the Chief Examiner for the Caribbean Examinations Council’s CAPE Examinations in Computer Science.
Go to Profile#32099
Jim Kaat
#32111
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
James Lee Kaat is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a left-handed pitcher for the Washington Senators / Minnesota Twins , Chicago White Sox , Philadelphia Phillies , New York Yankees , and St. Louis Cardinals . His playing career spanned 25 years.
Go to Profile#32100
Alex Kotlowitz
#32112
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Alex Kotlowitz is an American journalist, author, and filmmaker. His 1991 book There Are No Children Here was a national bestseller and received the Christopher Award and Helen Bernstein Award. He is a two-time recipient of both the Peabody Award and the Dupont Award for journalism. He co-produced the 2011 documentary The Interrupters, based on his New York Times Magazine article, which received an Independent Spirit Award and Emmy Award.
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