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
#33251
J. Robert Brown Jr.
#33263
Overall Influence
Jay Brown is a law professor with specializations in corporations and corporate governance, business law, administrative law, and securities regulation. He currently teaches at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Go to Profile#33252
Mikhail Katsnelson
#33264
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mikhail Iosifovich Katsnelson is a Russian-Dutch professor of theoretical physics. He works at Radboud University Nijmegen where he specializes in theoretical solid state physics and many-body quantum physics. He is one of the most cited scientists in the field of condensed matter physics.
Go to Profile#33253
Mario Gómez
#33265
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Mario Gómez García is a German former professional footballer who played as a striker. He represented the Germany national team over a period of 11 years between 2007 and 2018. Gómez began his professional career with VfB Stuttgart. When the team won the Bundesliga in 2006–07, Gómez contributed 14 goals and 7 assists and was selected as German Footballer of the Year. In 2009, he signed for Bayern Munich for an estimated €30–35 million, a league record at the time. With Bayern, Gómez was the Bundesliga top scorer in 2011 and helped the team win seven trophies, including the UEFA Champions League in 2013.
Go to Profile#33254
Tara Shears
#33266
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Tara Georgina Shears is a Professor of Physics at the University of Liverpool. Early life Shears was born in Salisbury in Wiltshire. She remained in Wiltshire, living in Wootton Rivers and attending the co-educational comprehensive school Pewsey Vale School, where she was inspired by her chemistry teacher. The school had no sixth form, and her parents moved to Wedhampton , where she attended the co-educational independent school Dauntsey's School, which offered many state scholarships at the time — many of the pupils were state-funded. At A-level she studied Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Engl...
Go to Profile#33255
Charles Townshend
#33267
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Charles Jeremy Nigel Townshend FBA is a British historian. His most prominent field of research is the history of British rule in Ireland, but is also a historian of British influence and rule in the Middle East during and after World War I, the era of Mandatory Palestine, Mandatory Iraq, and the Emirate of Transjordan.
Go to Profile#33256
Richard Johnson
#33268
Overall Influence
Richard Johnson is an American gossip columnist with the New York Posts Page Six column, which he edited for 25 years. Described by the New York Times as "a journalistic descendant of Walter Winchell", in 1994 he was ranked the No. 1 New York City gossip columnist by New York magazine in a list that also included Liz Smith, Michael Musto, and Cindy Adams.
Go to Profile#33257
Randy Brecker
#33269
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Randal Edward Brecker is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was born on November 27, 1945, in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham to a musical family. His father Bob was a lawyer who played jazz piano, and his mother Sylvia was a portrait artist.
Go to Profile#33258
Monika Henzinger
#33270
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Monika Henzinger is a German computer scientist, and is a former director of research at Google. She is currently a professor at the University of Vienna. Her expertise is mainly on algorithms with a focus on data structures, algorithmic game theory, information retrieval, search algorithms and Web data mining. She is married to Thomas Henzinger and has three children.
Go to Profile#33259
Brian McBride
#33271
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Brian Robert McBride is an American former soccer player who played as a forward for Columbus Crew, Fulham and Chicago Fire. He is the fifth-highest all-time leading goalscorer for the United States national team.
Go to Profile#33260
Shojiro Nishio
#33272
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
is a Japanese information scientist and technology scholar and the 18th president of Osaka University. Having co-authored or co-edited more than 55 books and more than 650 refereed journal or conference papers as well as serving on editorial boards of major information sciences journals, Nishio is considered one of the most prominent and influential researchers on database systems and networks.
Go to Profile#33261
Roland Faber
#33273
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Roland Faber is an author and Kilsby Family/John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. He is Executive Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies, Executive Director of the Whitehead Research Project in Claremont, California, and Editor of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies series. Faber received a PhD in systematic theology from the University of Vienna in 1992. In 1998, he was appointed assistant professor at the Institute for Dogmatic Theology in Vienna, Austria. In 2005, he r...
Go to Profile#33262
Doug Pederson
#33274
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Douglas Irvin Pederson is an American football coach and former quarterback who is the head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League . Pederson spent most of his 13-season playing career as a backup to Brett Favre on the Green Bay Packers, where he was part of the team that won Super Bowl XXXI. He was also a backup to Dan Marino on the Miami Dolphins and a starter for the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns until retiring in 2004.
Go to Profile#33263
Luciano Anceschi
#33275
Overall Influence
1911 - 1995 (84 years)
Luciano Anceschi was an Italian literary critic and essayist. A pupil of Antonio Banfi, with whom he graduated in philosophy in 1933, he taught aesthetics at the Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Bologna from 1952 to 1981. His interest in literature and the arts was always accompanied by that for the modern anti-dogmatic philosophy: after the publication of his graduation thesis "Autonomy and Heteronomy of art" published by Sansoni in 1936, his research on anti-idealistic literary figures and models found voice in comments published in Orpheus from 1932 and in Corrent...
Go to Profile#33264
Gianfranco Folena
#33276
Overall Influence
1920 - 1992 (72 years)
Gianfranco Folena was an Italian linguist, philologist, and academic. Biography Born in Savigliano in Piedmont in 1920, from a Tuscan family. He attended the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa along with Giorgio Pasquali. After his involvement in the war and imprisonment in India, he graduated in Florence, with Bruno Migliorini. He had held the chair of Romance Philology and then of History of the Italian Language at the University of Padua until the end of his teaching activity in 1990.
Go to Profile#33265
Issa J. Boullata
#33277
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
Issa J. Boullata was a Palestinian scholar, writer, and translator of Arabic literature. Biography He was born in Jerusalem on February 25, 1929 during the British Mandate of Palestine. He obtained a First Class BA in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1964 followed by a PhD in Arabic literature in 1969, both from the University of London. He taught Arabic studies for seven years at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut, before moving to McGill University, Montreal, in 1975. He taught graduate courses in Arabic Literature, Modern Arab Thought, and Qur'anic Studies at McGill's Institute of Islamic Studie...
Go to Profile#33266
Jimmy Smits
#33278
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jimmy L. Smits is an American actor. He is best known for playing attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s–1990s legal drama L.A. Law, NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s–2000s police drama NYPD Blue, Matt Santos on the political drama The West Wing, and for appearing in Switch , My Family , The Jane Austen Book Club , and In the Heights . He also appeared as Bail Organa in the Star Wars franchise and as ADA Miguel Prado in Dexter. From 2012 to 2014, he joined the main cast of Sons of Anarchy as Nero Padilla. Smits also portrayed Elijah Strait in the NBC drama series Bluff City Law.
Go to Profile#33267
Mehdi Zakerian
#33279
Overall Influence
Mehdi Zakerian, visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, President of Iranian International Studies Association, editor-in-chief of International Studies Journal .
Go to Profile#33268
Graham Budd
#33280
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Graham Edward Budd is a British palaeontologist. He is Professor and head of palaeobiology at Uppsala University. Budd's research focuses on the Cambrian explosion and on the evolution and development, anatomy, and patterns of diversification of the Ecdysozoa, a group of animals that include arthropods.
Go to Profile#33269
Arthur Waldron
#33281
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Arthur Waldron is an American historian. Since 1997, Waldron has been the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the department of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He works chiefly on Asia, China in particular, often with a focus on the origins and development of nationalism, and the study of war and violence in general.
Go to Profile#33270
Anders Blomqvist
#33282
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Anders Blomqvist is a Swedish professor of pain research at Linköping University. Anders Blomqvist was born in Norrköping, Sweden. He obtained a doctorate degree in medical science in 1981 and was appointed associate professor of anatomy in 1983 at Uppsala University, Sweden. Between 1984 and 1986 he was a visiting research fellow at Florida State University, followed by two years as a research associate at Uppsala University and ten years as a senior lecturer at Linköping University. In 1998 Anders Blomqvist was appointed professor of pain research at Linköping University.
Go to Profile#33271
David Charles
#33283
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David Owain Maurice Charles FLSW is a professor of philosophy and classics at Yale University. He has previously been Colin Prestige Fellow, and Professor of Philosophy at Oriel College, Oxford, and CUF Lecturer in Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and at Rutgers University, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#33272
Gordon McBean
#33284
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Gordon McBean, , is a Canadian climatologist who serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. He is a professor at the University of Western Ontario and Chair for Policy in the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. Previously he was the Assistant Deputy Minister of Meteorological Service of Canada.
Go to Profile#33273
Taslim Olawale Elias
#33285
Overall Influence
1914 - 1991 (77 years)
Taslim Olawale Elias was a Nigerian jurist who served as minister of Justice and attorney-general of Nigeria from 1960 to 1966, Chief Justice of Nigeria from 1972 to 1975 and president of the International Court of Justice from 1982 to 1985. He was a scholar who modernised and extensively revised the laws of Nigeria.
Go to Profile#33274
Antony John Williams
#33286
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Antony John Williams is a British chemist and expert in the fields of both nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and cheminformatics at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He is the founder of the ChemSpider website that was purchased by the Royal Society of Chemistry in May 2009. He is a science blogger and an author.
Go to Profile#33275
William A. Catterall
#33287
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
William Albert Catterall is an American pharmacologist and neurobiologist, who researches ion channels. He currently serves as a professor of pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington and is known for the discovery of the sodium and calcium voltage-gated ion channels. Catterall received his B.A. in chemistry from Brown University in 1968 and his Ph.D. in physiological chemistry from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972. He did his postdoctoral training in neurobiology and molecular pharmacology as a Muscular Dystrophy Association Fellow with Marshall Nirenberg at the NIH from 1972 to 1974.
Go to Profile#33276
Judy Davis
#33288
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Judith Davis is an Australian actress in film, television, and on stage. With a career spanning over 40 years, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequent collaborator Woody Allen described her as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world". She is the most awarded recipient for the AACTA Award with nine accolades and has received numerous accolades, including three Emmy Awardss, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, and two nominations for Academy Awards.
Go to Profile#33277
Richard Eyre
#33289
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Biography Eyre was born in Barnstaple, Devon, England, the son of Richard Galfridus Hastings Giles Eyre and his wife, Minna Mary Jessica Royds.
Go to Profile#33278
Lindsay Zanno
#33290
Overall Influence
Lindsay E. Zanno is an American vertebrate paleontologist and a leading expert on theropod dinosaurs and Cretaceous paleoecosystems. She is the Head of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University.
Go to Profile#33279
Bryan Kolb
#33291
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Bryan Edward Kolb is a Canadian neuroscientist, neuropsychologist, researcher, author and educator. Kolb's research focuses on the organization and functions of the cerebral cortex. In 1976, Kolb's PhD thesis established the utility of employing rats for study of the prefrontal cortex in medical research. opening up a new venue for non-primate animal research in the prefrontal cortex and accelerating the development of new treatments that help victims of disease and cerebral injury. He was the first to demonstrate how the regrowth of brain cells accompanies restoration of brain function and...
Go to Profile#33280
John H. Gillespie
#33292
Overall Influence
John H. Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist interested in theoretical population genetics and molecular evolution. In molecular evolution, he emphasized the importance of advantageous mutations and balancing selection. For that reason, Gillespie is well known for his selectionist stance in the neutralist-selectionist debate. He is widely considered the main proponent of natural selection in molecular evolution. He had a well-known feud with the father of the neutral theory of molecular evolution, Motoo Kimura, initiated by a 1984 review in Science of Kimura's book in which Gillespie critic...
Go to Profile#33281
Jon David Erickson
#33293
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Jon D. Erickson is an American ecological economist, professor of sustainability science and policy at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources of the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, United States, and fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment.
Go to Profile#33282
Donald Lewis Shaw
#33294
Overall Influence
1936 - 2021 (85 years)
Donald Lewis Shaw , one of the two founding fathers of empirical research on the agenda-setting function of the press, was a social scientist and a Kenan professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was born to Luther and Lowell Shaw on October 27, 1936, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Go to Profile#33283
Sergey Karaganov
#33295
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Sergey Alexandrovich Karaganov is a Russian political scientist who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a security analytical institution founded by Vitaly Shlykov. He is also the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. Karaganov was a close associate of Yevgeny Primakov, and has been Presidential Advisor to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. He is considered close to Putin and Sergey Lavrov.
Go to Profile#33284
Humberto Giannini
#33296
Overall Influence
1927 - 2014 (87 years)
Humberto Giannini Íñiguez was a Chilean philosopher of Italian descent. A disciple and continuator of , he was a member of the Academia Chilena de la Lengua and winner of the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences in 1999.
Go to Profile#33285
Neal Francis Lane
#33297
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Cornelius Francis "Neal" Lane , is an American physicist and senior fellow in science and technology policy at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and Malcolm Gillis University Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy Emeritus at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Go to Profile#33286
Johanna Stachel
#33298
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Johanna Barbara Stachel is a German nuclear physicist. She is a professor in experimental physics at the University of Heidelberg . Stachel is a former president of the German Physical Society . Early life and education Johanna Stachel completed secondary education in 1972 at the Spohn Gymnasium in Ravensburg. She studied physics and chemistry at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and received a degree from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 1978. In 1982 she obtained a doctorate in physics from the same university.
Go to Profile#33287
Tatiana Foroud
#33299
Overall Influence
Tatiana Foroud is a genetic researcher and currently the Joe C. Christian Professor Medical and Molecular Genetics, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#33288
Daniel E. Friedmann
#33300
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Daniel E. Friedmann serves as Carbon Engineering's CEO and Board Chair. Friedmann assumed the role of CEO in January, 2022, having served on CE's board for the previous five years, four of which as Board Chair.
Go to Profile#33289
Moshe Zimmermann
#33301
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Moshe Zimmermann is an Israeli historian and writer. Since 1986 he has been director of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Moshe Zimmerman was born in Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#33290
Gil Scott-Heron
#33302
Overall Influence
1949 - 2011 (62 years)
Gilbert Scott-Heron was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues, and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a "bluesologist", his own term for "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop musi...
Go to Profile#33291
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#33303
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor is a British actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award, with nominations for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Go to Profile#33292
Jozef IJsewijn
#33304
Overall Influence
1932 - 1998 (66 years)
Jozef A. M. K. IJsewijn was a Belgian Latinist. He studied classical philology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he became a professor in 1967. An authority on Neo-Latin literature , IJsewijn has been called "the founding father of modern neo-Latin studies". In 1980, he was awarded the Francqui Prize on Human Sciences. A collection of essays in his memory was published in 2000.
Go to Profile#33293
Wally Szczerbiak
#33305
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Walter Robert "Wally" Szczerbiak Jr. is an American former professional basketball player and current color analyst for the New York Knicks on MSG Network. He played 10 seasons for four teams in the National Basketball Association. Szczerbiak played college basketball for Miami University and is one of five of the university's basketball players whose jerseys have been retired.
Go to Profile#33294
Hélène Landemore
#33306
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Hélène Landemore is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She has a PhD from Harvard University. Her subfield is political theory and she is known for her works on democratic theory. Biography After a childhood spent in Normandy, Landemore began higher studies in Paris at the age of 18. She joined the École Normale and Sciences Po Paris. In 2008 she received a Ph.D. from Harvard University with a thesis on the idea of collective intelligence applied to the justification of democracy.
Go to Profile#33295
Marvin Hamlisch
#33307
Overall Influence
1944 - 2012 (68 years)
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only 18 people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, a feat dubbed the "EGOT". He and composer Richard Rodgers are the only people to have won those prizes and a Pulitzer Prize .
Go to Profile#33296
Yoshimi Osawa
#33308
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
Yoshimi Ōsawa was a Japanese judoka. Before his death, he was the only living Kodokan 10th dan , having been promoted at the New Year Kagami Biraki Ceremony, 8 January 2006 along with Toshiro Daigo and Ichiro Abe.
Go to Profile#33297
Christina Goldschmidt
#33309
Overall Influence
Christina Anna Goldschmidt is a British probabilist known for her work in probability theory including coalescent theory, random minimum spanning trees, and the theory of random graphs. She is professor of probability in the department of statistics, University of Oxford and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Go to Profile#33298
Khursheed Kamal Aziz
#33310
Overall Influence
1927 - 2009 (82 years)
Khursheed Kamal Aziz better known as K. K. Aziz, was a Pakistani historian, admired for his books written in the English Language. However, he also wrote Urdu prose and was a staunch believer in the importance of the Persian language to enhance one's knowledge about the world.
Go to Profile#33299
Samiran Nundy
#33311
Overall Influence
Samiran Nundy is an Indian gastrointestinal surgeon, medical academic, writer and the President of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh. He is a former member of the faculty at the Cambridge University, London University and Harvard University, and is the founder editor of the National Medical Journal of India and Tropical Gastroenterology. The Government of India awarded him the fourth-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1985.
Go to Profile#33300
Constantijn Kortmann
#33312
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
Constantinus Albertus Josephus Maria "Constantijn" Kortmann was a Dutch professor of constitutional law. Kortmann was born in Groesbeek. In 1967, he obtained his doctoral’s degree in Dutch Law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. In 1964, he studied the French language for half a year at the Institut Catholique in Paris, France. After his degree he pursued his study of the French language, as well as French public law, for another year at the University of Poitiers. In 1976, he obtained his doctor's degree at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. From 1976 to 1981, Kortmann was a professor...
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