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
#32901
Kris Deschouwer
#32913
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Kris Deschouwer is a Belgian political scientist and emiritus professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He was a member of the Coudenberg group, a Belgian federalist think tank. His research is on the consequences of the institutional complexity of Belgium for political actors and for political parties in particular.
Go to Profile#32902
Queen Camilla
#32914
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Camilla is Queen of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms as the wife of King Charles III. Camilla was raised in East Sussex and South Kensington in England and educated in England, Switzerland, and France. In 1973, she married British Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles; they divorced in 1995. Camilla and Charles were romantically involved periodically, both before and during each of their first marriages. Their relationship was highly publicised in the media and attracted worldwide scrutiny. In 2005, Camilla married Charles in the Windsor Guildhall, which was followed by a televised Anglican blessing at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Go to Profile#32903
Robert B. Darnell
#32915
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Robert Bernard Darnell is an American neurooncologist and neuroscientist, founding director and former CEO of the New York Genome Center, the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor of Cancer Biology at The Rockefeller University, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research into rare autoimmune brain diseases led to the invention of the HITS-CLIP method to study RNA regulation, and he is developing ways to explore the regulatory portions—known as the "dark matter"—of the human genome.
Go to Profile#32904
John Danforth
#32916
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
John Claggett Danforth is an American politician, attorney and diplomat who began his career in 1968 as the Attorney General of Missouri and served three terms as United States Senator from Missouri. In 2004, he served briefly as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Danforth is an ordained Episcopal priest.
Go to Profile#32905
Jiang Boju
#32917
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Jiang Boju is a Chinese mathematician and a professor of Peking University, School of Mathematical Sciences. He is known for his contributions to topology. Honors He was elected to be a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980 and a fellow of TWAS in 1985.
Go to Profile#32906
Benjamin Taylor
#32918
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Benjamin Taylor is an American writer whose work has appeared in a number of publications including The Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Bookforum, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, The Georgia Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Provincetown Arts and The Reading Room. He is a founding member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty of The New School in New York City, and has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, Bennington College and Columbia University. He has served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees of P...
Go to Profile#32907
Mary Jane Saunders
#32919
Overall Influence
Mary Jane Saunders is an American academic who served as president of Florida Atlantic University from 2010 to 2013. She has a background in scientific research and administration, specializing in biology.
Go to Profile#32908
Ben Breedlove
#32920
Overall Influence
1993 - 2011 (18 years)
Benjamin Daniel Breedlove was an American Internet personality from Austin, Texas, known for his vlogs on YouTube. On the night of December 25, 2011, he died from complications of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at the age of 18.
Go to Profile#32909
Schoolboy Q
#32921
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Quincy Matthew Hanley , better known by his stage name Schoolboy Q , is an American rapper from Carson, California. He is a member of the California-based hip hop group Black Hippy, alongside frequent collaborators Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and Kendrick Lamar.
Go to Profile#32910
Arturo Andrés Roig
#32922
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
Arturo Andrés Roig was an Argentine philosopher. Biography Born in Mendoza, he entered the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, and graduated in 1949 with a degree in Education Sciences . Roig continued his studies at the Sorbonne.
Go to Profile#32911
Abdul Jabbar Al Rifai
#32923
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Abdul Jabbar Al Rifai is an Iraqi professor of Islamic philosophy, born in Dhi Qar, Iraq, 1954. He obtained several academic degrees, including: a PhD degree cum laude in Islamic philosophy – 2005, a master's degree of Islamic Ilm Al-Kalam – 1990, a bachelor's degree in Islamic studies – 1988, and an agricultural art diploma in 1975. He has a philosophical vision on religious reformation and religious thinking approaches. "The Vatican's Pontifical Institute of Rome" devoted its yearbook to the Contemporary Islamic Issues Magazine in 2012, in recognition of its mission in building new Ilm Al-K...
Go to Profile#32912
Myles Allen
#32924
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Myles Robert Allen is an English climate scientist. He is Professor of Geosystem Science in the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment, and in the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department.
Go to Profile#32913
Eddie Jones
#32925
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Edward Charles Jones is an American former professional basketball player who played for five teams in his 14-year National Basketball Association career. Jones played college basketball at Temple University and was the 1993–94 Atlantic 10 Player of the Year. He led the Owls to the Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament. The three-time NBA All-Star was selected 10th overall in the 1994 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Go to Profile#32914
Paul Arizin
#32926
Overall Influence
1928 - 2006 (78 years)
Paul Joseph Arizin , nicknamed "'Pitchin Paul", was an American basketball player who spent his entire National Basketball Association career with the Philadelphia Warriors from 1950 to 1962. He retired with the third highest career point total in NBA history, and was named to the NBA's 25th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. He was a high-scoring forward at Villanova University before being drafted by the Warriors of the fledgling NBA.
Go to Profile#32915
Sarah Franklin
#32927
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Sarah Franklin is an American anthropologist who has substantially contributed to the fields of feminism, gender studies, cultural studies and the social study of reproductive and genetic technology. She has conducted fieldwork on IVF, cloning, embryology and stem cell research. Her work combines both ethnographic methods and kinship theory, with more recent approaches from science studies, gender studies and cultural studies. In 2001 she was appointed to a Personal Chair in the Anthropology of Science, the first of its kind in the UK, and a field she has helped to create. She became Professo...
Go to Profile#32916
Costas Soukoulis
#32928
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Costas M. Soukoulis is a Senior Scientist in the Ames Laboratory and a Distinguished Professor of Physics Emeritus at Iowa State University. He received his B.Sc. from University of Athens in 1974. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1978, under the supervision of Kathryn Liebermann Levin. From 1978 to 1981 he was at the Physics Department at University of Virginia. He spent three years at Exxon Research and Engineering Co. and since 1984 has been at Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory. He has been part-time Professor at the Department of Materials Scien...
Go to Profile#32917
Paul Page
#32929
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Paul Page is an American motorsports broadcaster who is best known for serving as the play-by-play commentator for the Indianapolis 500 for a total of 27 years across radio and television. Page was the radio Voice of the 500 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network from 1977 to 1987, and again from 2014 to 2015. He served the same role on television in 1988–1998 & 2002–2004.
Go to Profile#32918
Stefan Löfven
#32930
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Kjell Stefan Löfven is a Swedish politician who has served as the President of European Socialists since October 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden from October 2014 to November 2021 and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2012 to 2021.
Go to Profile#32919
Maurits Allessie
#32931
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Maurits Allessie is an emeritus professor of physiology at Maastricht University. As an electrophysiologist he developed better insights in atrial fibrillation. Career Allessie was born in 1945 in Gemert, the Netherlands, and was raised in Amsterdam. He obtained his MD from the University of Amsterdam in 1974, and his PhD from Maastricht University in 1977. At age 38 he became a professor of physiology at the latter university, and seven years later he became head of the department. During his career Allessie studied heart problems.
Go to Profile#32920
Harry Stopes-Roe
#32932
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Harry Verdon Stopes-Roe was a British philosopher known mainly for his active role in the humanist movement in Britain and around the world. He was a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association until his death in May 2014, having served as its Chair previously.
Go to Profile#32921
E. J. Levy
#32933
Overall Influence
Ellen J. Levy is an American writer and academic who is an associate professor of English at Colorado State University. Her collection of short stories, Love, In Theory, was published in 2012, and her first novel, The Cape Doctor, in 2021 to positive reviews.
Go to Profile#32922
Arthur Demarest
#32934
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Arthur Andrew Demarest is an American anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his studies of the Maya civilization. Career Demarest, a Louisiana Cajun, studied Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology at Tulane University, where he graduated summa cum laude and was awarded the Dean's Medal. Demarest earned his M.A. and doctorate in anthropology and archaeology at Harvard University, he held the endowed Danforth Chair in Archeology, and was elected to the prestigious Harvard Society of Fellows. From 1984 to 1986 he served as assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, US. In 1986 he was promoted to Full Professor and was named to the endowed Centennial Chair.
Go to Profile#32923
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz
#32935
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Lilia Katri Moritz Schwarcz is a Brazilian historian and anthropologist. She is a doctor in social anthropology at the University of São Paulo, full professor at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas in the same institution, and visiting professor at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#32924
Mari-Jo P. Ruiz
#32936
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mari-Jo P. Ruiz was a Filipina mathematician and professor of mathematics at Ateneo de Manila University. Ruiz specialized in graph theory and operations research. Education and career Ruiz grew up in Manila, and was educated at College of the Holy Spirit Manila. She graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City in 1963, and soon afterward completed a master's degree at New York University. She joined the Ateneo de Manila faculty in 1965, eight years before the school began accepting women as students. She chose academia over a competing job offer from industry because at the time it paid slightly better.
Go to Profile#32925
Douglas A. Foster
#32937
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Douglas A. Foster is an American author and scholar known for his work on the history of Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. Life Douglas A. Foster was born in Sheffield, Alabama. He grew up in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Upon completing his undergraduate degree at Lipscomb University in 1974, he became an associate minister at Jackson Park Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee where he served until 1983. While there he completed his graduate work at Scarritt College. He began teaching at Lipscomb University in 1985 where he taught church history. While there he completed his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University.
Go to Profile#32926
Robert M. Goodman
#32938
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Robert "Bob" M. Goodman is a prominent plant biologist and virologist, and served as the executive dean of agriculture and natural resources at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey since June 2005. He was the executive dean of Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and served as the executive director of Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.
Go to Profile#32927
Massimo Scolari
#32939
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Massimo Scolari , is an Italian architect, painter and designer. Career Scolari graduated in architecture in Milan in 1969. In 1973 he became a professor of History of Architecture at Palermo, and of Drawing at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia . Between 1975 and 1993, he was visiting professor at various universities including: Cornell University, Cooper Union in New York City, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, Technische Universität in Vienna, Harvard University, and University of Cambridge. From 2006, he was a Davenport Visiting Professor at t...
Go to Profile#32928
Nancy Pearl
#32940
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Nancy Pearl is an American librarian, best-selling author, literary critic and the former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library. Her prolific reading and her knowledge of books and literature first made her locally famous in Seattle, Washington, where she regularly appears on public radio recommending books. She achieved broader fame with Book Lust, her 2003 guide to good reading. Pearl was named 2011 Librarian of the Year by Library Journal. She is also the author of a novel and a memoir.
Go to Profile#32929
Harald Motzki
#32941
Overall Influence
1948 - 2019 (71 years)
Harald Motzki was a German-trained Islamic scholar who wrote on the transmission of hadith. He received his doctorate in Islamic Studies in 1978 from the University of Bonn. He was a professor of Islamic Studies at Nijmegen University in the Netherlands.
Go to Profile#32930
Richard Tait
#32942
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Richard Graham Tait CBE is a British journalist and Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University. He had been a member of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and was replaced by Richard Ayre.
Go to Profile#32931
John Smith
#32943
Overall Influence
1938 - 1994 (56 years)
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death from a heart attack in May 1994. He was also the Member of Parliament for Monklands East.
Go to Profile#32932
Patricia Wright
#32944
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Patricia Chapple Wright is an American primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist. Wright is best known for her extensive study of social and family interactions of wild lemurs in Madagascar.
Go to Profile#32933
Johan Heyns
#32945
Overall Influence
1928 - 1994 (66 years)
Johan Adam Heyns was an Afrikaner Calvinist theologian and moderator of the general synod of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk in South Africa. He was assassinated at his home in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria.
Go to Profile#32934
Don Eigler
#32946
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Donald M. Eigler is an American physicist associated with the IBM Almaden Research Center, who is noted for his achievements in nanotechnology. Work In 1989, Eigler was the first to use a scanning tunneling microscope tip to arrange individual atoms on a surface, famously spelling out the letters "IBM" with 35 xenon atoms. He later went on to create the first quantum corrals, which are well-defined quantum wave patterns of small numbers of atoms, and nanoscale logic circuits using individual molecules of carbon monoxide. He shared the 2010 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience with Nadrian Seeman for th...
Go to Profile#32935
Frank Partnoy
#32947
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Frank Partnoy is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He was a George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and the founding director of the Center on Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego, where he taught for 21 years. He is a scholar of the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation. He worked as a derivatives structurer at Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston during the mid-1990s and wrote Blood in the Water on Wall Street, a book about his experiences there.
Go to Profile#32936
Rachel Dwyer
#32948
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Rachel Dwyer is a professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London. Life Dwyer took her BA in Sanskrit at SOAS, followed by an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford. Her PhD research was on the Gujarati lyrics of Dayaram . She has published several books on Indian cinema.
Go to Profile#32937
Alexander Filipović
#32949
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Alexander Filipović is a German ethicist, focusing on media and the digital transformation. He is a professor for media ethics at the Munich School of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Media Ethics and Digital Society. Filipović serves as co-editor of the media science journal Communicatio Socialis and coordinates the German media ethics network Medienethik.
Go to Profile#32938
Adrian Kent
#32950
Overall Influence
Adrian Kent is a British theoretical physicist, Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of Cambridge, member of the Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations, and Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research areas are the foundations of quantum theory, quantum information science and quantum cryptography. He is known as the inventor of relativistic quantum cryptography. In 1999 he published the first unconditionally secure protocols for bit commitment and coin tossing, which were also the first relativistic cryptographic protocols.
Go to Profile#32939
Anand
#32951
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
P. Sachidanandan , who uses the pseudonym Anand, is an Indian writer, writing primarily in Malayalam. He is one of the known living intellectuals in India. His works are noted for their philosophical flavor, historical context and their humanism. He is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and three Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awards . He is also a recipient of Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, Vayalar Award, Odakkuzhal Award, Muttathu Varkey Award, Vallathol Award and Yashpal Award. He did not accept the Yashpal Award and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel.
Go to Profile#32940
Bonnie E. John
#32952
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Bonnie E. John is an American cognitive psychologist who studies human–computer interaction, predictive human performance modeling, and the relationship between usability and software architecture. She was a founding member of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, a research staff member at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and the director of computation and innovation at The Cooper Union. She is currently a UX designer at Bloomberg L.P.
Go to Profile#32941
Ndamukong Suh
#32953
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Ndamukong Ngwa Suh is an American football defensive tackle who is a free agent. He played college football at Nebraska, where he earned All-American honors, and was selected by the Detroit Lions second overall in the 2010 NFL Draft. He also played for the Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Philadelphia Eagles. He has played in three Super Bowls: Super Bowl LIII with the Rams, Super Bowl LV with the Buccaneers, and Super Bowl LVII with the Eagles.
Go to Profile#32942
Jesco von Puttkamer
#32954
Overall Influence
1933 - 2012 (79 years)
Jesco Hans Heinrich Max Freiherr von Puttkamer was a German-American aerospace engineer, senior manager at NASA, and a pulp science fiction writer. He was an advocate of human space exploration, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence . While at NASA, he served as the program manager in charge of long-range planning of deep space crewed activities . He was regarded as an expert on the Russian space program.
Go to Profile#32943
Dieter Nohlen
#32955
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Dieter Nohlen is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expert on electoral systems and political development, he has published several books.
Go to Profile#32944
Michael Gerrard
#32956
Overall Influence
Michael Burr Gerrard is an American legal scholar. He is the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School. Biography Gerrard was born in New York City, where his parents were graduate students at Columbia University, and grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. His father, Nathan L. Gerrard, was a professor of sociology at the University of Charleston, and his mother, Louise B. Gerrard, was the executive director of the West Virginia Council on Aging.
Go to Profile#32945
Dominique Guellec
#32957
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Dominique Guellec is a French economist. He formerly held the post of chief economist at the European Patent Office . He is senior economist at Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development where he is in charge of the department monitoring innovation policies.
Go to Profile#32946
Matt Kenseth
#32958
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Matthew Roy Kenseth is an American former professional stock car racing driver who currently serves as the competition advisor for Legacy Motor Club in the NASCAR Cup Series. He competes part-time in the Superstar Racing Experience. , driving the No. 8 car. He also currently competes often in Slinger Speedway, where he holds the record for most Slinger Nationals wins.
Go to Profile#32947
Mary Ellen Avery
#32959
Overall Influence
1927 - 2011 (84 years)
Mary Ellen Avery , also known as Mel, was an American pediatrician. In the 1950s, Avery's pioneering research efforts helped lead to the discovery of the main cause of respiratory distress syndrome in premature babies: her identification of surfactant led to the development of replacement therapy for premature infants and has been credited with saving over 830,000 lives. Her childhood, mentors, drive, and education inspired Avery to be the visionary that she was. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush conferred the National Medal of Science on Avery for her work on RDS.
Go to Profile#32948
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
#32960
Overall Influence
1918 - 2012 (94 years)
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was the president of Italy from 1992 to 1999. A member of Christian Democracy , he became an independent politician after the DC's dissolution in 1992, and was close to the centre-left Democratic Party when it was founded in 2007.
Go to Profile#32949
Edward E. Leamer
#32961
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Edward Emory Leamer is a professor of economics and statistics at UCLA. He is Chauncey J. Medberry Professor of Management and director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. He attended Princeton and the University of Michigan .
Go to Profile#32950
Frank Joseph Polozola
#32962
Overall Influence
1942 - 2013 (71 years)
Frank Joseph Polozola was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. Education and career Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Polozola received a Bachelor of Laws in 1965 from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. He was a law clerk for Judge Elmer Gordon West of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana from 1965 to 1966. He was in private practice in Baton Rouge from 1966 to 1973. He began teaching in 1977 at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center.
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