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
#33901
Milo Đukanović
#33913
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Milo Đukanović is a Montenegrin politician who served as the President of Montenegro from 2018 to 2023, previously serving in the role from 1998 to 2002. He also served as the Prime Minister of Montenegro and was the long-term president of the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro, originally the Montenegrin branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which governed Montenegro alone or in a coalition from the introduction of multi-party politics in the early 1990s until its defeat in the 2020 parliamentary election. He is the longest-ruling contemporary politician in Europe, having held key positions in the country for over 33 years.
Go to Profile#33902
Herbert Lochs
#33914
Overall Influence
1946 - 2015 (69 years)
Prof. Herbert Lochs, MD was a prominent German and Austrian medical doctor and scientist. After graduating from the University of Innsbruck Medical School, Austria he completed his residency at the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Innsbruck. Then he moved to Vienna for the internship in internal medicine and became Assistant professor for internal medicine and gastroenterology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna in 1973. He received Board Accreditation for Internal Medicine by the Austrian Medical Association.
Go to Profile#33903
Deborah Prentice
#33915
Overall Influence
Deborah A. Prentice is an American scholar of psychology and university administrator. She serves as the vice-chancellor at Cambridge University. She previously served as provost at Princeton University and Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs.
Go to Profile#33904
Margot Sunderland
#33916
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Margot Sunderland is a British child psychologist and psychotherapist. She is Director of Education and Training at the Centre for Child Mental Health and Honorary Visiting Fellow at London Metropolitan University at London Metropolitan University. She has been working with families and children for over 30 years. She is the author of over twenty books in the field of child mental health, which collectively have been translated into eighteen languages and published in 24 countries.
Go to Profile#33905
Rafael Donato
#33917
Overall Influence
1938 - 2006 (68 years)
Brother Rafael S. Donato, F.S.C., was a Filipino De La Salle Brother and a President of De La Salle University Manila, University of St. La Salle, De La Salle Lipa, La Salle Green Hills and De La Salle Araneta University.
Go to Profile#33906
Frank Ruddle
#33918
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
Francis Hugh Ruddle was an American cell and developmental biologist who was the Sterling Professor at Yale University. Ruddle was an early visionary of the Human Genome Project and created the first genetically modified mouse. He was a pioneer in both human and mouse genetics.
Go to Profile#33907
Stefan Inglot
#33919
Overall Influence
1902 - 1994 (92 years)
Stefan Inglot was a Polish historian and a cooperative activist. He graduated from the Lwów University. At the same university he gained PhD in 1926 and passed his habilitation in history in 1932. He was professor on the Lwów University since 1939. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II he became principal of the Underground University of Lwów, accidentally jailed.
Go to Profile#33908
Craig S. Keener
#33920
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Craig S. Keener is a North American academic, Biblical scholar and professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. Biography Early Life Keener was born on 4 July 1960. Education In 1982, Keener got his B.A. from the Central Bible College . He got his M.A. in 1982 and M.Div. in 1987 at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary . In 1991, he received his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies and Christian Origins from Duke University.
Go to Profile#33909
Donald Bloxham
#33921
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Donald Bloxham FRHistS is a Professor of Modern History, specialising in genocide, war crimes and other mass atrocities studies. He is the editor of the Journal of Holocaust Education. He completed his undergraduate studies at Keele and postgraduate studies at Southampton, where he received PhD in history. He worked as Research Director of the London-based Holocaust Educational Trust. He is Richard Pares Professor of European History at the University of Edinburgh, having previously been lecturer of Twentieth Century History at the university.
Go to Profile#33910
Ataol Behramoğlu
#33922
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ataol Behramoğlu is a prominent Turkish poet, author, and Russian-into-Turkish literary translator. Life Ataol Behramoğlu was born on April 13, 1942, in Istanbul. He wrote poems in honour of his father Hikmet Bahramoglu, originally from Azerbaijan, under the name "Bahramoglu". However, his first name was Ataol Gorus in honour of the Goris region where his father grew up.
Go to Profile#33911
Thaddeus Mann
#33923
Overall Influence
1908 - 1993 (85 years)
Thaddeus Robert Rudolph Mann CBE FRS was a biochemist who made significant contributions to the field of reproductive biology. Mann was born in Lwow, Austria-Hungary and was educated at Lwow University. He studied medicine at the Johannes Casimirus University in Lwow, obtaining the degrees of Physician in 1932 and Doctor of Medicine in 1934.
Go to Profile#33912
Adrian Owen
#33924
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Adrian Mark Owen is a British neuroscientist and best-selling author. He is best known for his 2006 discovery, published in the journal Science, showing that some patients thought to be in a persistent vegetative state are in fact fully aware and able to communicate with the outside world using functional magnetic resonance imaging . In the 2019 New Year Honours List, Owen was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to scientific research.
Go to Profile#33913
Simon Tatham
#33925
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Simon Tatham is a British computer programmer. He created and maintains PuTTY, a free software implementation of Secure Shell and Telnet for Microsoft Windows and Unix, along with an xterm terminal emulator. He is also the original author of Netwide Assembler , and maintains a collection of small computer programs which implement one-player puzzle games. All of them run natively on Nintendo DS, Symbian S60, Unix , and Windows.
Go to Profile#33914
Guy Consolmagno
#33926
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ , is an American research astronomer, physicist, religious brother, director of the Vatican Observatory, and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. Life Consolmagno attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School before he obtained his S.B. and S.M. degrees at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, all in planetary science. After postdoctoral research and teaching from 1978 to 1980 at Harvard College Observatory and from 1980 to 1983 at MIT, in 1983 he joined the US Peace Corps to serve in Kenya for two years, teaching astronomy and physics.
Go to Profile#33915
Ryan White
#33927
Overall Influence
Ryan White is a documentary producer and director best known for his Netflix documentary film Pamela, a Love Story, Amazon Prime's Good Night Oppy, which won five Critics Choice Awards including Best Documentary and Best Director, and his Emmy-nominated Netflix series The Keepers. White's previous films include the HBO movie The Case Against 8, which won Sundance's Directing Award and was nominated for two Emmys, the documentary film Ask Dr. Ruth, and Coded, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award.
Go to Profile#33916
Ralph Lerner
#33928
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Ralph Lerner is an American political philosopher. Lerner was born in Chicago, and attended the University of Chicago for his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in political science. His Ph.D. was advised by Leo Strauss. Lerner later joined the Chicago faculty, where he was named the Benjamin Franklin Professorship until 2003, when he was granted emeritus status.
Go to Profile#33917
Steffen Lauritzen
#33929
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Steffen Lilholt Lauritzen FRS is former Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and currently Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Copenhagen. He is a leading proponent of mathematical statistics and graphical models.
Go to Profile#33918
Ben Moody
#33930
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Benjamin Robert Moody II is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as co-founder, former lead guitarist and co-songwriter of rock band Evanescence from its inception in 1995 to his departure in October 2003 after the band's debut album, Fallen. After leaving Evanescence, Moody co-wrote and co-produced songs for Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Anastacia, Lindsay Lohan, Bo Bice, Daughtry, and Celine Dion.
Go to Profile#33919
Vladimir Kozlov
#33931
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Vladimir Ivanovich Kozlov is a Kazakh journalist and politician who has been a leader of the democratic opposition in Kazakhstan and a candidate for his country's presidency. In 2012, he was the defendant in what Deutsche Welle described as “the first political trial in Kazakhstan.” The US charged Kazakhstan with using its criminal-justice system “to silence a leading opposition voice.” Kozlov, who was found guilty and served a prison sentence, has been designated by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience.” He was released in 2016.
Go to Profile#33920
Benjamin Akande
#33932
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Benjamin Ola Akande is a Nigerian-American academic, professor, and business leader. In May 2021, he was named Senior Vice President, Director Human Resources, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Stifel Financial, a wealth management and investment-banking firm founded in 1890 and based in St. Louis, Missouri with $4.7 billion annual revenue, $39 billion wealth management custodian, $36 billion asset management. He serves as a key advisor to Stifel on the execution of a companywide ESG strategy. He leads the talent organization with over 10,000 employees in over 400 global offices. Dr. Akande ser...
Go to Profile#33921
Inga Bostad
#33933
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Inga Bostad is a Norwegian philosopher, writer and educator. She served as prorector of the University of Oslo from 2009 to 2013 and as director of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights from 2014 to 2017.
Go to Profile#33922
Sumaya Farhat Naser
#33934
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sumaya Farhat Naser is a Palestinian peace activist in the West Bank. Life Born to a Palestinian Christian family, she attended Talitha Kumi, a boarding school in Beit Jala which was founded by Lutheran deaconesses in the 19th century. After gaining her university entrance qualification, she studied biology, geography and education at the University of Hamburg, Germany and received a doctor's degree in applied botany.
Go to Profile#33923
Emily A. Carter
#33935
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Emily Ann Carter is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. She has been on the faculty at Princeton since 2004, including as serving as Princeton's Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science from 2016 to 2019. She moved to UCLA to serve as executive vice chancellor and provost and a distinguished professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, before returning to Princeton in December 2021.
Go to Profile#33924
Lisa M. Schenck
#33936
Overall Influence
Lisa M. Schenck is an American attorney, academic, and Judge of the United States Court of Military Commission Review. She has served as the associate dean for academic affairs at the George Washington University Law School since 2009. In March 2010, Schenck was appointed as a professorial lecturer in law, and teaches military justice. Prior to her career in academia, Schenck served in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps for more than 25 years.
Go to Profile#33925
Toby Wilkinson
#33937
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Toby Alexander Howard Wilkinson, is an English Egyptologist and academic. After studying Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, he was Lady Wallis Budge Research Fellow in Egyptology at Christ's College, Cambridge and then a research fellow at the University of Durham . He became a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge in 2003. He was Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln from 2017 to 2021, and then Vice Chancellor of Fiji National University from January 2021 to December 2021. Since 2022, he has been Fellow for Development at Clare College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#33926
Tarek Sobh
#33938
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Tarek M. Sobh is an Egyptian American professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He was the former Dean of the College of Engineering, Business, and Education of the University of Bridgeport and he is the current president of Lawrence Technological University.
Go to Profile#33927
Greg Feith
#33939
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Gregory Allen Feith is an American former Senior Air Safety Investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board . He currently works as a consultant on aviation safety and security matters in the private sector, and as the aviation expert for NBC and MSNBC. He also serves as the technical advisor in a number of television programs such as Mayday , Seconds From Disaster, and Why Planes Crash while maintaining a busy speaking schedule.
Go to Profile#33928
Christine Schirrmacher
#33940
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Christine Schirrmacher is a German academic who specialises in Islamic studies. She is professor of Islamic studies at the University of Bonn and at the Evangelical Theological Faculty , Leuven. Biography Christine Schirrmacher studied Islamic studies, history and Modern German literature in Gießen from 1982 to 1985 and Islamic studies, history and comparative religion in Bonn from 1985 to 1988. She graduated with an M.A. in 1988. She then completed her doctoral studies in Bonn, where, in 1991, she obtained her PhD with a thesis on the Christian-Islamic controversy in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the history of the impact of the so-called Gospel of Barnabas.
Go to Profile#33929
Sergey Karjakin
#33941
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin is a Russian chess grandmaster . A chess prodigy, he previously held the record for the world's youngest ever grandmaster, having qualified for the title at the age of 12 years and 7 months.
Go to Profile#33930
Fredrik Reinfeldt
#33942
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
John Fredrik Reinfeldt is a Swedish economist, lecturer, former Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He was the last rotating President of the European Council in 2009. He is chairman of the Swedish Football Association since 25 March 2023.
Go to Profile#33931
Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh
#33943
Overall Influence
1933 - 1997 (64 years)
Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh was a Nigerian physician, educational administrator and former Vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was a professor of Chemical Pathology. Early life He was born in Lagos, Nigeria to a Ghanaian father, Julius Gordon Kwasi Adadevoh and a Nigerian mother, Sarah Abigail Idowu Macaulay .
Go to Profile#33932
John Fox
#33944
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
John Fox is an American football coach and former player who is a senior defensive assistant for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League . He was the head coach of the Carolina Panthers , Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears of the National Football League . He coached the Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII and the Broncos to Super Bowl XLVIII.
Go to Profile#33933
Mark J. Seitz
#33945
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Mark Joseph Seitz is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been serving as the bishop of the Diocese of El Paso in Texas since July 9, 2013. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Dallas in Texas from 2010 to 2013.
Go to Profile#33934
Nick Cohen
#33946
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Nicholas Cohen is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He was a columnist for The Observer and is a blogger for The Spectator. Following accusations of sexual harassment, he left The Observer in 2022 and began publishing on the Substack platform.
Go to Profile#33935
Charles Royal Johnson
#33947
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Charles Royal Johnson is an American mathematician specializing in linear algebra. He is a Class of 1961 professor of mathematics at College of William and Mary. The books Matrix Analysis and Topics in Matrix Analysis, co-written by him with Roger Horn, are standard texts in advanced linear algebra.
Go to Profile#33936
Simon Grayson
#33948
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Simon Nicholas Grayson is an English professional football manager and former player who is the current head coach of Indian Super League club Bengaluru. As a player, he was a right back, but he was also utilised in midfield in a career that lasted from 1988 until 2006. Having started his career with Leeds United he played in the Premier League for Leicester City, Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers, before moving into the Football League with Sheffield Wednesday, Stockport County, Notts County, Bradford City and Blackpool. He won promotion twice with Leicester City, both via the playoffs, in 1993–94 and 1995–96, and followed it up with a League Cup win in 1996–97.
Go to Profile#33937
Mohammad Fazeli
#33949
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Mohammad Fazeli is an Iranian sociologist and former assistant professor at Shahid Beheshti University whose work focuses on social impact assessment, political sociology and sociology of science. He got fired from university in the "third wave of purging political professors". He is advisor to Iranian Minister of Energy. Fazeli was the research deputy of Iranian Center for Strategic Studies and the general editor of the Network for Public Policy Studies .
Go to Profile#33938
Lionel Casson
#33950
Overall Influence
1914 - 2009 (95 years)
Lionel Casson was a classicist, professor emeritus at New York University, and a specialist in maritime history. He earned his B.A. in 1934 at New York University, and in 1936 became an assistant professor. He later earned his Ph.D. there during 1939. In 2005 he was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America Gold Medal.
Go to Profile#33939
Joachim Weimann
#33951
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Joachim Weimann is a German economist. He is currently the chair for Economic Policy at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. Weimann's research interests include environmental economics and behavioral economics.
Go to Profile#33940
Frank J. Sciulli
#33952
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Frank J. Sciulli is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics. Sciulli studied at the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor's degree in 1960, master's degree in 1961, and PhD in 1965 with a dissertation involving experiments on K-meson decays. At Caltech he was a postdoc. There he became in 1969 an assistant professor and later a professor. In 1981 he became a professor at Columbia University. There he chaired the physics department from 1988 to 1991.
Go to Profile#33941
Ehsan Masood
#33953
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Hassan Ehsan Masood is a British science writer, journalist and broadcaster. Between 2009 and 2017 he was the editor of Research Fortnight , is currently bureau chief at Nature, and has been teaching international science policy at Imperial College London. since 2008.
Go to Profile#33942
Ivan Ilchev
#33954
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Ivan Ilchev , Ph.D. in history, the rector of Sofia University between 2007 and 2015. He specialized in modern history of the Balkan peoples. Ivan Ilchev was born on June 25, 1953, in Sofia. His father is Ilcho Dimitrov, also a famous historian and former minister of education. His mother is of Jewish descent. Ilchev graduated from the 114 English High School in Sofia. He continued his education in Sofia University, where he graduated in history. After his graduation, in 1978, he became assistant professor at the History Department of the Sofia University and associate professor in 1987. He w...
Go to Profile#33943
Tommaso Valletti
#33955
Overall Influence
Tommaso M. Valletti is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, and also Professor of Economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata . He is a Fellow of CEPR. He is a Non-Executive Director to the board of the UK's Payment Systems Regulator.
Go to Profile#33944
René Kahn
#33956
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
René Sylvain Kahn is a neuropsychiatrist and the Esther and Joseph Klingenstein Professor and System Chair of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the United States, a position he has held since 2017. He previously served as Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. Kahn is recognized for his research on the neurobiology of schizophrenia. He served as a former president of the Schizophrenia International Research Society and was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.
Go to Profile#33945
Janet Staiger
#33957
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Janet Staiger is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor Emeritus of Communication in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and Professor Emeritus of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#33946
Emanuel Marx
#33958
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
Emanuel Marx was a German-born Israeli social anthropologist, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. He was a winner of the Israel Prize in 1998 for sociological research, and was an honorary member of the British Royal Anthropological Institute.
Go to Profile#33947
Daniel P. Kessler
#33959
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Daniel P. Kessler is an American academic whose work focuses on health policy and health care finance. He is currently a professor in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a professor of law at Stanford Law School. Additionally, he is professor of health research and policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#33948
Wolfgang Wippermann
#33960
Overall Influence
1945 - 2020 (75 years)
Wolfgang Wippermann was a German historian. He served as supernumerary professor of modern history at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin, and also taught at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Fachhochschule Potsdam. Wippermann studied history, German and political science in Göttingen and Marburg and received his doctorate from the Free University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#33949
Dak Prescott
#33961
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (33 years)
Rayne Dakota Prescott is an American football quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League . He played college football at Mississippi State, where he twice received first-team All-SEC honors, and was selected by the Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL Draft.
Go to Profile#33950
Jerry Herman
#33962
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Gerald Sheldon Herman was an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway theatre. One of the most commercially successful Broadway songwriters of his time, Herman was the composer and lyricist for a number of hit musicals, starting in the 1960s, that were characterized by an upbeat and optimistic outlook and what Herman called "the simple, hummable showtune". His shows include Hello, Dolly! , at one time the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which also produced the hit title song for Louis Armstrong; Mame , a vehicle for Angela Lansbury; and La Cage aux Folles , ...
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