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
#33001
Ernesto Hoost
#33013
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ernesto Frits Hoost is a Dutch retired professional kickboxer. A four-time K-1 World Champion, Hoost is considered to be one of the greatest kickboxers of all time. Debuting in 1993 at the K-1 World Grand Prix 1993, where he came just one win short of the world title, Hoost announced his retirement thirteen years later on 2 December 2006 after the K-1 World GP Final tournament in Tokyo Dome, Japan. Hoost holds notable victories over Peter Aerts , Branko Cikatić, Mirko Cro Cop , Jérôme Le Banner , Andy Hug , Ray Sefo , Musashi , Mike Bernardo, Francisco Filho , Sam Greco, Stefan Leko , Mark Hu...
Go to Profile#33002
Purshottam Lal Wahi
#33014
Overall Influence
1928 - 2000 (72 years)
Purshottam Lal Wahi was an Indian cardiologist and the director of the department of cardiology at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh. Born in Sargodha in the Punjab province of the erstwhile British India on 4 December 1928 to Bindra Ban Wahi and Devki Devi, he was an honorary fellow of the Indian Society of Cardiology and is credited with several publications on cardiology. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1983.
Go to Profile#33003
Jeffrey Koplan
#33015
Overall Influence
Jeffrey P. Koplan is an American physician and epidemiologist who is the Vice President for Global Health at Emory University. He established and became the first Director of the Emory Global Health Institute from 2006 to 2013. Koplan was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1998 to 2002; he had previously worked at the CDC for more than twenty years, looking into HIV-contaminated blood, as well as the Bhopal disaster. During his tenure as Director, he fought syphilis, and supervised the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks; before leaving the agency in M...
Go to Profile#33004
Bernard Cohen
#33016
Overall Influence
1924 - 2012 (88 years)
Bernard Leonard Cohen was born in Pittsburgh, and was Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Cohen was a staunch opponent of the so-called Linear no-threshold model which postulates there exists no safe threshold for radiation exposure. His view which has support from a minority. He died in March 2012.
Go to Profile#33005
Gijsbert de Leve
#33017
Overall Influence
1926 - 2009 (83 years)
Gijsbert de Leve was a Dutch mathematician and operations researcher, known for his work on Markov decision process. Gijs de Leve is considered the founder of operations research in the Netherlands.
Go to Profile#33006
Tim Osswald
#33018
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Tim Andreas Osswald is a mechanical engineer and the K. K. and Cindy Wang Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also honorary professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany and the National University of Colombia. Osswald has authored 12 books in the field of polymer engineering and teaches polymer processing and designing with polymers. His research includes modeling and simulation in polymer processing, engineering design with plastics, sustainability and biopolymers.
Go to Profile#33007
Leroy Chang
#33019
Overall Influence
1936 - 2008 (72 years)
Leroy L. Chang was an experimental physicist and solid state electronics researcher and engineer. Born in China, he studied in Taiwan and then the United States, obtaining his doctorate from Stanford University in 1963. As a research physicist he studied semiconductors for nearly 30 years at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York. This period included pioneering work on superlattice heterostructures with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leo Esaki.
Go to Profile#33008
James Emery White
#33020
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
James Emery White , is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry that explores the intersection of faith and culture and hosts ChurchandCulture.org; ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture on the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he also served as their fourth president; and author of more than 20 books that have been translated into ten languages.
Go to Profile#33009
Anthony Edwards
#33021
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Anthony Charles Edwards is an American actor, director, and producer. He played Dr. Mark Greene on the first eight seasons of ER, for which he received a Golden Globe Award and six Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was nominated for four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards. He has appeared in various films and television series, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Gun, Zodiac, Gotcha!, Miracle Mile, Revenge of the Nerds, Planes, Northern Exposure and Designated Survivor.
Go to Profile#33010
Tubby Smith
#33022
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Orlando Henry "Tubby" Smith is an American college basketball coach who last coached the men's basketball team at High Point University, his alma mater. Smith previously served in the same role at the University of Tulsa, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, the University of Minnesota, Texas Tech University, and the University of Memphis. With Kentucky, he coached the Wildcats to the 1998 NCAA championship.
Go to Profile#33011
Mike Berners-Lee
#33023
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mike Berners-Lee is an English researcher and writer on carbon footprinting. He is a professor and fellow of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University and director and principal consultant of Small World Consulting, based in the Lancaster Environment Centre at the university. His books include How Bad are Bananas?, The Burning Question and There Is No Planet B. He is considered an expert on carbon footprints. He is the son of Mary Lee Woods and Conway Berners-Lee; one of his brothers is computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Go to Profile#33012
Joshua Gans
#33024
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Joshua Gans holds the Jeffrey Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Until 2011, he was an economics professor at Melbourne Business School in Australia. His research focuses on competition policy and intellectual property protection. He is the author of several textbooks and policy books, as well as numerous articles in economics journals. He operates two blogs: one on economic policy, and another on economics and parenting.
Go to Profile#33013
Simon Hugh Piper Maddrell
#33025
Overall Influence
1937 - 2020 (83 years)
Simon Hugh Piper Maddrell FRS was a British insect physiologist whose work predominantly focused on insect kidney organs—the Malpighian tubules. Based at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge , his research involved insects such as Rhodnius prolixus and later, Drosophila melanogaster. At Cambridge he was a fellow of Gonville and Caius College.
Go to Profile#33014
William J. Hamblin
#33026
Overall Influence
1954 - 2019 (65 years)
William James Hamblin was a professor of history at Brigham Young University , and a former board member of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies at BYU. Biography Hamblin was raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he served as a missionary for the Church in Italy from 1973 to 1975.
Go to Profile#33015
Mirta Ojito
#33027
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mirta Ojito is a Cuban-born author and journalist. She has written two nonfiction books, Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus a book about her journey to the U.S. as a teenager in the Mariel boatlift, and Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town." She was part of a group of New York Times reporters who shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2001 for a series of articles about race in America. More recently, she was a member of the Telemundo team that won an Emmy for the coverage of Pope Francis's visit to the Americas.
Go to Profile#33016
Léon Wurmser
#33028
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Léon Wurmser was a Swiss psychoanalyst, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at West Virginia University and a training and supervising analyst of the New York Freudian Society. He was formerly Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program at University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Go to Profile#33017
James Milner
#33029
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
James Philip Milner is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club Brighton & Hove Albion. A versatile player, Milner has played in multiple positions, including on the wing, in midfield and at full back.
Go to Profile#33018
Aryna Sabalenka
#33030
Overall Influence
1998 - Present (28 years)
Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles and has also been world No. 1 in doubles by the Women's Tennis Association . Sabalenka has won one Major singles title, at the 2023 Australian Open, and two Major doubles titles, at the 2019 US Open and the 2021 Australian Open, both partnering Elise Mertens. She has won 19 career titles in total, 13 in singles and six in doubles.
Go to Profile#33019
Li Sanli
#33031
Overall Influence
1935 - 2022 (87 years)
Li Sanli was a Chinese computer scientist and also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering , professor of Tsinghua University, dean and professor of School of Computer Engineering and Science in Shanghai University.
Go to Profile#33020
Christopher Daniels
#33032
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Christopher Daniel Covell , better known by the ring name Christopher Daniels, is an American professional wrestler. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling where he works as the Head of Talent Relations as well as an in-ring performer. He is best known for his time in Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor , as well as extensive time on the independent circuit; he is known as the "King of Indies" for his work with independent promotions across the world, including Frontier Wrestling Alliance , International Wrestling Cartel , and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla .
Go to Profile#33021
Barry Popkin
#33033
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Barry Michael Popkin is an American nutrition and obesity researcher at the Carolina Population Center and the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, where he is the director of the Global Food Research Program. He developed the concept of "nutrition transition". He is the author of over 650 journal articles and a book, The World is Fat, translated into a dozen languages.
Go to Profile#33022
Sidney Moko Mead
#33034
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Sir "Sidney" Hirini Moko Haerewa Mead is a New Zealand anthropologist, historian, artist, teacher, writer and prominent Māori leader. Initially training as a teacher and artist, Mead taught in many schools in the East Coast and Bay of Plenty regions, and later served as principal of several schools. After earning his PhD in 1968, he taught anthropology in several universities abroad. He returned to New Zealand in 1977 and established the first Māori studies department in the country. Mead later became a prominent Māori advocate and leader, acting in negotiations on behalf of several tribes and sitting on numerous advisory boards.
Go to Profile#33023
Jaap Mansfeld
#33035
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Jaap Mansfeld is a Dutch Emeritus Professor of philosopher and a historian of philosophy. Life Jaap Mansfeld began his studies in 1954 at the University of Utrecht, where he received his doctorate in 1964 with a thesis on Parmenides. From 1973 until his retirement in 2001 he was a professor of ancient philosophy, and subsequently professor of History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, at Utrecht University. He has been a full member of the Academia Europaea since 1989., as well as a member of the board for several scholarly journals. In 1991 he was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#33024
Charles Flexner
#33036
Overall Influence
Charles Williams Flexner is an American physician, clinical pharmaceutical scientist, academic, author and researcher. He is a Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#33025
Jigme Singye Wangchuck
#33037
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jigme Singye Wangchuck is a member of the House of Wangchuck who was the king of Bhutan from 1972 until his abdication in 2006. During his reign, he advocated the use of a Gross National Happiness index to measure the well-being of citizens rather than Gross domestic product.
Go to Profile#33026
José Miguel Vivanco
#33038
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
José Miguel Vivanco Inostroza is a Chilean human rights lawyer, and the former executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. He is now an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Go to Profile#33027
Maksym Radziwill
#33039
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Maksym Radziwill is a Polish-Canadian mathematician specializing in number theory. He is currently a professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Technology. Life He was born in Moscow in 1988. His family moved to Poland in 1991 where he graduated from high school and in 2006 to Canada. Radziwill graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 2009, and in 2013 earned a PhD under Kannan Soundararajan at Stanford University in California. In 2013–2014, he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey as a visiting member, and in 2014 became a Hill assistant professor at Rutgers University.
Go to Profile#33028
Siddhartha Roy
#33040
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Siddhartha Roy is an Indian structural biologist, biophysicist, former director of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and the former director of Bose Institute. Widely known for his studies on bacteriophage lambda and protein synthesis, he is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. In 1999, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, for his contributions to Biological sciences.
Go to Profile#33029
Stephen D. Cox
#33041
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Stephen D. Cox is the editor of Liberty magazine, an American online libertarian and classical liberal review. He is also an emeritus professor of literature at the University of California, San Diego and author of several non-fiction books.
Go to Profile#33030
Jamal Nebez
#33042
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Jamal Nebez was a Kurdish linguist, mathematician, politician, author, translator and writer. He studied Islamic law, philosophy, theology, physics and mathematics at the University of Baghdad in the 1950s. In 1956, he prepared a stenciled script on algebra and in 1960, succeeded in publishing the first physics book in Kurdish, including a rich glossary of Kurdish terms pertaining to physics and mathematics. He translated several literary works, including works of Nikolai Gogol and William Shakespeare into Kurdish. He also wrote and published several books on a variety of topics. Most of the ...
Go to Profile#33031
Gretchen Kalonji
#33043
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Gretchen Lynn Kalonji is an American materials scientist and academic administrator. She is dean of Sichuan University-Hong Kong Polytechnic University Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction. Kalonji was previously the assistant director-general for natural sciences at UNESCO. She was the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science at University of Washington and an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#33032
John E. Fryer
#33044
Overall Influence
1938 - 2003 (65 years)
John Ercel Fryer, M.D. was an American psychiatrist and gay rights activist best known for his anonymous speech at the 1972 American Psychiatric Association annual conference, where he appeared in disguise and under the name Dr. Henry Anonymous. That event has been cited as a key factor in the decision to remove homosexuality as a mental illness from the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The APA "John E. Fryer, M.D., Award" is named in his honor.
Go to Profile#33033
D. Allan Bromley
#33045
Overall Influence
1926 - 2005 (79 years)
David Allan Bromley was a Canadian-American physicist, academic administrator and science advisor to President George H. W. Bush. His field of research was the study of low-energy nuclear reactions and structure using heavy ion beams.
Go to Profile#33034
Alexei Smirnov
#33046
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alexei Yuryevich Smirnov is a neutrino physics researcher and one of the discoverers of the MSW Effect. Education Alexei Smirnov graduated from MSU Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University in 1974. In 1977, he began to work at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where he received his Candidate of Sciences degree in 1979. In 1989, he received a degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical sciences. He also taught at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University in the period from 1982 to 1990.
Go to Profile#33035
Margaret Raymond
#33047
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Margaret Raymond is an American legal scholar who is professor of law and was formerly the Fred W. and Vi Miller dean at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Her research interests include ethics and criminal law.
Go to Profile#33036
Vittorio Corbo
#33048
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Vittorio Corbo Lioi is a former Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, who held the post since May 2003 until December 2007. Biography Corbo studied economics at the University of Chile in 1967 and has a PhD in economics from MIT which he gained in 1971. He taught at Concordia University in Canada between 1972 and 1979. He was appointed a professor at the Universidad de Chile and at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica and , and a Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University in the United States . Mr. Corbo worked at the World Bank from 1984 to 1991 as Head of the Macroeconomic Development...
Go to Profile#33037
Jeffrey Ford
#33049
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jeffrey Ford is an American writer in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of Binghamton University, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.
Go to Profile#33038
Kenneth Allen Taylor
#33050
Overall Influence
1954 - 2019 (65 years)
Kenneth Allen Taylor was an American philosopher and co-host of the radio program Philosophy Talk. Education and career Taylor received his A.B. from the University of Notre Dame in 1977. He received his Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Chicago, where he completed his dissertation under the supervision of Leonard Linsky. Before coming to Stanford, Taylor taught in the philosophy departments at Rutgers University, University of Maryland at College Park, Wesleyan University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Middlebury College.
Go to Profile#33039
Leslie Weston
#33051
Overall Influence
Leslie A. Weston FAA, is a plant biologist, who was awarded a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2023, for her work on weed suppressing ground covers and pest management. She is a professor at Charles Sturt University, at Wagga Wagga, and researches botany, agronomy, weed control and horticulture.
Go to Profile#33040
Ida Lupino
#33052
Overall Influence
1918 - 1995 (77 years)
Ida Lupino was a British actress, director, writer, and producer. Throughout her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker, in 1953.
Go to Profile#33041
Pietro De Camilli
#33053
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Pietro De Camilli NAS, AAA&S, NAM is an Italian-American biologist and John Klingenstein Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine. He is also an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. De Camilli completed his M.D. degree from the University of Milan in Italy in 1972. He then went to the United States and did his postdoctoral studies at Yale University with Paul Greengard.
Go to Profile#33042
Paul Tazewell
#33054
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Paul Tazewell is an American costume designer for the theatre, dance, and opera and television. After training at New York University Tisch School of the Arts he started his career on Broadway. He went on to win a Tony Award and a Emmy Award as well as a nomination for an Academy Award.
Go to Profile#33043
Gus John
#33055
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Augustine John is a Grenadian-born writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher, who moved to the UK in 1964. He has worked in the fields of education policy, management and international development. As a social analyst he specialises in social audits, change management, policy formulation and review, and programme evaluation and development. Since the 1960s he has been active in issues of education and schooling in Britain's inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain. He has also ...
Go to Profile#33044
James Wyatt
#33056
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
James Wyatt is a game designer and a former United Methodist minister. He works for Wizards of the Coast, where he has designed supplements and adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He is the author of sci-fi and fantasy novels, including Forgotten Realms books, and the 4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide.
Go to Profile#33045
Carolivia Herron
#33057
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Carolivia Herron is an American writer of children's and adult literature, and a scholar of African-American Judaica. Personal life She was born to Oscar Smith Herron and Georgia Carol Herron, in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#33046
Ellen Barkin
#33058
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ellen Rona Barkin is an American actress. Her breakthrough role was in the 1982 film Diner, and in the following years, she had starring roles in films such as Tender Mercies , Eddie and the Cruisers , The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension , The Big Easy , Johnny Handsome, and Sea of Love .
Go to Profile#33047
Vivian Lee
#33059
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Vivian S. Lee is an American radiologist and health care/health technology executive. An Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Lee is the author of the book, The Long Fix: Solving America's Health Care Crisis with Strategies That Work for Everyone . Lee is also a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2019, she was named No. 11 in Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and is a frequent speaker at national and international meetings...
Go to Profile#33048
Francis Thomas Bacon
#33060
Overall Influence
1904 - 1992 (88 years)
Francis Thomas Bacon OBE FREng FRS was an English engineer who in 1932 developed the first practical hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell. It is used to generate power for space capsules and satellites. Life and works Francis Thomas Bacon was born in 1904 at Ramsden Hall, Billericay, Essex, England. An engineer at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1932 he developed the fuel cell which was used as part of the Apollo moon project in the 1960s. Fuel cells were first demonstrated by Sir William Robert Grove in 1839, but his invention lay largely dormant for over 100 years until it was revived by Bacon. The alk...
Go to Profile#33049
William Newton-Smith
#33061
Overall Influence
1943 - 2023 (80 years)
William Herbert Newton-Smith was a Canadian philosopher of science. Biography Newton-Smith's undergraduate degree from Queen's University was in Mathematics and Philosophy, in 1966. He took an MA from Cornell University in Philosophy, in 1968, and a DPhil in philosophy from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1974. His working life before retirement was mainly as a Fellow of Balliol.
Go to Profile#33050
Miguel
#33062
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Miguel Jontel Pimentel is an American singer and songwriter who specializes in contemporary and alternative R&B. Raised in San Pedro, California, he began pursuing a music career at age thirteen. After signing to Jive Records in 2007, Miguel released his debut studio album, All I Want Is You, in November 2010. Although it was underpromoted upon its release, the album became a sleeper hit and helped Miguel garner commercial standing. The albums second single, "Sure Thing" reached further success in 2023, peaking at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ultimately becoming his most commercial...
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