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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Clear Form

List of the most influential people

#33851

Ray Jayawardhana

#33863
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ray Jayawardhana is the Harold Tanner Dean of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences and a Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, effective September 1, 2018. He was formerly Dean of Science and a Professor of physics & astronomy at York University. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Michigan. In July of 2023, Johns Hopkins University announced that Jayawardhana had been selected as its 16th provost. An award-winning science writer, his primary research areas include the formation and early evolution of stars, brown dwarfs and planets.
Go to Profile
#33852

Robert J. Schoelkopf

Robert J. Schoelkopf
#33864
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Robert J. Schoelkopf III is an American physicist, most noted for his work on quantum computing as one of the inventors of superconducting qubits. Schoelkopf's main research areas are quantum transport, single-electron devices, and charge dynamics in nanostructures. His research utilizes quantum-effect and single-electron devices, both for fundamental physical studies and for applications. Techniques often include high-speed, high-sensitivity measurements performed on nanostructures at low temperatures. Schoelkopf serves as director of the Yale Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures and as associate director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering.
Go to Profile
#33853

Julia Michaels

#33865
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (33 years)
Julia Carin Michaels is an American singer and songwriter. She has received five Grammy Award nominations, including Song of the Year and Best New Artist, as well as nominations from MTV Video Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and American Music Awards.
Go to Profile
#33854

William McNeill

#33866
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
William McNeill is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. Career and work McNeill was educated at the University of Essex, and he is now teaching Heidegger at DePaul University. He is a translator of the work of Martin Heidegger, about whom he has written two books. The Glance of the Eye closely examines the relation between Heidegger's thought and Greek philosophy, in particular his relation to Aristotle. The Time of Life is an examination of the implications of Heidegger's thought for ethics.
Go to Profile
#33855

Lee Konitz

#33867
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Leon "Lee" Konitz was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s includes participation in Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool sessions and his work with pianist Lennie Tristano. He was one of relatively few alto saxophonists of this era to retain a distinctive style, when Charlie Parker exerted a massive influence. Like other students of Tristano, Konitz improvised long, melodic lines with the rhythmic interest co...
Go to Profile
#33856

Mei-Chi Shaw

#33868
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Mei-Chi Shaw is a professor of mathematics at the University of Notre Dame. Her research concerns partial differential equations. Life and career Shaw was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1955. She graduated with an undergraduate degree in mathematics from National Taiwan University in 1977. Shaw received her PhD from Princeton University four years later in 1981, working with Joseph Kohn. She then took a postdoctoral position at Purdue University During this time, she married her husband, Hsueh-Chia Chang. In 1983, Shaw took a tenure-track position at Texas A&M University, moving to University of H...
Go to Profile
#33857

Chad Kroeger

Chad Kroeger
#33869
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Chad Robert Kroeger is a Canadian musician who is the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Nickelback. In addition to his work with Nickelback, Kroeger has been involved with a variety of collaborations, appearing as a guest musician in several songs and has contributed in both production and songwriting. He has co-written several songs for other artists and films.
Go to Profile
#33858

Sarah Charlesworth

Sarah Charlesworth
#33870
Overall Influence
1947 - 2013 (66 years)
Sarah Edwards Charlesworth was an American conceptual artist and photographer. She is considered part of The Pictures Generation, a loose-knit group of artists working in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s, all of whom were concerned with how images shape our everyday lives and society as a whole.
Go to Profile
#33859

Costas Simitis

#33871
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Constantine G. Simitis is a Greek retired politician who led the 'Modernization' movement of Greece. He succeeded in leadership Andreas Papandreou, the founder of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement , and served as Prime Minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004.
Go to Profile
#33860

Uta Merzbach

#33872
Overall Influence
1933 - 2017 (84 years)
Uta Caecilia Merzbach was a German-American historian of mathematics who became the first curator of mathematical instruments at the Smithsonian Institution. Early life Merzbach was born in Berlin, where her mother was a philologist and her father was an economist who worked for the Reich Association of Jews in Germany during World War II. The Nazi government closed the association in June 1943; they arrested the family, along with other leading members of the association, and sent them to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on August 4, 1943. The Merzbachs survived the war and the camp, an...
Go to Profile
#33861

Hank Foley

#33873
Overall Influence
Henry C. "Hank" Foley is the current president of New York Institute of Technology, serving since June 1, 2017. Education Foley earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Providence College, a master's degree in chemistry from Purdue University, and doctorate in physical and inorganic chemistry from Penn State. He did his postdoc in chemical engineering at University of Delaware.
Go to Profile
#33862

Adam Watson

#33874
Overall Influence
1914 - 2007 (93 years)
John Hugh "Adam" Watson was a British International relations theorist and researcher. Alongside Hedley Bull, Martin Wight, Herbert Butterfield, and others, he was one of the founding members of the English school of international relations theory.
Go to Profile
#33863

Rich Rodriguez

#33875
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Richard Alan Rodriguez , also known as Rich Rod, is an American college football coach and former player. He is the head football coach at Jacksonville State University, a position he has held since the 2022 season. Rodriguez previously was the head football coach at Salem University , Glenville State College , West Virginia University , the University of Michigan , and the University of Arizona . His career college football coaching record stands at 172–121–2. In 2011, Rodriguez worked as an analyst for CBS Sports.
Go to Profile
#33864

Jacques Genest

#33876
Overall Influence
1919 - 2018 (99 years)
Jacques Genest was a Canadian physician and scientist. He founded the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal and was an emeritus professor at Université de Montréal and a professor at McGill University. Genest was best known for founding and leading several organizations related to clinical research in Québec and for his work on arterial hypertension.
Go to Profile
#33865

Peter Dicken

Peter Dicken
#33877
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Peter Dicken is an economic geographer whose research focuses on processes and patterns in globalisation. He joined the University of Manchester in 1966 after completing an MA there. He is currently an emeritus professor at the same university, to which he has dedicated his academic life, continuing research on global patterns of business and globalisation. His self-described area is "the changing multi-scalar geographies of the global economy and on the structures and dynamics of global production networks, particularly the relationships between transnational corporations and states".
Go to Profile
#33866

Manil Suri

Manil Suri
#33878
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Manil Suri is an Indian-American mathematician and writer of a trilogy of novels all named for Hindu gods. His first novel, The Death of Vishnu , which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize, short-listed for the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize that year. Since then, he has published two more novels, The Age of Shiva and The City of Devi , completing the trilogy.
Go to Profile
#33867

Bob Lanier

Bob Lanier
#33879
Overall Influence
1948 - 2022 (74 years)
Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. was an American professional basketball player. He played center for the Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association . Lanier was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Go to Profile
#33868

Kwame Bediako

Kwame Bediako
#33880
Overall Influence
1945 - 2008 (63 years)
Kwame Bediako , also known as Manasseh Kwame Dakwa Bediako, was a Ghanaian Christian theologian and Rector for the Akrofi-Christaller Institute for Theology, Mission and Culture in Akropong, Ghana. Biography Bediako was born in Akropong, Ghana and, as the son of a police inspector, grew up in a Police Training Depot in Accra. Due to this upbringing, he learned and spoke his mother tongue of Twi and the Accra language Ga.
Go to Profile
#33869

Stephen H. Crandall

#33881
Overall Influence
1920 - 2013 (93 years)
Stephen Harry Crandall was a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. He earned his master's degree in engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and his Ph.D. from MIT. He joined the MIT faculty in 1946 and taught dynamics and strength of materials until his retirement in 1991. He was a prolific author of texts in solid mechanics, numerical methods, and random vibration. His mentor at MIT was J. P. Den Hartog. He was awarded the Timoshenko Medal in 1990 "in recognition of distinguished contributions to the field of applied mechanics." He was elected to the...
Go to Profile
#33870

Sal Paolantonio

Sal Paolantonio
#33882
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Salvatore Anthony Nicholas Paolantonio is a Philadelphia-based bureau reporter for ESPN. Since joining ESPN in 1995, Paolantonio has become a staple in their NFL coverage, as he contributes to shows such as SportsCenter, NFL Live, Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown . In 2004, he added studio work to his duties, replacing Suzy Kolber as the host of NFL Matchup, an X's and O's football show; joining him are Louis Riddick and Greg Cosell. His best known work for ESPN was his coverage of the Terrell Owens saga with the Philadelphia Eagles during the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Paolantonio has also been an adjunct professor at St.
Go to Profile
#33871

Heinrich Fichtenau

#33883
Overall Influence
1912 - 2000 (88 years)
Heinrich von Fichtenau was an Austrian medievalist best known for his studies of medieval diplomatics, social, and intellectual history. He spent his academic career at the University of Vienna and from 1962 to 1983 served as director of the Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung . Many of Fichtenau's books were translated into English and he remains one of the few Austrian medievalists of the postwar period whose work has enjoyed a broad and influential reception in Anglophone scholarship.
Go to Profile
#33872

Michael Krasny

Michael Krasny
#33884
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael Jay Krasny is a professor and retired American radio host of Forum, a news and public affairs program on San Francisco public radio station KQED-FM, covering current events, politics, and culture from 1993 to 2021. Additionally, Krasny is currently a professor of English literature at San Francisco State University.
Go to Profile
#33873

Harley Parker

#33885
Overall Influence
1915 - 1992 (77 years)
Harley Parker was a Canadian artist, designer, curator, professor and scholar - a frequent collaborator with fellow Canadian and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. Parker specialized in watercolour painting, and exhibited internationally. He was awarded numerous grants over his life, including two Canada Council Grants, and a British Council of the Arts Grant. He lectured all over the world, was published internationally, and collaborated closely with manifold scholars and thinkers, McLuhan among them.
Go to Profile
#33874

Martine Nida-Rümelin

#33886
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Martine Nida-Rümelin is a philosopher. Biography Nida-Rümelin studied philosophy, psychology, mathematics and political science at the University of Munich. In her doctoral thesis, she discusses the knowledge argument, by the Australian philosopher Frank Jackson, which is directed against a materialist conception of phenomenal consciousness. In it she presents one of the most important arguments, which is based on qualia, i.e., individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.
Go to Profile
#33875

Richard Primus

#33887
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Richard Abraham Primus is an American legal scholar. He currently teaches United States constitutional law at the University of Michigan Law School, where he is Theodore J. St. Antoine Collegiate Professor of Law. In 2008, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on the relationship between history and constitutional interpretation.
Go to Profile
#33876

Mas Subramanian

Mas Subramanian
#33888
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mas Subramanian, , is a solid-state materials scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. He is a University Distinguished Professor and the Milton Harris Chair of Materials Science in the university's Department of Chemistry. His work in solid-state chemistry on structure-property relationships of inorganic compounds has led to several breakthrough discoveries of novel functional materials, many of which have found usage in various applications. Subramanian has authored 400 research publications and holds 60 patents. His publications have received more than 30,000 citations .
Go to Profile
#33877

Robert O. Ritchie

Robert O. Ritchie
#33889
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Robert Oliver Ritchie is the H.T. and Jessie Chua Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and senior faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Go to Profile
#33878

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

#33890
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Carl-Ulrik Schierup is a Swedish Professor of Ethnicity at Linköping University. Schierup was born in Aarhus, Denmark. He concluded his doctoral studies in socioanthropology in 1977 at Aarhus University . In 1988 he completed a doctoral degree in sociology at Umeå University, in Sweden. At the South Jutland University Centre, Denmark, and at Umeå University he directed major research programmes on migration and ethnic relations. In 1999 he was appointed professor of labour and ethnic studies at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life and Linköping University. He is director of the I...
Go to Profile
#33879

William Ashbrook

#33891
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
William Ashbrook was an American musicologist, writer, journalist, and academic. He was perhaps best noted as a historian, researcher and popularizer of the works of Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti.
Go to Profile
#33880

Nora Decter

#33892
Overall Influence
Nora Decter is an instructor at the University of Winnipeg and an award-winning author. She won the 2019 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for fiction for her novel How Far We Go and How Fast. The Kobo Prize comes with a $10,000 cash award.
Go to Profile
#33881

Jean-Claude Hollerich

Jean-Claude Hollerich
#33893
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J. is a Luxembourger prelate of the Catholic Church, who has served as the Archbishop of Luxembourg since 2011. He was the president of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union from March 2018 to 2023.
Go to Profile
#33882

Derek Attridge

#33894
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Derek Attridge FBA is a South African-born British academic in the field of English literature. He is Emeritus Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York, having retired from the university in 2016, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Attridge undertakes research in South African literature, James Joyce, modern fiction, deconstruction and literary theory and the history and performance of poetry. He is the author or editor of thirty books, and has published eighty articles in essay collections and a similar number in journals. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship...
Go to Profile
#33883

Zach Galifianakis

Zach Galifianakis
#33895
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Zachary Knight Galifianakis is an American comedian and actor. In film, Galifianakis played Alan in The Hangover trilogy . He hosted the Funny or Die talk show Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis . On television, he starred in the FX series Baskets , which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2017.
Go to Profile
#33884

Michael H. Albert

#33896
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Michael Henry Albert is a mathematician and computer scientist, originally from Canada, and currently a professor in the computer science department at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His varied research interests include combinatorics and combinatorial game theory.
Go to Profile
#33885

Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Anderson
#33897
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if...., which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut. He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, Never Apologize.
Go to Profile
#33886

Martha Stout

#33898
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Martha Stout is an American psychologist and author. Education, training, and career Stout completed her professional training in psychology at the McLean Psychiatric Hospital and obtained her Ph.D. at Stony Brook University. She served on the clinical faculty of the Harvard Medical School for over 25 years and also served on the academic faculties of The New School for Social Research, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and Wellesley College. She writes on the subjects of conscience, character, and integrated awareness. Her work in psychology and cultural commentary has appeared in The Boston Globe and HuffPost, and she is a contributing writer for The New Republic.
Go to Profile
#33887

Berrick Saul

#33899
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Samuel Berrick Saul was Vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1979 to 1993. Saul was born 30 October 1924 in West Bromwich and educated at West Bromwich Grammar School. After National Service in the British Army he studied at the University of Birmingham, where he obtained a B.Com in 1949 and PhD in 1953. His academic career began at the University of Liverpool and he was also a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar to the USA. Moving to the University of Edinburgh, he rose to become Professor of Economic History and head of the department of Economics, then Vice-Principal and Acting Princ...
Go to Profile
#33888

Fred Berlin

#33900
Overall Influence
Frederick "Fred" Saul Berlin is an American psychiatrist and sexologist specializing in sex offenses. Life and career Berlin studied psychology, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, a master's degree from Fordham University in 1966, and a Ph.D. from Dalhousie University in 1972. He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Dalhousie in 1974. Following a clerkship at Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was an intern at McGill University School of Medicine, Jewish General Hospital, and Children's Hospital in Montreal. He completed a psychiatric r...
Go to Profile
#33889

Michael Jackson

#33901
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Michael D. Jackson is a New Zealand poet and anthropologist who has taught in anthropology departments at Massey University, the Australian National University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Copenhagen. He is currently distinguished professor of world religions at Harvard Divinity School.
Go to Profile
#33890

John McVie

#33902
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Graham McVie is a British bass guitarist. He is best known as a member of the rock bands John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers from 1964 to 1967 and Fleetwood Mac since 1967. His surname, combined with that of drummer Mick Fleetwood, was the source for the band's name.
Go to Profile
#33891

Daniel J. Drucker

Daniel J. Drucker
#33903
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Daniel Joshua Drucker is a Canadian endocrinologist. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he is a professor of medicine at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto. He is known for his research into intestinal hormones and their use in the treatment of diabetes and other metabolic diseases.
Go to Profile
#33892

Klaus Blaum

#33904
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Klaus Blaum is a German physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. Life and scientific work Blaum studied physics at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany. After his physics diploma in 1997 and several research visits at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, US, he graduated in 2000 as Doctor rerum naturalium in physics. From 2000 to 2002 he was postdoctoral research associate of GSI Darmstadt and until 2004 Research Associate at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN, Geneva, Switzerland and Project Leader for "Mass spectrometry of exotic nuclides with ISOLTRAP" at ISOLDE.
Go to Profile
#33893

Uldis Ģērmanis

#33905
Overall Influence
1915 - 1997 (82 years)
Uldis Ģērmanis was a Latvian historian, writer and publicist born in Novaya Ladoga, Russian Empire. His father was Jānis Ģermanis, and his family returned to the newly independent Latvia in 1919.
Go to Profile
#33894

Iain Dowie

#33906
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Iain Dowie is a football manager, former professional footballer and sports television pundit. He played as a striker from 1983 until 2001, notably in the Premier League for Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Ham United. He earned 59 caps for Northern Ireland, scoring 12 goals. He also played in the Football League for Luton Town, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers, and in Non-league for Cheshunt, St Albans City and Hendon.
Go to Profile
#33895

Daniel C. Esty

#33907
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Daniel C. Esty is an American environmental lawyer and policymaker. He is the Hillhouse professor at Yale University with appointments at Yale Law School and the Yale School of the Environment. From 2011 to 2014, Esty served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He launched a series of renewable power and energy efficiency finance programs, including Connecticut's first-in-the-nation Green bank and statewide property assessed clean energy finance system.
Go to Profile
#33896

Andrew Ogg

Andrew Ogg
#33908
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Andrew Pollard Ogg is an American mathematician, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. Education Ogg was a student at Bowling Green State University in the mid 1950s. Ogg received his Ph.D. in 1961 from Harvard University under the supervision of John Tate.
Go to Profile
#33897

Richard L. Burger

#33909
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Richard Lewis Burger, Ph.D. , is an archaeologist and anthropologist from the United States. He is currently a professor at Yale University and holds the positions of Charles J. MacCurdy Professor in the Anthropology Department, Chair of the Council on Archaeological Studies, and Curator in the Division of Anthropology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He has carried out archaeological excavations in the Peruvian Andes since 1975, publishing several books and many articles on Chavin culture, a pre-Hispanic civilization that developed in the northern Andean highlands of Peru from 1000 BC to 400 BC.
Go to Profile
#33898

Kate O'Regan

#33910
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
Go to Profile
#33899

Torbjörn Sjöstrand

#33911
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Torbjörn Sjöstrand is a Swedish theoretical physicist and a professor at Lund University in Sweden, where he also got his PhD in 1982. He is one of the main authors of PYTHIA, a program for generation of high-energy physics events.
Go to Profile
#33900

F. Gordon A. Stone

F. Gordon A. Stone
#33912
Overall Influence
1925 - 2011 (86 years)
Francis Gordon Albert Stone CBE, FRS, FRSC , always known as Gordon, was a British chemist who was a prolific and decorated scholar. He specialized in the synthesis of main group and transition metal organometallic compounds. He was the author of more than 900 academic publications resulting in an h-index of 72 in 2011.
Go to Profile