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
#33751
Matthew Barnett Robinson
#33763
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#33752
Michael Taylor
#33764
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Michael Taylor is professor-emeritus at the University of Washington. Taylor completed his PhD at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. He has taught at Essex and at Yale University and has held visiting positions at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford University, the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna, the European University Institute in Florence, and at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Go to Profile#33753
Gisela Kaplan
#33765
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Gisela Kaplan is an Australian ethologist who primarily specialises in ornithology and primatology. She is a professor emeritus in animal behaviour at the University of New England, Australia, and also honorary professor of the Queensland Brain Institute.
Go to Profile#33754
Armen Harutyunyan
#33766
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Armen Harutyunyan is the former ombudsman of Armenia and Regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Central Asia. He took office in February 2011. In 2015, he was elected Judge at the European Court of Human Rights and is a judge since 17 December 2015. Armen Harutyunyan is the author of more than 70 scientific works. He is married and has two children.
Go to Profile#33755
Susan Gottesman
#33767
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Susan Gottesman is a microbiologist at the National Cancer Institute , which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Gottesman has been the editor of the Annual Review of Microbiology since 2008.
Go to Profile#33756
George B. Purdy
#33768
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
George Barry Purdy was a mathematician and computer scientist who specialized in cryptography, combinatorial geometry and number theory. Purdy received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1972, officially under the supervision of Paul T. Bateman, but his de facto adviser was Paul Erdős. He was on the faculty in the mathematics department at Texas A&M University for 11 years, and was appointed the Geier Professor of computer science at the University of Cincinnati in 1986.
Go to Profile#33757
Michael P. Kube-McDowell
#33769
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael Paul Kube-McDowell , also known as Michael McDowell or Michael P. McDowell, is an American science fiction and non-fiction author. Background Born Michael Paul McDowell on August 29, 1954 , he attended St. Joseph's High School and Michigan State University.
Go to Profile#33758
Adriano Celentano
#33770
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Adriano Celentano is an Italian musician, singer, composer, actor, and filmmaker. He is dubbed il Molleggiato because of his dancing. Celentano's many albums frequently enjoyed both commercial and critical success. With around 150 million records sold worldwide, he is the second best-selling Italian musical artist. Often credited as the author of both the music and lyrics of his songs, according to his wife Claudia Mori, some were written in collaboration with others. Due to his prolific career, both in Italy and abroad, he is considered one of the pillars of Italian music. Celentano is rec...
Go to Profile#33759
Hellmut Flashar
#33771
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Hellmut Flashar was a German classical philologist and translator. Life and career Flashar was born in Hamburg on 3 December 1929. As a professor, he taught at the University of Bochum and the University of Munich .
Go to Profile#33760
Yang Kuan
#33772
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Yang Kuan , styled Kuanzheng , was a Chinese historian specializing in pre-Qin Dynasty Chinese history. He is considered an authority of the Warring States period, and his History of the Warring States, first published in 1955, remains the most authoritative treatment of the subject.
Go to Profile#33761
Yoshinori Fujikawa
#33773
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Yoshinori Fujikawa is a Japanese academic and economist. He is an Associate Vice President at Hitotsubashi University, and serves as Associate Professor and MBA Program Director at Hitotsubashi University Business School, School of International Corporate Strategy .
Go to Profile#33762
Gary Libecap
#33774
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gary Don Libecap is a Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara. Libecap is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; a research fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, and a member of the Research Group on Political Institutions and Economic Policy, Harvard University. He was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge U...
Go to Profile#33763
Dave Cliff
#33775
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
David T. Cliff is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol and was formerly the Director of the UK Large-scale Complex IT Systems Initiative. Cliff is the inventor of the seminal "ZIP" trading algorithm, one of the first of the current generation of autonomous adaptive algorithmic trading systems, which was demonstrated to outperform human traders in research published in 2001 by IBM. He is also the inventor on multiple international patents from the early 2000s concerning his invention hpDJ, the world's first fully automated disk-jockey system for ele...
Go to Profile#33764
Francis Fontan
#33776
Overall Influence
1929 - 2018 (89 years)
Francis Fontan was a French cardiologist and cardiothoracic surgeon best known for developing the Fontan procedure, a surgical procedure used to treat some forms of congenital heart disease. Early life and education Fontan was born on 2 July 1929 in Nay, a small town in the French Pyrenees. He was the son of Victor Fontan and his wife Jeanne . Fontan's father was a cyclist who was leading the 1929 Tour de France before his bicycle was damaged in an accident, forcing him to withdraw from the race.
Go to Profile#33765
Faye Ginsburg
#33777
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Faye Ginsburg is an American anthropologist who has devoted her life to the exploration of different cultures and individuals’ styles of life. Ginsburg has published ethnographies about her fieldwork experiences in the U.S., Canada and Australia. The intercultural connections in her ethnographies have contributed to the fields of anthropology and sociology because they allow readers to understand other cultures through her narratives. Currently, she is an anthropology professor at New York University and the director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at NYU.
Go to Profile#33766
Jane Lynch
#33778
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jane Marie Lynch is an American actress, comedian, and singer. She is known for starring as Sue Sylvester in the musical comedy series Glee , which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. Lynch also gained recognition for her roles in Christopher Guest's mockumentary films: Best in Show , A Mighty Wind , and For Your Consideration .
Go to Profile#33767
Panos Ipeirotis
#33779
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis is a professor and George A. Kellner Faculty Fellow at the Department of Technology, Operations, and Statistics at Leonard N. Stern School of Business of New York University.
Go to Profile#33768
Gregory Loewen
#33780
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Gregory Victor Loewen is a Canadian social philosopher in the traditions of hermeneutics and phenomenology. The author of over thirty scholarly non-fiction books as well as over twenty works of fiction, he is age-relative one of a number of modern period academic writers to have produced a significant body of work early in their careers, along with Herder, de Bono, Spir, Joad, Aguilera, and Schelling.
Go to Profile#33769
Park Ji-sung
#33781
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Park Ji-sung is a South Korean former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Born in the South Korean capital Seoul, Park is one of the most successful Asian players in football history, having won 19 trophies in his career. He is the first Asian footballer to have won the UEFA Champions League, to play in a UEFA Champions League final, as well as the first Asian to have won the FIFA Club World Cup. Park was able to play anywhere across the midfield and was noted for his exceptional fitness level, discipline, work ethic and off-the-ball movement. His remarkable endurance levels e...
Go to Profile#33770
Valentin Aleskovsky
#33782
Overall Influence
1912 - 2006 (94 years)
Valentin Borisovich Aleskovsky was a Soviet and Russian scientist and administrator known for his pioneering research on surface reactions underpinning the thin film deposition technique that years later became known as atomic layer deposition. He was the rector of Leningrad Technological Institute and of Leningrad State University .
Go to Profile#33771
Chino Moreno
#33783
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Camillo "Chino" Wong Moreno is an American musician who is best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the metal band Deftones. He is also a member of the side-project groups Team Sleep, Crosses, and Palms.
Go to Profile#33772
Theodore Ziolkowski
#33784
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Theodore Ziolkowski was a scholar in the fields of German studies and comparative literature. He coined the term "fifth gospel genre". Early life Theodore J. Ziolkowski was born on September 30, 1932, in Birmingham, Alabama, to Cecilia and Mieczysław Ziółkowski, second-generation and first-generation Polish immigrants to the United States. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1951, a Master of Arts from Duke University in 1952 and, following studies at the University of Innsbruck on a Fulbright Fellowship, his Ph.D from Yale University in 1957.
Go to Profile#33773
Melvin Moss
#33785
Overall Influence
1923 - 2006 (83 years)
Melvin Lionel Moss was an American dentist known for creating the functional matrix hypothesis for growth and development. He was an anatomist and former dean of Columbia University College of Dental Medicine.
Go to Profile#33774
Elliott Smith
#33786
Overall Influence
1969 - 2003 (34 years)
Steven Paul Smith , known professionally as Elliott Smith, was an American musician and singer-songwriter. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he gained popularity. Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he also played piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica. He had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and often used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies.
Go to Profile#33775
Curt Hennig
#33787
Overall Influence
1958 - 2003 (45 years)
Curtis Michael Hennig , better known by the ring name Mr. Perfect, was an American professional wrestler. He performed under his real name for promotions including the American Wrestling Association , the World Wrestling Federation , World Championship Wrestling , and NWA Total Nonstop Action. Hennig was the son of wrestler Larry "The Axe" Hennig and the father of wrestler Curtis Axel.
Go to Profile#33776
Pierre Milman
#33788
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Pierre D. Milman , born 1945 in Odessa, is a mathematician and a professor at the University of Toronto. Milman graduated with a B.A. from the University of Moscow in 1967. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Tel Aviv in 1975 after an interlude of several years as researcher at the Institute of Chemical Physics and then Solid State Physics in Moscow.
Go to Profile#33777
Shumon Miura
#33789
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
was a Japanese novelist. He attended the University of Tokyo, and upon graduation joined the staff of the literary magazine Shin-Shicho in 1950. The next year, Miura published his first book. He then married fellow Third Generation writer Ayako Sono in 1953, with whom he wrote many books about Catholicism and religion. Miura began teaching at Nihon University in 1967, the same year he was awarded the Shinchosha Prize. From 1985 to 1986, he was commissioner of the Cultural Affairs Agency. In 1999, the Japanese government designated Miura a Person of Cultural Merit. In 2004, Miura was appointed to lead the Japan Art Academy.
Go to Profile#33778
Michel Seymour
#33790
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michel Seymour is a Canadian philosopher from Quebec and a professor at the Université de Montréal, where he has been teaching analytical philosophy since 1990. Biography After having obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières in 1986, he continued to study in the same field for several years at the Oxford University under the direction of John McDowell and at the University of California, Los Angeles under the direction of Tyler Burge. He was president of the Société de philosophie du Québec from 1994 to 1996.
Go to Profile#33779
Jeffrey Hoffstein
#33791
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jeffrey Ezra Hoffstein is an American mathematician, specializing in number theory, automorphic forms, and cryptography. Education and career Hoffstein graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1974 from Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with thesis Class numbers of totally complex quadratic extensions of totally real fields under the supervision of Harold Stark. Hoffstein was a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study and then at the University of Cambridge. From 1980 to 1982 he was an assistant professor at Brown University. From 1982 he was an assistant professor and then an associate professor at the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#33780
Wim Crusio
#33792
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Wim E. Crusio is a Dutch behavioral neurogeneticist and a directeur de recherche with the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Talence, France. Education and career Crusio received his bachelor's degree in biology from Radboud University Nijmegen in 1975, where he went on to obtain a master's degree and then a PhD in 1979 and 1984, respectively. His Anubias revision, which was originally published in 1979, was translated in German and continues to engender interest. For his PhD thesis, Crusio studied the inheritance of the effects of anosmia on exploratory behavior of mice, and ...
Go to Profile#33781
Susan Saegert
#33793
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Susan Camille Saegert , Guadalupe, Texas is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She was previously Professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.
Go to Profile#33782
Lilian Silburn
#33794
Overall Influence
1908 - 1993 (85 years)
Lilian Silburn was a French Indologist specialising in Kashmir Shaivism, Tantra and Buddhism. Silburn studied philosophy and Indology under Paul Masson-Oursel and others. During World War II, she joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research and remained associated with it since. Her students included André Padoux.
Go to Profile#33783
Michael S. Harper
#33795
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Michael Steven Harper was an American poet and English professor at Brown University, who was the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993. His poetry was influenced by jazz and history. Among the influences which shaped his writing, he said that the most important lesson he learned from musicians was phrasing, the authenticity of phrasing, and the transcendence and spiritual mastery. He published ten books of poetry, two of which—Dear John, Dear Coltrane and Images of Kin —were nominated for the National Book Award. Many of his poems have been included as examples of African-America...
Go to Profile#33784
Utpal Dholakia
#33796
Overall Influence
Utpal Dholakia is an Indian American researcher and professor. He is the George R. Brown Professor of Marketing at the Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University, and the founder of marketing insights consultancy, Empyrean Insights.
Go to Profile#33785
Michael Daniels
#33797
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Dr Michael Daniels is a British transpersonal psychologist and parapsychologist. A Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, he was formerly a senior lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University and Editor of Psychology Review .
Go to Profile#33786
Raymond Arsenault
#33798
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Raymond Ostby Arsenault is an American historian and academic in Florida, United States of America. He has taught at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg campus since 1980 and is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and co-director of the Florida Studies Program . Arsenault is a specialist in the political, social, and environmental history of the American South.
Go to Profile#33787
Eduardo Chillida
#33799
Overall Influence
1924 - 2002 (78 years)
Eduardo Chillida Juantegui, or Eduardo Txillida Juantegi in Basque , was a Spanish Basque sculptor notable for his monumental abstract works. Early life and career Born in San Sebastián to Pedro Chillida and the soprano Carmen Juantegui on 10 January 1924. Eduardo Chillida grew up near hotel Biarritz, which was owned by his grandparents. Chillida had been the goalkeeper for Real Sociedad, San Sebastián's La Liga football team, where his knee was so seriously injured that he had five surgeries, ending a promising football career. He then studied architecture at the University of Madrid from 1943 to 1946.
Go to Profile#33788
Jay Appleton
#33800
Overall Influence
1919 - 2015 (96 years)
Jay Appleton was a British geographer who proposed "habitat theory" and advanced the notion of "prospect-refuge". Biography Appleton was born in Yorkshire in December 1919. He moved to Stibbard, near Fakenham in Norfolk, at the age of eighteen months. In 1940, he moved south to Diss, but ten years later a university appointment took him back to Yorkshire, and he lived in Cottingham until his death.
Go to Profile#33789
Tinglong Dai
#33801
Overall Influence
Tinglong Dai is a Professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at the Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, with expertise in the areas of healthcare analytics, global supply chains, the interfaces between marketing and operations, and human–AI interaction. Dai's research primarily examines the health care ecosystem using analytics approaches, with a focus on behavioral, incentive, and policy issues related to healthcare operations management.
Go to Profile#33790
Richard E. Barlow
#33802
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Richard Eugene Barlow is an American mathematician and mathematical statistician, who is considered with Frank Proschan as the founder of modern reliability theory. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1963 until his retirement in 1999.
Go to Profile#33791
John Connelly
#33803
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
John Connelly is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include modern East and Central European history, comparative education and the history of nationalism.
Go to Profile#33792
Arjun Rampal
#33804
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Arjun Rampal is an Indian actor, model, film producer and television personality who works in Hindi films. He made his acting debut in Rajiv Rai's romance film Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat and has since gone on to act in more than 40 films. He has received several awards including the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Rock On!!.
Go to Profile#33793
Yona Harvey
#33805
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Yona Harvey is an American poet and assistant professor at University of Pittsburgh. She won the 2014 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is also an author of Marvel Comics' World of Wakanda, becoming one of the first two black women writing for Marvel.
Go to Profile#33794
Mehmet Altan
#33806
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Mehmet Hasan Altan is a Turkish academic economist, journalist, and author of over 25 books. Describing himself as a "Marxist-liberal", he is the originator of the term "Second Republic", arguing that Turkey needs to reconstitute its republic as a true democracy. He is a strong supporter of the Accession of Turkey to the European Union.
Go to Profile#33795
John Talbot Robinson
#33807
Overall Influence
1923 - 2001 (78 years)
John Talbot Robinson FRSSAf was a distinguished South African hominin paleontologist. His most famous discovery was the nearly complete fossil skull of the hominin species Australopithecus africanus, known as Mrs. Ples.
Go to Profile#33796
Trevor Allan
#33808
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Trevor Robert Seaward Allan, LLD is Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He is known for challenging constitutional orthodoxy in the United Kingdom, particularly in his redefinition of the scope of parliamentary sovereignty.
Go to Profile#33797
Nari Ward
#33809
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Nari Ward is an American artist based in New York City. He is a distinguished professor and head of studio art at Hunter College. His work is often composed of found objects from his neighborhood, and "address issues related to consumer culture, poverty, and race". His awards include the Vilcek Prize in Fine Arts in 2017, and the Rome Prize in 2012.
Go to Profile#33798
David A. Moss
#33810
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#33799
Lena Dunham
#33811
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Lena Dunham is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls , for which she received several Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. Dunham also directed several episodes of Girls and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series. Prior to Girls, Dunham wrote, directed, and starred in the semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture , for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. Her second feature film, Sharp Stick, written and directed by Dunham, was released in 2022.
Go to Profile#33800
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy
#33812
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy was one of the founding feminists of the field of women's studies and is a lesbian historian whose book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: A History of the Lesbian Community documents the lesbian community of Buffalo, New York, in the decades before Stonewall.
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