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
#33951
Ving Rhames
#33963
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Irving Rameses Rhames is an American actor. He is known for his voicing of the Arby's commercials and for his supporting roles as IMF Agent Luther Stickell in all Mission: Impossible films and gang kingpin Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction .
Go to Profile#33952
Margaret MacVicar
#33964
Overall Influence
1943 - 1991 (48 years)
Margaret L.A. MacVicar was an American physicist and educator. In addition to serving as MIT's Dean of Undergraduate Education , MacVicar is credited with founding the now widely emulated Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in 1969. MacVicar received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at MIT and joined the faculty, giving her the rare distinction of being a "MIT lifer."
Go to Profile#33953
Rolando Blackman
#33965
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Rolando Antonio Blackman is a Panamanian-American former professional basketball player. He was a four-time NBA All-Star who spent most of his career with the Dallas Mavericks. He holds the Mavericks' franchise single-game record for free throws made .
Go to Profile#33954
Christine Foyer
#33966
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Christine Helen Foyer is professor of plant science at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. She is President Elect of the Association of Applied Biologists, the General Secretary of the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biologists, an elected Board Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists and a Member of the French Academy of Agriculture. She has published and co-authored many papers on related subjects.
Go to Profile#33955
Bill Berkson
#33967
Overall Influence
1939 - 2016 (77 years)
William Craig Berkson was an American poet, critic, and teacher who was active in the art and literary worlds from his early twenties on. Early life and education Born in New York City on August 30, 1939, Bill Berkson grew up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the only child of Seymour Berkson, general manager of International News Service and later publisher of the New York Journal American, and the fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert. Although his father was of Jewish descent, the son did not find out until he was a teenager. His mother was Presbyterian. He attended The Day School of the Church of the Heavenly Rest and transferred to Trinity School in 1945.
Go to Profile#33956
Mary Jean Harrold
#33968
Overall Influence
1947 - 2013 (66 years)
Mary Jean Harrold was an American computer scientist noted for her research on software engineering. She was also noted for her leadership in broadening participation in computing. She was on the boards of both CRA and CRA-W and was Co-Chair of CRA-W from 2003 to 2006.
Go to Profile#33957
Dana Olmert
#33969
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Dana Olmert , is an Israeli left wing activist, literary theorist and editor. She is a daughter of Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert graduated with a PhD in literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on "The Growth of Hebrew Poetry by Women During the Twenties: Psychoanalytical and Feminist Perspectives." She teaches literature at Tel Aviv University and lately teaches creative writing workshops. She is the editor of a poetry series and was invited to several juries of literary prizes.
Go to Profile#33958
Ramamoorthy Ramesh
#33970
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Ramamoorthy Ramesh is an American materials scientist of Indian descent who has contributed to the synthesis, assembly and understanding of complex functional oxides, such as ferroelectric materials. In particular, he has worked on the development of ferroelectric perovskites, manganites with colossal magnetoresistance, and also on multiferroic oxides with potential benefits for modern information technologies.
Go to Profile#33959
Maud Mandel
#33971
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Maud Mandel is an American historian and academic administrator. She is the 18th and current President of Williams College, the first woman to hold that role. Mandel was previously a Professor of History and Judaic Studies and Dean of the College at Brown University. She specialises in twentieth-century French history, with a particular focus on the interaction of Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian communities in France. She is the daughter of Ruth Mandel who was the director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
Go to Profile#33960
Michael Simms
#33972
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael Simms is an American poet, novelist and literary publisher. His satiric novel Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy and his YA fantasy novel The Green Mage were published by Madville Publishing, and his most recent poetry collections are American Ash , Nightjar and Strange Meadowlark published by Ragged Sky Press. His poems and essays have been published in journals and magazines including Scientific American, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Mid-American Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Southwest Review, Plume and West Branch. His poems have also appeared in Poem-a-Day publishe...
Go to Profile#33961
Joseph Dellapenna
#33973
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Joseph William Dellapenna was a Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law. He was born in Detroit. Academic Background Professor Dellapenna holds a B.B.A. earned at the University of Michigan in 1965, a J.D. cum laude from the Detroit College of Law earned in 1968, an LL.M. in Public International & Comparative Law from George Washington University completed in 1969 and an LL.M. in environmental law from Columbia University completed in 1974. Dellapenna has been admitted to practice as an attorney in Michigan and also for cases before the United States Supreme Court.
Go to Profile#33962
Nina Rosenwald
#33974
Overall Influence
Nina Rosenwald is an American political activist and philanthropist. An heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald is vice president of the William Rosenwald Family Fund and co-chair of the board of American Securities Management. She is the founder and president of Gatestone Institute, a New York-based right-wing anti-Muslim think tank.
Go to Profile#33963
Bahman Nirumand
#33975
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Bahman Nirumand is an Iranian and German journalist and author. Life Bahman Nirumand was born on 18 September 1936 to a wealthy family of civil servants in Tehran, Iran. His uncle was a consul in the Iranian embassy in Berlin before World War II. When he was 14 years old, Nirumand was sent to Germany to go to gymnasium, and attended Rudolf Steiner School.
Go to Profile#33964
Ticio Escobar
#33976
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ticio Escobar is a Paraguayan lawyer, academic, author, museum director, and former Minister of Culture of Paraguay. He has championed the rights of Indigenous peoples of Paraguay, writing about and curating shows on the topic.
Go to Profile#33965
Curtis Hanson
#33977
Overall Influence
1945 - 2016 (71 years)
Curtis Lee Hanson was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Born in Reno, Nevada, Hanson grew up in Los Angeles. After dropping out of high school, Hanson worked as photographer and editor for Cinema magazine. In the 1970s, Hanson got involved in filmmaking starting with participating to the writing Daniel Haller's The Dunwich Horror and his directorial debut Sweet Kill , where he lacked creative control to fulfill his vision. While Hanson continued directing, he rose to prominence by being involved in the writing of critically acclaimed films. This includes Daryl Duke's The...
Go to Profile#33966
Annie Luetkemeyer
#33978
Overall Influence
Annie F. Luetkemeyer is an American physician and researcher who is Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. She specializes in infectious diseases, in particular tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus and viral hepatitis. During the COVID-19 pandemic Luetkemeyer led a clinical trial of remdesivir. She has also researched treatment of COVID-19 as a co-infection with HIV.
Go to Profile#33967
Akhilesh Pandey
#33979
Overall Influence
Akhilesh Pandey is an Indian-American proteomicist and a Professor at Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Center for Individualized Medicine of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He is also the founding director and chief scientific advisor of the Institute of Bioinformatics in Bangalore, India.
Go to Profile#33968
Mors Kochanski
#33980
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
Mors Kochanski was a Canadian bushcraft and wilderness survival instructor, naturalist, and author. He acquired an international following and instructed for both military and civilians in Canada, the US, the UK and Sweden. He died from peritoneal mesothelioma in 2019.
Go to Profile#33969
J. Richard Chase
#33981
Overall Influence
1930 - 2010 (80 years)
J. Richard Chase was the sixth president of Biola University in California from 1970 to 1982 and the sixth President of Wheaton College in Illinois from 1982 to 1993. Early life and education J. Richard Chase grew up on a dairy farm in Oxnard, California and graduated from Biola University. Biola President Samuel Sutherland mentored Chase, and Chase married Sutherland's daughter in 1950. He graduated from Biola in 1951 with a degree in theology, and then attended Pepperdine University, where he received a bachelor's and master's degree. Chase graduated with a Ph.D. in speech from Cornell Univ...
Go to Profile#33970
Michael C. Malin
#33982
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael C. Malin is an American astronomer, space scientist, and CEO of Malin Space Science Systems. His cameras have been important scientific instruments in the exploration of Mars. Malin designed and ran the orbiting Mars camera which took over 212,000 high-resolution photos of Mars over a nine-year period. In late 2006, he and Kenneth Edgett announced photographic evidence which strongly suggested water was flowing on Mars in the present day.
Go to Profile#33971
Allan H. MacDonald
#33983
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Allan H. MacDonald is a theoretical condensed matter physicist and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin. He was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, and attended local schools completing a B.S. at St. Francis Xavier University in 1973. He completed his Ph.D.in physics at The University of Toronto in 1978, working with S.H. Vosko on relativistic generalizations of density functional theory, and on the application of density functional theory to magnetism in metals.
Go to Profile#33972
Colin Jones
#33984
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Colin David Hugh Jones is a British historian of France and professor of history at Queen Mary University of London. Jones attended Hampton Grammar School. He then studied at Jesus College, Oxford, 1967–71, where he obtained a first-class honours degree in modern history and modern languages and St Antony's College, Oxford, from where he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1978.
Go to Profile#33973
Joachim Messing
#33985
Overall Influence
1946 - 2019 (73 years)
Joachim Wilhelm "Jo" Messing was a German-American biologist who was a professor of molecular biology and the fourth director of the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University. Upon his arrival at Rutgers in 1985, Jo Messing initiated research activity on computational and structural biology and further emphasis on molecular genetics of the regulation of gene expression and biomolecular interactions. In the eighties, he provided incubator space for two Biotechnology centers at Rutgers, one in Medicine and one in Agriculture. Subsequently, he also founded two new departments at Ru...
Go to Profile#33974
Max Biaggi
#33986
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Massimiliano "Max" Biaggi is an Italian former professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who achieved six World Championships. With four 250 cc road race titles and two in World Superbikes, he is one of only two riders to score championships across both disciplines.
Go to Profile#33975
John Densmore
#33987
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
John Paul Densmore is an American musician. He is best known as the drummer of the rock band the Doors, and as such is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He appeared on every recording made by the band, with drumming inspired by jazz and world music as much as by rock and roll. The many honors he shares with the other Doors include a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Go to Profile#33976
Neville Moray
#33988
Overall Influence
1935 - 2017 (82 years)
Neville Moray was a British-born Canadian psychologist. He served as an academic and professor at the Department of Psychology of the University of Surrey, known from his 1959 research of the cocktail party effect.
Go to Profile#33977
Jeffrey L. Seglin
#33989
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Jeffrey L. Seglin is an American columnist, author, and teacher. He is currently a senior lecturer, emeritus, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 2011 until 2023, he was a senior lecturer and director of the communications program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He consults widely on writing, communications, and ethics. His weekly column on ethics, "The Right Thing," is syndicated in newspapers in the United States and Canada. Seglin lives in Boston with his wife, a psychotherapist. He has two adult children and four grand...
Go to Profile#33978
Suzanne Pfeffer
#33990
Overall Influence
Suzanne Ruth Pfeffer is an American neuroscientist who is a professor at Stanford University. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that cause receptors to be transported between membrane compartments in cells, and she is an expert in Rab GTPases and the molecular basis of inherited Parkinson's disease. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Society for Cell Biology.
Go to Profile#33979
Kate Hudson
#33991
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Kate Garry Hudson is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for an Academy Award. Born to singer Bill Hudson and actress Goldie Hawn, Hudson made her film debut in the 1998 drama Desert Blue, which was followed by supporting roles in several films. She rose to prominence with her portrayal of Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's musical drama Almost Famous , for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and received an Oscar nomination in the same category.
Go to Profile#33980
Étienne Wasmer
#33992
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Étienne Wasmer is a French professor and economist currently holding a Professorship at New York University in Abu Dhabi. Wasmer mainly focuses on the fields of labor economics, job search theory, discrimination and human capital. He teaches microeconomics and labor economics.
Go to Profile#33981
Alois Fürstner
#33993
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Alois Fürstner is an Austrian chemist. He is director of Organometallic Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim, Germany. He has been awarded the Leibniz Prize , the Royal Society of Chemistry's Centenary Prize , the Heinrich Wieland Prize , the , the Janssen Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis , the , and the Gay-Lussac Humboldt Prize . He was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2002.
Go to Profile#33982
Howard Friedman
#33994
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Howard Steven Friedman is a prominent American statistician, data scientist, health economist, and writer who teaches at Columbia University Friedman is widely known for his role as a lead statistical modeler on a number of key United Nations projects and for his wide-ranging publications in the fields of statistics, data science and health economics.
Go to Profile#33983
Karen Wynn
#33995
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Karen Wynn is an artist and a Canadian and American Yale University Professor Emerita of psychology and cognitive science. She was born in Austin, Texas, and grew up on the Canadian prairies in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her research explores the cognitive capacities of infants and young children. She directed for over 3 decades the Infant Cognition Laboratory, first in the Psychology Department at the University of Arizona, and then in the Psychology Department at Yale University.
Go to Profile#33984
Paul P. Enns
#33996
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Paul P. Enns is an evangelical Christian pastor, biblical scholar and writer who serves as a full-time minister at Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, and as adjunct professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is notable as one of the translators of the updated New American Standard Bible and as the author of The Moody Handbook of Theology.
Go to Profile#33985
Junior Johnson
#33997
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Robert Glenn Johnson Jr. , better known as Junior Johnson, was an American professional stock car racing driver, engineer, and team owner as well as an entrepreneur. He won 50 NASCAR races in his career before retiring in 1966. In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a NASCAR racing team owner, winning the NASCAR championship with Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. He is credited as the first to use the drafting technique in stock car racing. He was nicknamed "The Last American Hero," and his autobiography and movie based on his upbringing is of the same name. In May 2007, Johnson teamed with Pie...
Go to Profile#33986
Erika von Mutius
#33998
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Erika von Mutius is a German pediatrician and allergologist at the Helmholtz Center Munich and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. Her research interests include paediatrics, pediatric pneumology, allergology and epidemiology.
Go to Profile#33987
Renée Fleming
#33999
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming will be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, G...
Go to Profile#33988
Rezvi Sheriff
#34000
Overall Influence
Vidya Jyothi Mohamed Hussain Rezvi Sheriff, FRCP , FRCPE , FRACP, FCCP, FSLCGP, FNASSL is a Sri Lankan academic, nephrologist and physician. He served as the director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine; senior professor of medicine; head of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. He is currently serving as the Senior Professor of Medicine at General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University. He is also a consultant physician and nephrologist at National Hospital Sri Lanka. He is widely regarded as the Father of Nephrology or either hailed as Father of Modern Nephrology and Dialysis.
Go to Profile#33989
Elaine Mayes
#34001
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Elaine Mayes is an American photographer and a retired professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Academia Beginning in 1968, she taught at the University of Minnesota, and in 1971 joined Jerome Liebling as part of the founding faculty at Hampshire College, where she taught for ten years. Her students included documentary filmmakers Ken Burns, Michel Negroponte, Roger Sherman, Buddy Squires, Kirk Simon, and Karen Goodman. In 1976, Mayes, and former students Burns and Sherman, founded a production company called Florentine Films in Walpole, New Hampshire. The company's name was borrowed from Mayes' hometown of Florence, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#33990
Andrew P. Vayda
#34002
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Andrew P. "Pete" Vayda was a Hungarian-born American anthropologist and ecologist who was a distinguished professor emeritus of anthropology and ecology at Rutgers University. Biographical background Vayda was born in Budapest, Hungary, on December 7, 1931. He came to the United States in 1939 with his mother. He grew up in New York City. He attended Columbia University, obtaining his B.A. in 1952 and his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1956. His dissertation, based on library research he had done in New Zealand in 1954–1955, was a detailed description and analysis of Maori warfare.
Go to Profile#33991
Nkechi Agwu
#34003
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Nkechi Madonna Adeleine Agwu is a mathematics teacher. Agwu is a naturalized American citizen, tenured faculty at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, part of the City University of New York, and was a director of the college's Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Scholarship.
Go to Profile#33992
Marwan Kassab-Bachi
#34004
Overall Influence
1934 - 2016 (82 years)
Marwan Kassab-Bachi , commonly known as Marwan, was a Syrian painter. Born in Damascus, he first studied at Damascus University before moving to Berlin, Germany, where he enrolled in the Hochschule der Bildende Künste. He stayed there for most of his life, and was appointed full professor in 1980.
Go to Profile#33993
Janet Brennan Croft
#34005
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Janet Brennan Croft is an American librarian and Tolkien scholar, known for her authored and edited books and journals on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy. Academic career Croft earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Classical Civilization from Indiana University in 1982 and graduated as a Master of Library Science in 1983 at the Indiana University School of Library and Information. She has worked at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and has been director and associate professor at Warden Memorial Library, Martin Methodist College. She became the Head of Access Services at Bizzell Memorial Library, University of Oklahoma, in 2001 and was given associate professorship in 2007.
Go to Profile#33994
Gillian Small
#34006
Overall Influence
Gillian Small is currently the president of World Science U, the higher education arm of World Science Festival. Previously, she was the University Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2016 through 2022.
Go to Profile#33995
Shin Shifra
#34007
Overall Influence
1931 - 2012 (81 years)
Shin Shifra ; is the pen name of Shifra Shifman Shmuelevitch , a poet, translator, writer, editor and literary academic. Shifra won multiple literature awards. Biography Shin Shifra, the fifth of eight children, was born in Tel Aviv and raised in Bnei Brak, in a veteran Jerusalemite family. Her father was among the first new age Jewish teachers in The Land of Israel. She studied at the Talpiot high school gymnasium for girls in Tel Aviv, and graduated from the Levinsky Seminar for Teachers in Jaffa. In addition, she studied Kabbalah, Jewish philosophy, Hebrew literature, Sumerian and Akkadian....
Go to Profile#33996
LeVar Burton
#34008
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. is an American actor, director, and television host. He played Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation , Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots , and was host of the PBS Kids educational television series Reading Rainbow for 23 years . He received 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award as host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow.
Go to Profile#33997
Guillermo García López
#34009
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Guillermo García López is a Spanish former professional tennis player. He won five singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 23 in February 2011. As of 2021, he collected thirteen wins over top-10 players, including world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in 2010, world No. 4 Andy Murray in 2012 and world No. 3 Stan Wawrinka in 2014.
Go to Profile#33998
Anandaraj
#34010
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Anandaraj is an Indian actor. He has acted in villain roles in several Tamil films and has appeared in over a three hundred films in different languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi.
Go to Profile#33999
Sidney A. Ribeau
#34011
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sidney Ribeau is an American academic administrator who served as the president of Howard University in Washington, D.C. Prior to accepting the position at Howard, Ribeau was the president of Bowling Green State University for 13 years.
Go to Profile#34000
James Mahmud Rice
#34012
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
James Mahmud Rice is an Australian sociologist in the Demography and Ageing Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. He works at the intersection of sociology, economics, and political science, focusing in particular on inequalities in the distribution of economic resources such as income and time and how private and public conventions and institutions shape these inequalities.
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