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.

Search Influential People

Clear Form

List of the most influential people

#32501

Ted Ringwood

#32513
Overall Influence
1930 - 1993 (63 years)
Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS FAA was an Australian experimental geophysicist and geochemist, and the 1988 recipient of the Wollaston Medal. The mineral ringwoodite is named after him. Early life and study Ringwood was born in Kew, only child of Alfred Edward Ringwood. He attended Hawthorn West State School where he played cricket and Australian Rules football. In 1943 he was successful in gaining a scholarship to Geelong Grammar School where he boarded. On matriculation, he enrolled in Geology a science degree at the University of Melbourne where he held a Commonwealth Government Scholarship, and was awarded a resident scholarship at Trinity College.
Go to Profile
#32502

Robin Murphy Williams

#32514
Overall Influence
1914 - 2006 (92 years)
Robin Murphy Williams was an American sociologist who is primarily known for identifying and defining 15 core values that are central to the American way of life. Life Williams was born on October 11, 1914, in the city of Hillsborough, North Carolina. He graduated from North Carolina State College in 1933 at the age of 19 before going on earn an M.A. at Harvard University in 1939 and his PhD from the same establishment in 1943.
Go to Profile
#32503

Pierre Briant

#32515
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Pierre Briant is a French Iranologist, Professor of History and Civilisation of the Achaemenid World and the Empire of Alexander the Great at the Collège de France , Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Chicago, and founder of the website achemenet.com.
Go to Profile
#32504

Jean Anyon

Jean Anyon
#32516
Overall Influence
1941 - 2013 (72 years)
Jean Anyon , was an American critical thinker and researcher in education, a professor in the Doctoral Program in Urban Education at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, and a civil rights and social activist.
Go to Profile
#32505

André van der Merwe

#32517
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
André van der Merwe is a South African urologist. He is currently head of urology at the University of Stellenbosch and an associate professor at Tygerberg Hospital. He is best known for conducting the world's first successful penis transplant in 2014. He also performed the first laparoscopic kidney removal in South Africa.
Go to Profile
#32506

Michael Hogg

#32518
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael A. Hogg is a British psychologist, and Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles. He is also an honorary Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent in the UK.
Go to Profile
#32507

Michael Cowley

#32519
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Michael Cowley FTSE is an Australian physiologist. He is best known for his mapping of the neural circuits involved in metabolism and obesity and diabetes treatment. He is a professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University in the Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences. He is also a director of the Australian diabetes drug development company, Verva Inc, and director of the Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute] .
Go to Profile
#32508

Steven Point

#32520
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Steven Lewis Point, is a Canadian academic administrator, criminal lawyer, and jurist. He is the current chancellor of the University of British Columbia. He served as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 2007 to 2012. He also served as the chair of the advisory committee on the safety and security of vulnerable women, a committee that provides community-based guidance to the implementation of the recommendations from the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
Go to Profile
#32509

Anna Borghi

#32521
Overall Influence
Anna M. Borghi is a cognitive psychologist known for her work on embodied cognition and embodied language comprehension. She is Associate Professor of Psychology at the Sapienza University of Rome and an associate researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technology, Italian Research Council. Borghi serves as Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Psychology .
Go to Profile
#32510

Jan Bosch

#32522
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jan Bosch is a Dutch computer scientist, Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Groningen and at Chalmers University of Technology, and IT consultant, particularly known for his work on software architecture.
Go to Profile
#32511

Jeff Bagwell

Jeff Bagwell
#32523
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Jeffrey Robert Bagwell is an American former professional baseball first baseman and coach who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball playing career with the Houston Astros. Originally a Boston Red Sox fourth-round selection from the University of Hartford in the 1989 amateur draft, Bagwell was traded to the Astros in 1990. Bagwell was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1991 and won the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 1994. Bagwell and longtime Astros second baseman Craig Biggio were known as the "Killer B's", and the team experienced consistent success during their c...
Go to Profile
#32512

Kit Parker

Kit Parker
#32524
Overall Influence
Kevin Kit Parker is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve and the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University. His research includes cardiac cell biology and tissue engineering, traumatic brain injury, and biological applications of micro- and nanotechnologies. Additional work in his laboratory has included fashion design, marine biology, and the application of counterinsurgency methods to countering transnational organized crime.
Go to Profile
#32513

Zeev Zalevsky

#32525
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Zeev Zalevsky is an Israeli physicist specializing in Optoelectronics. He is a Professor of Electrical engineering and Nanophotonics at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He is also a visiting professor in University of Erlangen-Nuremberg at Germany. He is in the management community of the OASIS, The Optical Association of Israel.
Go to Profile
#32514

Hanne Bergius

#32526
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Hanne Bergius is a German art historian and Professor for Art History with emphases on art, photography, modern design and architecture. Life Bergius studied art history, classical archaeology, and psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her doctoral dissertation on the history and concept of Berlin Dadaism at the FU Berlin was accepted in 1984. In 1990, she received a German Research Foundation grant to investigate the relationship between tradition and modernism in the example of the New Objectivity movement. Then, in 1992, she presented her habilitation project on the concept of montag...
Go to Profile
#32515

Mark R. Nemec

#32527
Overall Influence
Mark R. Nemec is the ninth person and first layperson to serve as the President of the Fairfield University. Nemec was previously the Dean of the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile
#32516

Beatrice Aboyade

#32528
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Beatrice Aboyade was a Nigerian librarian and professor of Library Studies at University of Ibadan. She was regarded as a pioneer in Librarianship in Nigeria by the World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services. Aboyade worked in the University of Ibadan and University of Ile-Ife Libraries.
Go to Profile
#32517

Rosemary Casals

Rosemary Casals
#32529
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Rosemary "Rosie" Casals is an American former professional tennis player. Casals earned her reputation as a rebel in the tennis world when she began competing in the early 1960s. During a tennis career that spanned more than two decades, she won more than 90 titles and was crucial to many of the changes in women's tennis during the 1960s and 1970s.
Go to Profile
#32518

Erik Allardt

Erik Allardt
#32530
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Erik Anders Allardt was a Finnish sociologist. Allardt served as professor of sociology at the University of Helsinki between 1955 and 1991, and as chancellor of Åbo Akademi University between 1992 and 1994. He is one of the most well-known and internationally distinguished Nordic social scientists. In 1995, Allardt was awarded the honorary title of akateemikko. He was born in Helsinki, and died there on 25 August, 2020. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1982. Allardt was the grandson of philologist Ivar Heikel.
Go to Profile
#32519

Arief Hidayat

#32531
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Arief Hidayat was the fifth Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia. Previously, he was a professor of law at his alma mater, Diponegoro University. In January 2017, Hidayat led an investigation of his colleagues relating to a graft scandal on the court. Hidayat cleared the names of two of his fellow justices, I Dewa Gede Palguna and Manahan Sitompul, but discovered evidence that led to the dismissal of fellow justice Patrialis Akbar.
Go to Profile
#32520

Israel Bartal

Israel Bartal
#32532
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Israel Bartal , is Avraham Harman Professor of Jewish History, member of Israel Academy of Sciences , and the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Hebrew University . Since 2006 he is the chair of the Historical Society of Israel. He served as director of the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jewry, and the academic chairman of the Project of Jewish Studies in Russian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Bartal was the co-director of the Center for Jewish Studies and Civilization at Moscow State University. Bartal received his PhD from Hebrew University in 1981.
Go to Profile
#32521

Nobuo Uematsu

#32533
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences.
Go to Profile
#32522

Jennifer Lopez

#32534
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Jennifer Lynn Affleck , known by her maiden name and also shortened to J.Lo, is an American singer and actress. Often considered a Latin pop culture icon, Lopez is one of the most influential entertainers in the world, credited for helping propel the Latin pop movement in American music. Her most successful singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 include the number one singles "If You Had My Love", "I'm Real", "Ain't It Funny" and "All I Have".
Go to Profile
#32523

Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil

#32535
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil is an Egyptian architect who designed over 15 mosques in Saudi Arabia and is considered by many as the foremost contemporary authority in Islamic architecture. For designing in traditional styles, he is also a representative of New Classical Architecture.
Go to Profile
#32524

Pierre Aigrain

#32536
Overall Influence
1924 - 2002 (78 years)
Pierre Aigrain was a French physicist and Secretary of Research in the French Academy of Sciences. Education The son of an engineer, Pierre Aigrain completed his secondary education in Metz before studying at naval school between 1942 and 1945. In 1945 he became a naval officer at just 21 years old and was sent to study in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. After which he became a Ship-of-the-line Lieutenant in Memphis. In 1946 he was accepted to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to study towards a master's degree. He then joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, where Professor F.M.
Go to Profile
#32525

Keith David Watenpaugh

#32537
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Keith David Watenpaugh is an American academic. He is Professor of Human Rights Studies at the University of California, Davis. A leading American historian of the contemporary Middle East, human rights, and modern humanitarianism, he is an expert on the Armenian genocide and its denial, and the role of the refugee in world history.
Go to Profile
#32526

Diana Abu-Jaber

#32538
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Diana Abu-Jaber is an American author and a professor at Portland State University. Early life and education Abu-Jaber was born in Syracuse, New York. Her father was Jordanian with a Palestinian Jerusalemite mother; Diana's mother was American, descended from Irish and German roots. At the age of seven, she moved with her family for two years to Jordan. She received a BA in English and Creative Writing from the State University of New York at Oswego, an MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Binghamton University. She ...
Go to Profile
#32527

Bethanie Mattek-Sands

Bethanie Mattek-Sands
#32539
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Bethanie Mattek-Sands is an American professional tennis player. She has won nine Grand Slam titles , and an Olympic gold medal, and is a former world No. 1 in doubles. In women's doubles, Mattek-Sands has won 28 career titles, including five Grand Slam titles at the 2015 Australian Open, 2015 French Open, 2016 US Open, 2017 Australian Open and 2017 French Open, all partnering Lucie Šafářová. The pair also were the runners-up of the 2016 WTA Finals. Mattek-Sands became the world No. 1 in doubles on January 9, 2017, and held the top ranking for 32 consecutive weeks.
Go to Profile
#32528

Michael Weiss

Michael Weiss
#32540
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michael D. Weiss is an American journalist and author. He is contributing editor at New Lines magazine, senior correspondent for Yahoo News, director of special investigations at the Free Russia Foundation and the coauthor of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.
Go to Profile
#32529

Reshef Tenne

#32541
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Reshef Tenne is an Israeli scientist. Biography Born in Kibbutz Usha, Tenne received his BSc in Chemistry and Physics from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1969, where he also received his MSc and PhD .
Go to Profile
#32530

Dana Andrews

Dana Andrews
#32542
Overall Influence
1909 - 1992 (83 years)
Carver Dana Andrews was an American film actor who became a major star in what is now known as film noir. A leading man during the 1940s, he continued acting in less prestigious roles and character parts into the 1980s. He is best known for his portrayal of obsessed police detective Mark McPherson in the noir Laura and his critically acclaimed performance as World War II veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives .
Go to Profile
#32531

Clay Calvert

#32543
Overall Influence
Clay Calvert is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Professor Emeritus, Brechner Eminent Scholar of Mass Communication Emeritus and former Director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, specializing in First Amendment Law. He was previously a professor at the Pennsylvania State University where he co-directed the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment. A member of the California State Bar Association, he has authored or co-authored more than 150 scholarly articles for law journals.
Go to Profile
#32532

Sanjay Asthana

#32544
Overall Influence
Sanjay Asthana is Chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and holds the Duncan G. and Lottie H. Ballantine Endowed Chair in Geriatrics. Since 2009, Asthana has also served as Director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Go to Profile
#32533

E. Bruce Heilman

#32545
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
Earl Bruce Heilman was an American educator who served as president of the University of Richmond and Meredith College. He last held the positions of chancellor at the University of Richmond and National Spokesman of The Greatest Generations Foundation.
Go to Profile
#32534

Olivier Schwartz

#32546
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Olivier Schwartz is a French pharmacist who, since 2018, has served as scientific director of the Institut Pasteur. Schwartz received his Ph.D. in virology from Paris 7 University and later joined the Institut Pasteur's Virus and Immunity Unit, where he studied HIV and the Zika virus, prior to his 2018 appointment as the institute's scientific director. He has also served on the scientific advisory board of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and on the external advisory board of the University of Cardiff's Systems Immunity Research Institute.
Go to Profile
#32535

Avraham Faust

#32547
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Avraham Faust is an Israeli archaeologist and professor at Bar-Ilan University. He directs excavations at Tel 'Eton, widely regarded as the probable site of biblical Eglon. Selected publications The Israelite Society in the Period of the Monarchy: an Archaeological Perspective Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance
Go to Profile
#32536

Klaus Kern

#32548
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Klaus Kern is a German physical chemist. Kern received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2008. Biography Kern studied at the University of Bonn chemistry and physics, and received his Ph.D. in 1986.
Go to Profile
#32537

Stanisław Trybuła

#32549
Overall Influence
1932 - 2008 (76 years)
Stanisław Czesław Trybuła was a Polish mathematician and statistician. He was a pupil of state high school in Rypin, Poland, and he graduated from The First High School in Toruń in 1950. He studied mathematics in Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and Wrocław University. He defended his master thesis on some problems of the game theory prepared under supervision of Hugo Steinhaus at Wrocław University in 1955. In 1955 he became a faculty member at Department of Mathematics, Wrocław University of Technology. In 1959 he was distinguished as the candidate of science and in 1960 he defended his PhD on minimax estimation under supervision of Hugo Steinhaus.
Go to Profile
#32538

Steven R. White

#32550
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Steven R. White is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. He is a condensed matter physicist who specializes in the simulation of quantum systems. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego; he then received his Ph.D. at Cornell University, where he was a shared student with Kenneth Wilson and John Wilkins.
Go to Profile
#32539

Brandon Roy

Brandon Roy
#32551
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Brandon Dawayne Roy is an American basketball coach and former player. He serves as the head coach of the boys' basketball team at Garfield High School in Seattle. Roy played six seasons in the National Basketball Association for the Portland Trail Blazers and Minnesota Timberwolves. He was selected sixth in the 2006 NBA draft, having completed four years playing for the Washington Huskies. His nickname was "B-Roy", but he was also referred to as "the Natural" by Trail Blazers announcer Brian Wheeler. On December 10, 2011, Roy announced his retirement from basketball due to a degenerative kn...
Go to Profile
#32540

Vojin Dimitrijević

Vojin Dimitrijević
#32552
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
Vojin Dimitrijević was a law professor, public intellectual, and a prominent Serbian human rights activist and international law expert. Biography Vojin Dimitrijević was born on 9 July 1932 in Rijeka .
Go to Profile
#32541

Takaharu Tezuka

#32553
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
is a Japanese architect. In 1994, he and his wife Yui Tezuka founded the Tokyo-based firm Tezuka Architects. Projects by Tezuka Architects include the Roof House, Echigo-Matsunoyama Museum of Natural Science, Fuji Kindergarten and Woods of Net. Their recent awards include Japan Institute of Architects Prize , Association for Children's Environment Design Award , OECD/CELE 4th Compendium of Exemplary Educational Facilities and a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture .
Go to Profile
#32542

Robert Simpson

Robert Simpson
#32554
Overall Influence
1912 - 2014 (102 years)
Robert Homer Simpson was an American meteorologist, hurricane specialist, first director of the National Hurricane Research Project from 1955 to 1959, and a former director of the National Hurricane Center . He was the co-developer of the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale with Herbert Saffir. His wife was Joanne Simpson.
Go to Profile
#32543

Kenneth Prewitt

#32555
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Kenneth Prewitt an American academic who is the Carnegie Professor of Social Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he is also director of the Scholarly Knowledge Project. He was Director of the United States Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001.
Go to Profile
#32544

Craig David

#32556
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Craig Ashley David is a British singer and songwriter who rose to fame in 1999, featuring on the single "Re-Rewind" by Artful Dodger. David's debut studio album, Born to Do It, was released in 2000, after which he has released a further five studio albums and worked with a variety of artists such as Sting, Tinchy Stryder, Big Narstie, Kano and Jay Sean. David has 20 UK top 40 singles, and seven UK top 40 albums, selling over 15 million records worldwide as a solo artist.
Go to Profile
#32545

Louis-Albert Vachon

#32557
Overall Influence
1912 - 2006 (94 years)
Louis-Albert Vachon, was a Canadian educator, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and Archbishop of Quebec. He became a cardinal on May 25, 1985. History Vachon was born and raised in Saint-Frédéric, Quebec, one of a family of six. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Minor Seminary of Quebec in 1934 and studied theology at the Major Seminary of Quebec before being ordained by Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Cardinal Villeneuve on June 11, 1938. He then attended Université Laval, graduating in 1941 with a PhD in philosophy. He taught philosophy at Université Laval from 1941 to 1947, then beg...
Go to Profile
#32546

Henri Bortoft

#32558
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
Peter Henri Bortoft was a British independent researcher and teacher, lecturer and writer on physics and the philosophy of science. He is best known for his work The Wholeness of Nature, considered a relevant and original recent interpretation of Goethean science. His book Taking Appearance Seriously: The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought was published in 2012.
Go to Profile
#32547

Zvi Hercowitz

#32559
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Zvi Hercowitz is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University's School of Economics and has been a member of the montetary committee of the Bank of Israel since 2017. He emigrated to Israel in 1969 and began his academic career at Tel Aviv University in 1980. He published extensively throughout his career, with notable works includingMoney and the Dispersion of Relative Prices", Journal of Political Economy, April 1981; "Output Growth, the Real Wage, and Employment Fluctuations" with Michael Sampson, American Economic Review, December 1991; and "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Tech...
Go to Profile
#32548

Arndt Simon

#32560
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Arndt Simon is a German inorganic chemist. He was a director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Life Simon studied Chemistry at the University of Münster from 1960-1964. He worked on his doctoral thesis in the group of Harald Schäfer from 1964-1966 and finished his habilitation in 1971. In 1972, he was appointed as an associate professor at the University of Münster. Starting in 1974, he was a member of the Max-Planck Society and one of the directors at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Since 1975, he was a honorary professor at the University of Stuttgart.
Go to Profile
#32549

Nguyễn Phú Trọng

#32561
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Nguyễn Phú Trọng is a Vietnamese politician who has served as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam since 2011. As the head of the party's Secretariat, Politburo and Central Military Commission, Trọng is Vietnam's paramount leader. He also previously served as president of Vietnam from 2018 to 2021.
Go to Profile
#32550

Robert Zwanzig

#32562
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Robert Walter Zwanzig was an American theoretical physicist and chemist who made important contributions to the statistical mechanics of irreversible processes, protein folding, and the theory of liquids and gases.
Go to Profile