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
#32951
Robert Fine
#32963
Overall Influence
1945 - 2018 (73 years)
Robert Fine was a British sociologist. He was a leading European scholar on the history of social and political thought, cosmopolitan social theory, the social theory of Karl Marx and Hannah Arendt, the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism, crimes against humanity and human rights. He was a Professor Emeritus at Warwick University. He died on 9 June 2018.
Go to Profile#32952
Leigh Lisker
#32964
Overall Influence
1918 - 2006 (88 years)
Leigh Lisker was an eminent American linguist and phonetician. Most of his career was spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor and then emeritus professor of linguistics. Dr. Lisker received his A.B. in 1941, with a major in German, his M.A. in 1946, and a Ph.D. in 1949 in linguistics. He was a major figure in phonetics, working both at the University of Pennsylvania and at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, CT, where he was a senior scientist from 1951 until the end of his life. He collaborated with several phoneticians, principally Arthur S. Abramson. He is best known for his work, done mostly in conjunction with Abramson, on voice onset time.
Go to Profile#32953
Takashi Ono
#32965
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Takashi Ono is a retired Japanese-born American mathematician, specializing in number theory and algebraic groups. Early life and education Ono was born in Nishinomiya, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in 1958 at Nagoya University.
Go to Profile#32954
Craig Ferguson
#32966
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish-American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for hosting the CBS late-night talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson , for which he won a Peabody Award for his interview with South African archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2009. He also hosted the syndicated game show Celebrity Name Game , for which he won two Daytime Emmy Awards, and Join or Die with Craig Ferguson on History. In 2017, he released a six-episode web show with his wife, Megan Wallace Cunningham, titled Couple Thinkers.
Go to Profile#32955
Evgeni Nabokov
#32967
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Yevgeni Viktorovich Nabokov is a Kazakhstani-Russian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played for the San Jose Sharks, New York Islanders, and Tampa Bay Lightning of National Hockey League and for Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk, Dynamo Moscow, Metallurg Magnitogorsk and SKA Saint Petersburg of the Russian Super League and Kontinental Hockey League from 1991 to 2015.
Go to Profile#32956
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz
#32968
Overall Influence
1909 - 2003 (94 years)
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz was a Spanish historian, one of the leading specialists in the history of the Spanish Antiguo Régimen of the 16th through 18th centuries, in particular in social history. He was also expert historian of Andalusia, with a particular emphasis on the history of the Moriscos.
Go to Profile#32957
Mário A. Perini
#32969
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mário Alberto Perini is a Brazilian linguist known mainly for his work on the description of Brazilian Portuguese. He is professor emeritus at the Federal University of Minas Gerais; he has also taught at the University of Illinois and at the University of Mississippi. In 2021, Perini was elected Honorary Member of the Brazilian Linguistics Association.
Go to Profile#32958
Grant R. Osborne
#32970
Overall Influence
1942 - 2018 (76 years)
Grant R. Osborne was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He was Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Biography Education Osborne got a B.A. from the Fort Wayne Bible College, a M.A. from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. He also has done postdoctoral research at the university of Cambridge and University of Marburg.
Go to Profile#32959
Yuriko Koike
#32971
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Yuriko Koike is a Japanese politician, who has served as the Governor of Tokyo since 2016. She graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1976 and was a member of the House of Representatives of Japan from 1993 until 2016, when she resigned to run for Governor of Tokyo. She also previously served as Minister of the Environment in the Junichiro Koizumi cabinet from 2003 to 2006 and briefly as Minister of Defense in the first cabinet of Shinzō Abe in 2007. Koike was elected Governor of Tokyo in 2016, becoming the metropolis's first female Governor. Koike was re-elected Governor in 2020, ...
Go to Profile#32960
Tim Holt
#32972
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
David Holt CB was a British statistician who was Professor Emeritus of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton. He had been the president of the Royal Statistical Society , the last director of the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom, and the first director of the Office for National Statistics .
Go to Profile#32961
Robert Witt
#32973
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Robert E. Witt is an American businessman, and academic administrator. He is the former Chancellor of the University of Alabama System, concurrently serving as the Chairman of the Council of Presidents of Alabama’s public colleges and universities.
Go to Profile#32962
Philip Burton Moon
#32974
Overall Influence
1907 - 1994 (87 years)
Philip Burton Moon FRS was a British nuclear physicist. He is most remembered for his research work in atomic physics and nuclear physics. He is one of the British scientists who participated in the United States' Manhattan Project, Britain's Tube Alloys, and was involved in nuclear weapon development. Moon made outstanding and original experimental contributions which stimulated the development of whole fields of research involving neutrons, gamma rays and novel methods of studying chemical reactions .
Go to Profile#32963
Francis D'Souza
#32975
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Francis D'Souza is a Canadian television executive and a former broadcaster. He is the Managing Editor of News Programming at CBC, nationally, and a former television news anchor for Citytv in Toronto, Ontario.
Go to Profile#32964
Louis-Georges Tin
#32976
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Louis-Georges Tin is a French academic, gay rights campaigner, and anti-racist activist. Tin is noted for initiating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, now marked in over 130 countries across the world, and co-founding the Representative Council of Black Associations .
Go to Profile#32965
Hassan Aref
#32977
Overall Influence
1950 - 2011 (61 years)
Hassan Aref , was the Reynolds Metals Professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech, and the Niels Bohr Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Denmark.
Go to Profile#32966
Brett Ratner
#32978
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Brett Ratner is an American film director and producer. He directed the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He is also a producer of several films, including the Horrible Bosses series, The Revenant and War Dogs, and was an executive producer of Prison Break.
Go to Profile#32967
Larry Gostin
#32979
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Lawrence Oglethorpe Gostin is an American law professor who specializes in public health law. He was a Fulbright Fellow and is best known as the author of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and as a significant contributor to journals on medicine and law.
Go to Profile#32968
Eric Priest
#32980
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Eric Ronald Priest is Emeritus Professor at St Andrews University, where he previously held the Gregory Chair of Mathematics and a Bishop Wardlaw Professorship. Career and research Priest is a recognised authority in solar magnetohydrodynamics , the study of the subtle, and often nonlinear, interaction between the Sun's magnetic field and its plasma interior or atmosphere, treated as a continuous medium. Priest is an applied mathematician and, along with the other members of his research group at St Andrews, is currently investigating a large number of solar phenomena, including sunspots, co...
Go to Profile#32969
Harry Flam
#32981
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Harry Flam is a professor of international economics at the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University. During the years of 2004 and 2006, he was Dean of the School of Business at Stockholm University. His main area of research is international trade and European economic integration. Flam resides in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the father of comedian Aron Flam.
Go to Profile#32970
Jonah Hill
#32982
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Jonah Hill is an American actor. He is known for his comedic roles in films including Superbad , Knocked Up , Get Him to the Greek , 21 Jump Street , This Is the End , and 22 Jump Street . For his performances in Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street , he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Go to Profile#32971
Peter Dalgaard
#32983
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Peter Dalgaard is a Danish statistician and one of the core developers of the R statistical programming language. He is a professor at Copenhagen Business School and was previously a professor of biostatistics at the University of Copenhagen, where he obtained his MSc in 1985 and PhD in 1991.
Go to Profile#32972
Philip R. Goode
#32984
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Philip R. Goode is an American theoretical physicist also working in observational astronomy and its instrumentation. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of Physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology with an H-index > 60. His career divides into five overlapping periods as follows:His earliest work in theoretical nuclear physics, 1967-1982Pioneering research in theoretical helioseismology He created, developed and directed NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research , which made NJIT one of the most important universities in the U.S. for observational solar physics, heliophysics, ...
Go to Profile#32973
Max Price
#32985
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Max Price is a former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He succeeded Njabulo Ndebele and held this position for 10 years from 19 August 2008 until 30 June 2018.
Go to Profile#32974
Henry Radamson
#32986
Overall Influence
Henry H. Radamson is a Swedish professor of microelectronics known for his contribution to semiconductor devices and his invention, Multilayered Thermistor Structure. Radamson teaches and conducts research within the field of semiconductor physics at different universities and research centers in Sweden and Mid Sweden University, Department of Electronics DesignInstitute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of SciencesTexas Instruments, Semiconductor Research Corporation
Go to Profile#32975
Mary Frances Early
#32987
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Mary Frances Early is an American educator who was the first African-American to earn a degree from the University of Georgia. Early graduated with a master's degree in music education in 1962, and later received an educational specialist degree in 1967.
Go to Profile#32976
John Turner
#32988
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
John Napier Wyndham Turner was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and leader of the Official Opposition from 1984 to 1990.
Go to Profile#32977
Carlos Boozer
#32989
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Carlos Austin Boozer Jr. is an American former professional basketball player. The two-time NBA All-Star played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Utah Jazz, Chicago Bulls, and Los Angeles Lakers, and then spent his last season playing overseas with the Guangdong Southern Tigers. As a member of Team USA, Boozer won an Olympic bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and an Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Go to Profile#32978
Marc Gabolde
#32990
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Marc Gabolde is a French Egyptologist, specialist of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the Amarna period. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Egyptology at the University Lumière Lyon 2 in 1992, he joined Scientific IFAO . Since 1999 he has been a lecturer at the Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III. He has conducted archaeological missions in the Valley of the Queens, Karnak, Balat, Tebtunis and Amarna. Gabolde is the author of D'Akhénaton à Toutânkhamon .
Go to Profile#32979
Francis Spufford
#32991
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Francis Spufford FRSL is an English author and teacher of writing whose career has seen him shift gradually from non-fiction to fiction. His first novel Golden Hill received critical acclaim and numerous prizes including the Costa Book Award for a first novel, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Go to Profile#32980
Elza Erkip
#32992
Overall Influence
Elza Erkip is a Turkish-American electrical and computer engineer, professor and wireless technology researcher at New York University. Education Erkip received her B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. She ranked among the top 1% of highly cited scholars in computer science from 2002 to 2012 according to Thomson Reuters.
Go to Profile#32981
Denis Irwin
#32993
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Joseph Denis Irwin is an Irish former professional footballer and sports television presenter. As a player, he played as a full back from 1983 to 2004. Irwin is best known for his long and successful stint at Manchester United, where he established himself as one of the most important players in the United team that won a host of domestic and European trophies in his time there between 1990 and 2002. He has been regarded by Alex Ferguson as, pound for pound, his greatest ever signing. Earlier in his career he played for Leeds United and then Oldham Athletic, and finished his career with a two...
Go to Profile#32982
David Silver
#32994
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David Silver is a principal research scientist at Google DeepMind and a professor at University College London. He has led research on reinforcement learning with AlphaGo, AlphaZero and co-lead on AlphaStar.
Go to Profile#32983
Jorge Camacho
#32995
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Jorge Camacho Cordón is a writer in Esperanto and Spanish. Camacho was born in Zafra, Spain and learned Esperanto in 1980. He was a member of the Academy of Esperanto from 1992 until 2001. Since 1995 he has worked in Brussels as an interpreter for the European Union from English and Finnish into Spanish.
Go to Profile#32984
Paul Green
#32996
Overall Influence
1924 - 2018 (94 years)
Paul Eliot Green, Jr. was an American electrical engineer who researched spread spectrum and radar technology. He was the son of playwright Paul Green. Biography Green was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on January 14, 1924. Green majored in physics at the University of North Carolina. He also served in the Naval ROTC and continued in the Navy Reserve for many years, eventually retiring as a lieutenant commander. He received a master's degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University in 1948. His masters studies focused on cryptographic research, and were followed by Ph.D.
Go to Profile#32985
Krystyna Kuperberg
#32997
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Krystyna M. Kuperberg is a Polish-American mathematician who currently works as a professor of mathematics at Auburn University, where she was formerly an Alumni Professor of Mathematics. Early life and family Her parents, Jan W. and Barbara H. Trybulec, were pharmacists and owned a pharmacy in Tarnów. Her older brother is Andrzej Trybulec. Her husband Włodzimierz Kuperberg and her son Greg Kuperberg are also mathematicians, while her daughter Anna Kuperberg is a photographer.
Go to Profile#32986
Jan Lever
#32998
Overall Influence
1922 - 2010 (88 years)
Jan Lever was a Dutch biologist specialized in zoology, endocrinology and evolutionary biology. His ideas on evolution may be characterized as a form of theistic evolution. Lever was an important voice in shaping Dutch public debate on evolution and biology, particularly in protestant circles.
Go to Profile#32987
David C. Baldus
#32999
Overall Influence
1935 - 2011 (76 years)
David Christopher Baldus was a Joseph B. Tye professor of law at the University of Iowa. He held the position from 1969 until his death in 2011. His research focused on law and social science and he conducted extensive research on the death penalty in the United States.
Go to Profile#32988
Yehuda Elkana
#33000
Overall Influence
1934 - 2012 (78 years)
Yehuda Elkana was a historian and philosopher of science, and a former president and rector of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Life and career Born as László Fröhlich to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents in Yugoslavia, Elkana moved with his family to Szeged in 1944. That same year, Elkana and his parents were dispatched to Auschwitz. His family escaped the gas chambers when the Nazis transferred them to Austria as corvée labourers for the reconstruction of war-torn cities. In 1948, at the age of 14, he immigrated to Israel. He took up residence in Kibbutz HaZore'a, but health problems impeded Elkana from performing physical tasks.
Go to Profile#32989
Joan Callahan
#33001
Overall Influence
1946 - 2019 (73 years)
Joan Callahan was a Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, an institution where she taught for more than twenty years and served in a variety of roles, including as director of the Gender and Women's Studies Program. Callahan's research has focused on feminist theory, critical race theory, ethics, social and political philosophy, the philosophy of law, and on the junctions of these topics.
Go to Profile#32990
David Hafler
#33002
Overall Influence
1919 - 2003 (84 years)
David Hafler was an American audio engineer. He was best known for his work on an improved version of the Williamson amplifier using the ultra-linear circuit of Alan Blumlein. Biography In 1950, Hafler founded Acrosound with his colleague Herbert Keroes. This company was primarily in the business of designing and manufacturing transformers for tube amplifiers. Around this time Hafler and Keroes popularized the ultra-linear output-stage for audio amplifiers. However, the partnership did not last.
Go to Profile#32991
Fergus Kerr
#33003
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Fergus Gordon Thomson Kerr is a Scottish Roman Catholic priest of the English Dominican province. He has published significantly on a wide range of subjects, but is famous particularly for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Aquinas.
Go to Profile#32992
Douglas A. Shackelford
#33004
Overall Influence
Douglas A. Shackelford is an American professor and academic administrator. He served as the dean of the Kenan–Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until September of 2022, where he is also the Meade H. Willis Distinguished Professor of Taxation.
Go to Profile#32993
O. Palmer Robertson
#33005
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Owen Palmer Robertson is an American Christian theologian and biblical scholar. He taught at Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, Knox Theological Seminary as well as at the African Bible Colleges of Malawi and Uganda. He also served as principal of the latter institution. Robertson was the first elected male SGA president of Belhaven College in 1957.
Go to Profile#32994
Georges F. Koob
#33006
Overall Influence
#32995
Simon Callow
#33007
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to acting by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.
Go to Profile#32996
John O'Neill
#33008
Overall Influence
John F. O'Neill is a philosopher. He is professor of political economy at the University of Manchester. He has published on subjects related to political economy and philosophy, philosophy and environmental policy, political theory, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science.
Go to Profile#32997
Joyce Reynolds
#33009
Overall Influence
1918 - 2022 (104 years)
Joyce Maire Reynolds was a British classicist and academic, specialising in Roman historical epigraphy. She was an honorary fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. She dedicated her life to the study and teaching of Classics and was first woman to be awarded the Kenyon medal by the British Academy. Among Reynolds' most significant publications were texts from the city of Aphrodisias, including letters between Aphrodisian and Roman authorities.
Go to Profile#32998
Eero Loone
#33010
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Eero Loone is an Estonian philosopher. He is the son of Nigolas Loone and Leida Loone. Eero Loone graduated from the Moscow State University in 1958 . From 1958 to 1960, Loone worked as junior researcher at the USSR institute of Global Economy and International Relations. Since 1966, he has been lecturer of philosophy at the University of Tartu . He became Doctor of Philosophy in 1984. From 1989 to 1990 Eero Loone worked at Clare Hall, Cambridge . He has been particularly influenced by analytical philosophy. Loone's views on Marxism and historical materialism have found resonance in the West.
Go to Profile#32999
Ruth Farwell
#33011
Overall Influence
Ruth Sarah Farwell retired as Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Buckinghamshire New University in February 2015. Farwell held a research fellowship in theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, in the early eighties. Her research is at the boundary between applied mathematics and theoretical physics. Her use of Clifford algebras in her mathematics generated her interest in the Victorian mathematician William Kingdon Clifford. She continues to research the mathematical contribution of Clifford, and mathematical models of particle physics, as well as undertaking research on higher education policy.
Go to Profile#33000
Robert Morse
#33012
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Robert Alan Morse was an American actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he received two Tony Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He notably starred as J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, both the 1961 original Broadway production, for which he won a Tony Award, and its 1967 film adaptation; and as Bertram Cooper in the critically acclaimed AMC dramatic series Mad Men . He won his second Tony Award for playing Truman Capote in the 1989 production of the one-man play Tru. He reprised his role of Capote in an airin...
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