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
#34301
David Morales
#34313
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
David Morales is an American disc jockey and record producer. In addition to his production and DJ work, Morales is also a remixer. David Morales has remixed and produced over 500 releases for artists including Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Spice Girls, Eric Clapton, Seal, Pet Shop Boys, U2, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Selena, and Jamiroquai. Morales was nominated for his first Grammy Award in 1996 as a Producer on Mariah Carey's album “Daydream” for the song “Fantasy”. He was nominated again the next year and won the 1998 Grammy Award for “Remixer of the ...
Go to Profile#34302
Daniel Byman
#34314
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Daniel L. Byman is one of the world's leading researchers on terrorism, Counterterrorism and the Middle East. Dr. Byman is a professor in Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and Director of Georgetown's Security Studies Program He is a former Vice-Dean of the school.
Go to Profile#34303
Alexei Bogomolov
#34315
Overall Influence
1913 - 2009 (96 years)
Alexei Fyodorovich Bogomolov was a Soviet and Russian scientist and a specialist in the field of radio engineering. Biography Alexei Fyodorovich Bogomolov was born on 2 June 1913 in the village of Sitskoye, Smolensk Governorate. From 1923 he lived in Moscow. In 1927 he graduated from a secondary school, and in 1929 he graduated from the 1st Moscow Institute of Labor Education. During 1929—1932 he worked in "Stroyelektro" as electrician, brigadier and senior electrician. In 1937 he graduated from Moscow Power Engineering Institute and began working on his doctoral thesis on the topic of power...
Go to Profile#34304
Bruce Roth
#34316
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Bruce D. Roth is an American organic and medicinal chemist who trained at Iowa State University and the University of Rochester, and, at the age of 32, discovered atorvastatin, the statin-class drug sold as Lipitor that would become the largest-selling drug in pharmaceutical history . His honours include being named a 2008 Hero of Chemistry by the American Chemical Society, and being chosen as the Perkin Medal awardee, the highest honour given in the U.S. chemical industry, by the Society of Chemical Industry, American section in 2013.
Go to Profile#34305
Leonard van der Kuijp
#34317
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp is a Dutch professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies and former chair of the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard University. Leonard van der Kuijp began his studies in mathematics, but then shifted his attention to Tibet. He received his master's degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and his doctorate at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Go to Profile#34306
Peter Buckley
#34318
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Peter Jennings Buckley is Professor of International Business at the University of Leeds and director of the Centre for International Business at the University of Leeds . Buckley was educated at Ashton-under-Lyne Grammar School and graduated from the University of York with a BA in social sciences in 1970. He also has an MA in development economics from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in economics from the University of Lancaster. In 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Economics at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Go to Profile#34307
Janet Barnett
#34319
Overall Influence
Janet Heine Barnett is a professor of mathematics at Colorado State University–Pueblo, interested in set theory, mathematical logic, the history of mathematics, women in mathematics, and mathematics education.
Go to Profile#34308
Marco Antonio Raupp
#34320
Overall Influence
1938 - 2021 (83 years)
Marco Antonio Raupp was a Brazilian mathematician and politician. He served as Director of the National Institute for Space Research, President of the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência, and Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Go to Profile#34309
Felice Gimondi
#34321
Overall Influence
1942 - 2019 (77 years)
Felice Gimondi was an Italian professional racing cyclist. With his 1968 victory at the Vuelta a España, only three years after becoming a professional cyclist, Gimondi, nicknamed "The Phoenix", was the second cyclist to win all three Grand Tours of road cycling: Tour de France , Giro d'Italia , and Vuelta a España . He is one of only seven cyclists to have done so.
Go to Profile#34310
Black Thought
#34322
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Tarik Luqmaan Trotter , better known as Black Thought, is an American rapper, singer, actor and the lead MC of the Philadelphia-based hip hop group the Roots, which he co-founded with drummer Questlove . Regarded as "one of the most skilled, incisive, and prolific rappers of his time", he is widely lauded for his live performance skills, continuous multisyllabic rhyme schemes, complex lyricism, double entendres, and politically aware lyrics. With the Roots, he is a singer and rapper on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, frequently playing games with Fallon and his guests.
Go to Profile#34311
Monica Sone
#34323
Overall Influence
1919 - 2011 (92 years)
Monica Sone , born Kazuko Itoi, was a Japanese American writer, best known for her 1953 autobiographical memoir Nisei Daughter, which tells of the Japanese American experience in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s and in the World War II internment camps, and is an important text in Asian American and Women's Studies courses.
Go to Profile#34312
Veer Bhadra Mishra
#34324
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
Veer Bhadra Mishra was the founding president of the Sankat Mochan Foundation. He was a former professor of Hydraulic engineering and former Head of the Civil Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi. He was also the Mahant of the Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple, Varanasi at Varanasi founded by poet-saint Goswami Tulsidas. Mishra was recognized on the United Nations Environment Programme's "Global 500 Roll of Honour" in 1992, and was a TIME Magazines "Hero of the Planet" recipient in 1999 for his work related to cleaning of the Ganges through the Sankat Mochan Foundation.
Go to Profile#34313
Miriam Margolyes
#34325
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Miriam Margolyes is a British-Australian actress, comedian, narrator, voiceover artist and author. She has gained prominence as a character actor on stage and screen. She received a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Mrs Mingott in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence , and portrayed Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series . Margolyes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2002 New Year Honours for Services to Drama.
Go to Profile#34314
Marshall Fishwick
#34326
Overall Influence
1923 - 2006 (83 years)
Marshall William Fishwick was an American multidisciplinary scholar, professor, writer, and editor who started the academic movement known as popular culture studies and established the journal International Popular Culture. In 1970 he cofounded the Popular Culture Association with Ray B. Browne and Russel B. Nye, and the three worked to shape a new academic discipline that blurred the traditional distinctions between high and low culture, focusing on mass culture mediums like television and the Internet and cultural archetypes like comic book heroes. In an academic career of more than fifty...
Go to Profile#34315
Jean H. Baker
#34327
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Jean Hogarth Harvey Baker is an American historian and professor emerita at Goucher College, where she was the Bennett-Hartwood Professor of History. Baker was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in 1982.
Go to Profile#34316
John Tienson
#34328
Overall Influence
1940 - 2018 (78 years)
John L. Tienson was an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Memphis. He served as Co-Editor of the Southern Journal of Philosophy.
Go to Profile#34317
Siegfried Grossmann
#34329
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Siegfried Grossmann is a German theoretical physicist who has been awarded the Max Planck Medal, the major prize for achievements in theoretical physics. Biography He was born near Königsberg in Prussia and educated at the Pedagogical High School in Berlin, where he graduated in teaching. Whilst training to be a teacher he studied physics, mathematics and chemistry at the Free University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#34318
Sterling Marlin
#34330
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Sterling Burton Marlin is an American retired professional stock car racing driver. He last competed in the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour. He formerly competed in the NASCAR Cup Series, winning the Daytona 500 in 1994 and 1995. He is the son of late NASCAR driver Coo Coo Marlin. He is married to Paula and has a daughter, Sutherlin, a son, Steadman, a former NASCAR Xfinity Series driver, and a grandson Stirlin who races for Sterling in Sterling’s No. 114 Super Late Model. Marlin is a member of the NASCAR 75 Greatest Driver’s List.
Go to Profile#34319
Chuner Taksami
#34331
Overall Influence
1931 - 2014 (83 years)
Chuner Mikhailovich Taksami was a Russian ethnographer of Nivkh origin and had a Doctor of Historical Sciences attained in 1955. Taksami was born in Kalma, Khabarovsk Krai, Russian SFSR. He was a spokesman for the Nivkh and other Siberian peoples. Taksami specialized in Siberian historical, archeological, and anthropological research. He was the Director of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg, Russia from 1997 to 2001. After his museum tenure was over Taksami collaborated with professors from Chiba University organizing ethnolinguistic expeditions to Nivkh settlements in the lower Amur River basin and on northern Sakhalin.
Go to Profile#34320
Jim Jeffords
#34332
Overall Influence
1934 - 2014 (80 years)
James Merrill Jeffords was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. senator from Vermont. Sworn into the Senate in 1989, he served as a Republican until 2001, when he left the party to become an independent and began caucusing with the Democrats. Jeffords retired from the Senate in 2007. Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the U.S. representative for from 1975 to 1989.
Go to Profile#34321
James B. Bullard
#34333
Overall Influence
James Brian Bullard is the former chief executive officer and 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a position he held from 2008 until August 14, 2023. In July 2023, he was named dean of the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business at Purdue University.
Go to Profile#34322
Nat Hentoff
#34334
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Nathan Irving Hentoff was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. Hentoff was a columnist for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. Following his departure from The Village Voice, Hentoff became a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and continued writing his music column for The Wall Street Journal, which published his works until his death. He often wrote on First Amendment issues, vigorously defending the freedom of the press.
Go to Profile#34323
Bobi Jones
#34335
Overall Influence
1929 - 2017 (88 years)
Robert Maynard Jones , generally known as Bobi Jones, was a Welsh Christian academic and one of the most prolific writers in the history of the Welsh language. A versatile master of poetry, fictional prose and criticism, he was born in Cardiff in 1929, educated at the University of Wales, Cardiff and University College Dublin. Jones held the chair in Welsh language at Aberystwyth from 1980 until his retirement. He died on 22 November 2017.
Go to Profile#34324
John Huchra
#34336
Overall Influence
1948 - 2010 (62 years)
John Peter Huchra was an American astronomer and professor. He was the Vice Provost for Research Policy at Harvard University and a Professor of Astronomy at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. He was also a former chair of the United States National Committee for the International Astronomical Union. and past president of the American Astronomical Society.
Go to Profile#34325
Bob Stoops
#34337
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Robert Anthony Stoops is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Arlington Renegades. He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1999 through the 2016 season, and on an interim basis during the 2021 Alamo Bowl. He led the Oklahoma Sooners to a record of 191–48 over his career. His 2000 Oklahoma Sooners football team won the 2001 Orange Bowl, which served as the BCS National Championship Game, and earned a consensus national championship. Since 2020, Stoops has been a head coach with the XFL, coaching the Renegades in 2020 and has been re-signed for 2023.
Go to Profile#34326
Tony Kanal
#34338
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Tony Ashwin Kanal is a British-American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is the bassist and co-writer for the rock bands No Doubt and Dreamcar. His musical work outside of the band includes producing and songwriting for artists such as Pink, Weezer, Elan Atias and No Doubt bandmate Gwen Stefani.
Go to Profile#34327
Günter Nimtz
#34339
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Günter Nimtz is a German physicist, working at the 2nd Physics Institute at the University of Cologne in Germany. He has investigated narrow-gap semiconductors and liquid crystals. His claims show that particles may travel faster than the speed of light when undergoing quantum tunneling.
Go to Profile#34328
Wendy B. Lawrence
#34340
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Wendy Barrien Lawrence is a retired United States Navy Captain, an engineer, and former helicopter pilot and NASA astronaut. She was the first female graduate of the United States Naval Academy to fly into space and she has also visited the Russian Space Station Mir. She was a mission specialist on STS-114, the first Space Shuttle flight after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. She is married to Cathy Watson, a former NASA scientist.
Go to Profile#34329
Friedrich Kessler
#34341
Overall Influence
1901 - 1998 (97 years)
Friedrich "Fritz" Kessler was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School , University of Chicago Law School, and University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He was a contract law scholar, but he also wrote about trade regulation law. He was regarded as a member of the American Legal Realism School.
Go to Profile#34330
Morton Ann Gernsbacher
#34342
Overall Influence
Morton Ann Gernsbacher is Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic Bartlett Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a specialist in autism and psycholinguistics and has written and edited professional and lay books and over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these subjects. She is currently on the advisory board of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest and associate editor for Cognitive Psychology, and she has previously held editorial positions for Memory & Cognition and Language and Cognitive Processes. She was also president of...
Go to Profile#34331
Phyllida Barlow
#34343
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Dame Phyllida Barlow was a British visual artist. She studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Slade School of Art . She joined the staff of the Slade in the late 1960s and taught there for more than forty years. She retired from academia in 2009 and in turn became an emerita professor of fine art. She had an important influence on younger generations of artists; at the Slade her students included Rachel Whiteread and Ángela de la Cruz. In 2017 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Go to Profile#34332
José Manuel Losada
#34344
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
José Manuel Losada is a university professor and literary theorist with a specialization in the fields of myth criticism and comparative literature. Within these fields he has published several books in Spanish, French and English.
Go to Profile#34333
Gaetano Fichera
#34345
Overall Influence
1922 - 1996 (74 years)
Gaetano Fichera was an Italian mathematician, working in mathematical analysis, linear elasticity, partial differential equations and several complex variables. He was born in Acireale, and died in Rome.
Go to Profile#34334
John M. Lee
#34346
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
John "Jack" Marshall Lee is an American mathematician and professor at the University of Washington specializing in differential geometry. Education Lee graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in 1972, then became a systems programmer and a teacher at Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut in 1975–1977. He continued his studies at Tufts University in 1977–1978. He received his doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 under the direction of Richard Melrose with the dissertation Higher asymptotics of the complex Monge-Ampère equation and geometry of CR ...
Go to Profile#34335
Caleb Scharf
#34347
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Caleb Asa Scharf is a British-American astronomer and popular science author. He is currently the senior scientist for astrobiology at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He formerly served as the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University, New York.
Go to Profile#34336
MF Doom
#34348
Overall Influence
1971 - 2020 (49 years)
Daniel Dumile , best known by his stage name MF Doom or simply Doom , was a British-American rapper and record producer. Noted for his intricate wordplay, signature metal mask, and "supervillain" stage persona, Dumile became a major figure of underground hip hop and alternative hip hop in the 2000s. After his death, Variety described him as one of the scene's "most celebrated, unpredictable and enigmatic figures".
Go to Profile#34337
Kazuo Okamatsu
#34349
Overall Influence
1931 - 2012 (81 years)
Kazuo Okamatsu was a Japanese philologist and novelist. Biography Okamatsu was born in the city of Fukuoka in Kyushu, Japan. He graduated from the Department of French literature at the University of Tokyo, following which he decided to continue his studies in the field of philology and Japanese literature. His literary career began in 1955, with his participation in a national writing contest, which resulted in the publication of Yuri no kioku under the pen name of Kazuo Aoki in the literary magazine Bungei. In 1957, he married the niece of the noted translator Teiichi Hirai and began working as an instructor at a high school in Yokohama.
Go to Profile#34338
Michio Suzuki
#34350
Overall Influence
1926 - 1998 (72 years)
was a Japanese mathematician who studied group theory. Biography He was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1953 to his death. He also had visiting positions at the University of Chicago , the Institute for Advanced Study , the University of Tokyo , and the University of Padua . Suzuki received his Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Tokyo, despite having moved to the United States the previous year. He was the first to attack the Burnside conjecture, that every finite non-abelian simple group has even order.
Go to Profile#34339
Aparna Sen
#34351
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Aparna Sen is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actress who is known for her work in Bengali cinema. She has received several accolades as an actress and filmmaker, including nine National Film Awards, five Filmfare Awards East and thirteen Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards. For her contribution in the field of arts, the Government of India honoured her with Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian award.
Go to Profile#34340
José Narro Robles
#34352
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
José Narro Robles is a Mexican physician, researcher, academic, and politician. He is a former director of the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was elected its 23rd Rector on November 20, 2007. After two 4-year periods leading UNAM, in February 2016, he was appointed by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to replace Mercedes Juan as head of the Mexican Secretariat of Health.
Go to Profile#34341
Ray Price
#34353
Overall Influence
1926 - 2013 (87 years)
Noble Ray Price was an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His wide-ranging baritone is regarded as among the best male voices of country music, and his innovations, such as propelling the country beat from 2/4 to 4/4, known as the "Ray Price beat", helped make country music more popular. Some of his well-known recordings include "Release Me", "Crazy Arms", "Heartaches by the Number", "For the Good Times", "Night Life", and "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me". He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He continued to record and tour into his ...
Go to Profile#34342
Mei-Po Kwan
#34354
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Mei-Po Kwan is a Hong Kong geographer and academic. Her contributions to the field include environmental health, human mobility, transport and health issues in cities, and geographic information science .
Go to Profile#34343
Jack Del Rio
#34355
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Jack Louis Del Rio Jr. is an American football coach and a former professional linebacker. He played college football as a linebacker at the University of Southern California before being drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the third round of the 1985 NFL Draft. He also played for four other NFL teams before retiring in 1996.
Go to Profile#34344
Carola Lentz
#34356
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Carola Lentz is a German social anthropologist and, since November 2020, president of the Goethe-Institut. She is senior research professor at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.
Go to Profile#34345
Ram Harsh Singh
#34357
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ram Harsh Singh is an Indian practitioner of the Ayurveda system of alternative medicine and the founder vice chancellor of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University. An Emeritus Professor of Banaras Hindu University and a National Professor of the Ministry of AYUSH of the Government of India, he was conferred with the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri, in 2016.
Go to Profile#34346
Timothy M. Swager
#34358
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Timothy M. Swager is an American Scientist and the John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research is at the interface of chemistry and materials science, with specific interests in carbon nanomaterials, polymers, and liquid crystals. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors.
Go to Profile#34347
Ola Didrik Saugstad
#34359
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ola Didrik Saugstad is a Norwegian pediatrician, neonatologist and neuroscientist noted for his research on resuscitation of newborn children and his contribution to reduce child mortality. He is a Research Professor at Oslo University Hospital and Professor of Neonatology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Oslo and was Director of the Department of Pediatric Research at Oslo University Hospital from 1991 to 2017.
Go to Profile#34348
Herbert Penzl
#34360
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
Herbert Penzl , was an Austrian-born American philologist and historical linguist. He studied English Philology at the University of Vienna under Karl Luick. In 1934 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation The Development of Middle English a in New England Speech. He spent some time in the United States working on the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada at Brown University, having been recommended for the exchange by Sigmund Freud. While in the US, he published his first article, "New England Terms for Poached Eggs," which received media coverage by the Associated Press among others.
Go to Profile#34349
Tony Kubek
#34361
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Anthony Christopher Kubek is an American former professional baseball player and television broadcaster. During his nine-year playing career with the New York Yankees, Kubek played in six World Series in the late 1950s and early 1960s, starting in 37 World Series games. For NBC television, he later broadcast twelve World Series between 1968 and 1982, and fourteen League Championship Series between 1969 and 1989. Kubek received the Ford C. Frick Award in 2009.
Go to Profile#34350
E864 Collaboration T. A. Armstrong Et Al
#34362
Overall Influence
