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
#32851
Hirohiko Araki
#32863
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Toshiyuki Araki, better known as Hirohiko Araki, is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his long-running series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which began publication in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1987 and has over 120 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history.
Go to Profile#32852
Peter C. Bishop
#32864
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Peter C. Bishop is a professional futurist , a retired Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight, and the former Director of the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. Early career In 1968, Bishop received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from St. Louis University where he also studied mathematics and physics. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where he was a member of the Society of Jesus for seven years. From Michigan State University, he received an M.A. in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1974. Bishop started teaching at Georgia Southern College in 1973 where he speciali...
Go to Profile#32853
John Rosenberg
#32865
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
John Rosenberg is an Australian higher education consultant, professional Board Director, Australian academic, information technology professional and the former Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia.
Go to Profile#32854
David Keightley
#32866
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
David Noel Keightley was an American sinologist. He was a professor of Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a published author covering the Shang and Zhou dynasties and the Chinese Bronze Age. He was best known for his studies of Chinese oracle bones and oracle bone script. His work changed the way that many Sinologists viewed Shang dynasty history.
Go to Profile#32855
Erik Homburger Erikson
#32867
Overall Influence
#32856
Leah Keshet
#32868
Overall Influence
Leah Edelstein-Keshet is an Israeli-Canadian mathematical biologist. Edelstein-Keshet is known for her contributions to the field of mathematical biology and biophysics. Her research spans many topics including sub-cellular biology, ecology, and biomedical research, with particular focus on cell motility and the cytoskeleton, modeling of physiology and diseases, such as autoimmune diabetes, and swarming and aggregation behavior in social organisms.
Go to Profile#32857
Asya Pereltsvaig
#32869
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Asya Pereltsvaig is a Russian-American linguist, writer, and educator. Life Pereltsvaig has a PhD in Linguistics from McGill University in 2001, with a dissertation entitled, "On the nature of intra-clausal relations: a study of copular sentences in Russian and Italian." She has taught in Yale, Cornell, and Stanford universities, as well as the University of Utah Continuing Education program. She has served as an academic coordinator for the Esperanto society, ESF.
Go to Profile#32858
DeAndre Jordan
#32870
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Hyland DeAndre Jordan Jr. is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association . He played one season of college basketball for the Texas A&M Aggies.
Go to Profile#32859
Milton Babbitt
#32871
Overall Influence
1916 - 2011 (95 years)
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music.
Go to Profile#32860
Kevin Nash
#32872
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Kevin Scott Nash is an American actor, podcaster and retired professional wrestler, currently signed to WWE under a legends contract. He is also known for his tenures with World Championship Wrestling and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling .
Go to Profile#32861
Alexandra Ros
#32873
Overall Influence
Alexandra Ros is a German analytical chemist who is a professor in both the School of Molecular Sciences and Center for Applied Structural Discovery at The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University. Her research considers microfluidic platforms and their use in analysis. She was awarded the 2020 Advancing Electrokinetic Science AES Electrophoresis Society Mid-Career Achievement Award.
Go to Profile#32862
Ken Whisenhunt
#32874
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Kenneth Moore Whisenhunt is an American football coach and former tight end who is currently a special assistant to the head coach for Alabama. He played college football at Georgia Tech and was drafted in the twelfth round of the 1985 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, with whom he played for four years. He subsequently played two more years with the Washington Redskins and another two with the New York Jets.
Go to Profile#32863
Alfred Saupe
#32875
Overall Influence
1925 - 2008 (83 years)
Alfred Saupe was a German Physicist born in Badenweiler, who laid groundbreaking work in the area of liquid crystal studies. Biography Saupe, son of a hotelier, attended elementary school in Badenweiler and high school in the neighboring town of Müllheim. In 1943, during his senior year, he was drafted into the army during World War II; later, he served in the Luftwaffe, and finally trained as a paratrooper. In January 1945, he was captured in the Netherlands and became a POW in England. After he was freed in 1948, he completed his high school education in 1949 at the Freiburg Berthold-Gymnas...
Go to Profile#32864
Kapil Sibal
#32876
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kapil Sibal is an Indian lawyer and politician. A designated Senior Advocate, he has represented several high-profile cases in the Supreme Court of India and is widely regarded as one of the famous lawyers of India. He is a Member of Parliament, in Rajya Sabha.
Go to Profile#32865
Johannes Rau
#32877
Overall Influence
1931 - 2006 (75 years)
Johannes Rau was a German politician . He was the president of Germany from 1 July 1999 until 30 June 2004 and the minister president of North Rhine-Westphalia from 20 September 1978 to 9 June 1998. In the latter role, he also served as president of the Bundesrat in 1982/83 and in 1994/95.
Go to Profile#32866
Sushma Swaraj
#32878
Overall Influence
1952 - 2019 (67 years)
Sushma Swaraj was an Indian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019. She was the second person to complete a 5-year term as the Minister of External Affairs, after Jawaharlal Nehru. A senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party , Swaraj was the second woman to hold the office of Minister of External Affairs, after Indira Gandhi. She was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. At the age of 25 in 1977, she became the youngest cabinet minister of the Indian state of Haryana.
Go to Profile#32867
Vikram Chandra
#32879
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Vikram Chandra is an Indian-American writer. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. Early life Chandra was born in New Delhi in 1961. His father Navin Chandra was a business executive. His mother Kamna Chandra has written several Hindi films and plays. His sister Tanuja Chandra is a filmmaker and screenwriter who has also directed several films. His other sister Anupama Chopra is a film critic.
Go to Profile#32868
Beatrice Wright
#32880
Overall Influence
1917 - 2018 (101 years)
Beatrice Ann Wright was an American psychologist known for her work in Rehabilitation psychology. She was the author of a seminal work on disability and psychology, Physical Disability—A Psychological Approach and its second edition, retitled Physical Disability—A Psychosocial Approach .
Go to Profile#32869
Xabier Pikaza
#32881
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Xabier Pikaza Ibarrondo is a Spanish theologian of Liberation Theology and professor at Pontifical University of Salamanca. He is one of the most renowned Spanish theologians of his time. Life He entered the Order of Mercy, within which he was ordained a presbyter of the Catholic Church.
Go to Profile#32870
Richard de Mille
#32882
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
Richard de Mille was an American author. Early life and education He was born in Monrovia, California, to William C. deMille and the author and screenwriter Lorna Moon, when William C. was still married to his first wife, Anna George de Mille. His uncle, Cecil B. DeMille, adopted and raised Richard, not telling him of his true parentage until the death of William DeMille when Richard was 33 years old.
Go to Profile#32871
Jennifer Roback Morse
#32883
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jennifer Roback Morse is an economist, a writer and a Catholic social conservative. She is the president and founder of the Ruth Institute, which was formed as an affiliated of the same-sex marriage opposition group National Organization for Marriage.
Go to Profile#32872
Hazel Rowley
#32884
Overall Influence
1951 - 2011 (60 years)
Hazel Joan Rowley was a British-born Australian author and biographer. Born in London, Rowley emigrated with her parents to Adelaide at the age of eight. She studied at the University of Adelaide, graduating with Honours in French and German. Later she acquired a PhD in French. She taught literary studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, before moving to the United States.
Go to Profile#32873
Paul Haggis
#32885
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, film producer, and director of film and television. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners Million Dollar Baby and Crash , the latter of which he also directed. Haggis also co-wrote the war film Flags of Our Fathers and the James Bond films Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace . He is the creator of the television series Due South and co-creator of Walker, Texas Ranger , among others. Haggis is a two-time Academy Award winner, two-time Emmy Award winner, and seven-time Gemini Award winner. He also assisted in the making of "We Are the World 25 for Haiti".
Go to Profile#32874
Nik Kershaw
#32886
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Nicholas David Kershaw is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Kershaw came to prominence in 1984 as a solo artist. He released eight singles that entered the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart during the decade, including "Wouldn't It Be Good", "Dancing Girls", "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", "Human Racing", "The Riddle", "Wide Boy", "Don Quixote" and "When a Heart Beats". His 62 weeks on the UK Singles Chart through 1984 and 1985 beat all other solo artists. Kershaw appeared at the multi-venue benefit concert Live Aid in 1985 and has also penned a number of hits for other artists, including a UK No.
Go to Profile#32875
Jonas Björkman
#32887
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Jonas Lars Björkman is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He is a former world No. 1 in doubles, and also a former world No. 4 in singles. Björkman retired from professional tennis after competing at the 2008 Tennis Masters Cup doubles championships. As of 2019, he is ranked in the top 40 on the all-time ATP prize money list with over $14.5 million.
Go to Profile#32876
Richard Parncutt
#32888
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Richard Parncutt is an Australian-born academic. He has been professor of systematic musicology at Karl Franzens University Graz in Austria since 1998. Education Parncutt studied music and physics at the University of Melbourne, and physics at the University of New England, Australia. In 1987, he was awarded a PhD from the University of New England. He was a guest researcher under Ernst Terhardt , Johan Sundberg , Annabel Cohen , Al Bregman , Helga de la Motte-Haber and John Sloboda . From 1996 to 1998 he held a position as a lecturer in psychology at Keele University, UK.
Go to Profile#32877
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
#32889
Overall Influence
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve is a writer, interviewer, artist, and teacher active in the field of contemporary art and culture. Biography Goodeve was born in Middlebury, Connecticut, where she lived until her family moved to Windham, Vermont. Her brother is actor Grant Goodeve. Her maternal great-great-grandfather was the Vermont politician and Union Army Colonel William T. Nichols, while her paternal great-great-grandfather was Orvil Grant, a younger brother of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. She attended the Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut and Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#32878
Djamila Ribeiro
#32890
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Djamila Taís Ribeiro dos Santos is a Brazilian Black feminist philosopher and journalist. She graduated in political philosophy from the Federal University of São Paulo, where she also earned a master's degree on the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. Ribeiro is a collaborating editor of weekly magazine CartaCapital, as well as a columnist for CartaCapital and Folha de S.Paulo.
Go to Profile#32879
Marjorie Harness Goodwin
#32891
Overall Influence
Marjorie Harness Goodwin is an American anthropologist, currently Distinguished Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and also a published author of books. Education She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her honorary PhD from Uppsala University.
Go to Profile#32880
Peter Montgomery
#32892
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
Peter Lawrence Montgomery was an American mathematician who worked at the System Development Corporation and Microsoft Research. He is best known for his contributions to computational number theory and mathematical aspects of cryptography, including the Montgomery multiplication method for arithmetic in finite fields, the use of Montgomery curves in applications of elliptic curves to integer factorization and other problems, and the Montgomery ladder, which is used to protect against side-channel attacks in elliptic curve cryptography.
Go to Profile#32881
Maria Irene Ramalho
#32893
Overall Influence
Maria Irene Ramalho de Sousa Santos, usually known as Maria Irene Ramalho, is a Portuguese professor emerita of American Studies and Feminist Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra , in Portugal, as well as a former Assistant Professor International in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the USA. In 2008, she was the first non-American to be awarded the Mary C. Turpie Prize by the American Studies Association for outstanding abilities and achievement in American studies teaching, advising, and program development, and in 201...
Go to Profile#32882
Erica Chenoweth
#32894
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Erica Chenoweth is an American political scientist, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. They are known for their research work on non-violent civil resistance movements.
Go to Profile#32883
Jody Armour
#32895
Overall Influence
Jody David Armour is an American academic. He is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, where he specializes in race issues in legal decision-making. Life and career Armour came to study law after his father was set up and imprisoned when Armour was 8 years old.
Go to Profile#32884
Lee Epstein
#32896
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#32885
Tom Lantos
#32897
Overall Influence
1928 - 2008 (80 years)
Thomas Peter Lantos was a Hungarian-born American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his death in 2008. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state's 11th congressional district until 1993, and from then the 12th congressional district, which both included the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and a portion of the southwestern part of San Francisco after redistricting.
Go to Profile#32886
Dimitrije Đorđević
#32898
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
Dimitrije "Mita" Đorđević was a Serbian historian of modern European history, especially of the Balkans. Biography Đorđević was born in Belgrade to a prominent Serbian family. When he was a law student, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia during World War II and he joined the resistance movement of Dragoljub Mihailovic. Đorđević was captured by the Germans and was imprisoned, ultimately in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. He survived the war, but was in turn imprisoned by the communist regime in post World War II Yugoslavia. After he was pardoned and released, Đorđević was eventuall...
Go to Profile#32887
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
#32899
Overall Influence
1966 - 2006 (40 years)
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh , was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
Go to Profile#32888
François Diederich
#32900
Overall Influence
1952 - 2020 (68 years)
François Diederich was a Luxembourgian chemist specializing in organic chemistry. Education He obtained both his diploma and PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1977 and 1979, respectively. Career and research After postdoctoral studies with Orville L. Chapman at the University of California, Los Angeles and habilitation at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, he became Full Professor of Organic and Bioorganic Chemistry at UCLA in 1989. In 1992 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at ETH Zurich. He retired on 31 July 2017, and remained a research-active professor at ETH Zurich.
Go to Profile#32889
John Pritzker
#32901
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
John A. Pritzker , the grandson of A.N. Pritzker and son of Jay Pritzker, is an American billionaire and investor. He is a member of the Pritzker family. Early life and education Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Marian "Cindy" and Jay Pritzker. Pritzker graduated with a B.A. from Menlo College. His father diversified the Chicago-based family business, the Marmon Group - along with his brothers Robert Pritzker and Donald Pritzker - building it into a portfolio of over 60 diversified industrial corporations. He also created the Hyatt Hotel chain in 1957 and owned Braniff Airlines from 1983 to 1988.
Go to Profile#32890
King Diamond
#32902
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Kim Bendix Petersen , better known by his stage name King Diamond, is a Danish rock musician. As a vocalist, he is known for his powerful and wide-ranging countertenor singing voice, in particular his far-reaching falsetto screams. He is the lead vocalist and lyricist for both Mercyful Fate and the eponymous King Diamond. He also plays keyboards and guitars on studio recordings but uses live shows to focus solely on his vocal performance. Diamond is renowned for his dark lyrical content and his story concepts. He is also known for his distinctive shock stage persona . He has been an influence ...
Go to Profile#32891
Simon Rattle
#32903
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Sir Simon Denis Rattle is a British conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra . Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018. He has been the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra since September 2017. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 Bachtrack poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world's best living conductors.
Go to Profile#32892
Loren Stuckenbruck
#32904
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Loren T. Stuckenbruck is a historian of early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism, currently professor of New Testament at the University of Munich, in Germany. His work has exerted a significant impact on the field.
Go to Profile#32893
Carl Pabo
#32905
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Carl O. Pabo is a biophysicist. He is the founder and president of Humanity 2050, a nonprofit institute. Education B.S. from Yale, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in 1974Ph.D. from Harvard, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1980.
Go to Profile#32894
Ian McLagan
#32906
Overall Influence
1945 - 2014 (69 years)
Ian Patrick McLagan was an English keyboardist, best known as a member of the rock bands Small Faces and Faces. He also collaborated with the Rolling Stones and led his own band from the late 1970s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
Go to Profile#32895
Greg Lawler
#32907
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Gregory Francis Lawler is an American mathematician working in probability theory and best known for his work since 2000 on the Schramm–Loewner evolution. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 1979 under the supervision of Edward Nelson. He was on the faculty of Duke University from 1979 to 2001, of Cornell University from 2001 to 2006, and since 2006 is at the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#32896
Jean Delannoy
#32908
Overall Influence
1908 - 2008 (100 years)
Jean Delannoy was a French actor, film editor, screenwriter and film director. Biography Although Delannoy was born in a Paris suburb, his family was from Haute-Normandie in the north of France. He was a Protestant, a descendant of Huguenots, some of whom fled the country during the French Wars of Religion, and settled first in Wallonia. Afterwards, their name became De la Noye and then Delano, who were on the second ship to immigrate to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#32897
Véronique Gouverneur
#32909
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Véronique Gouverneur is the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Prior to the Waynflete professorship, she held a tutorial fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. Her research on fluorine chemistry has received many professional and scholarly awards.
Go to Profile#32898
John Freeman
#32910
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
John Patrick George Freeman is a retired British diplomat who until July 2019 was Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Career Freeman was educated at King's College London where he gained a PhD in 1986 with the thesis titled "Britain's nuclear arms control policy in the context of Anglo-American relations 1957–68", which later became a book published by Macmillan. He subsequently joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1986, serving at first as Head of the South Africa Section, 1986–1989. He has been Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Vienna 1997–2001 and Permanent...
Go to Profile#32899
Solomon Burke
#32911
Overall Influence
1940 - 2010 (70 years)
Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke was an American singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s. He has been called "a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul", and was known for his "prodigious output".
Go to Profile#32900
Paul Redding
#32912
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Paul Redding is an Australian philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney. He is known for his research on Hegel's philosophy and the tradition of German idealism more generally. In particular he has pursued the relation of Hegel's logic to the approach to logic in analytic philosophy and pragmatism and, more recently, the tradition of Platonism. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Go to Profile