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
#34501
Gerry Rafferty
#34513
Overall Influence
1947 - 2011 (64 years)
Gerald Rafferty was a Scottish singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was a founding member of Stealers Wheel, whose biggest hit was "Stuck in the Middle with You" in 1973. His solo hits in the late 1970s included "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line", and "Night Owl".
Go to Profile#34502
Bill Durodié
#34514
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Professor Bill Durodié is a Professor of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, UK, as well as a former head of department there. Education Durodié was educated at the Royal College of Science, part of Imperial College London, where he studied Physics. After completing a final year undergraduate project to map different types of supernovae onto the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies, he was invited to start a PhD in Astronomy at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Professor Franz Daniel Kahn. His first research publication was in theoretical...
Go to Profile#34503
Luis de Garrido
#34515
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Luis de Garrido Talavera is a Spanish architect working in sustainable architecture in Spain. Biography Luis de Garrido studied architecture in the UPV Polytechnic University of Valencia where he graduated with a doctorate. He also completed a master's degree in Urban Design at the .
Go to Profile#34504
Julius Youngner
#34516
Overall Influence
1920 - 2017 (97 years)
Julius S. Youngner was an American Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Medicine and Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at University of Pittsburgh responsible for advances necessary for development of a vaccine for poliomyelitis and the first intranasal equine influenza vaccine.
Go to Profile#34505
Gersh Kuntzman
#34517
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Gersh Kuntzman is an American journalist. Career Journalism Kuntzman previously worked for the New York Post, writing the column "MetroGnome," which ran during 1995–2004. He had a weekly column for Newsweek online that ran during 2001–2005.
Go to Profile#34506
Panagiotis Kondylis
#34518
Overall Influence
1943 - 1998 (55 years)
Panagiotis Kondylis was a Greek philosopher, intellectual historian, translator and publications manager who principally wrote in German, in addition to translating most of his work into Greek. He can be placed in a tradition of thought best exemplified by Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli and Max Weber.
Go to Profile#34507
Levi Nyagura
#34519
Overall Influence
Levi Martin Nyagura is a Zimbabwean academic. He was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe in January 2003 and was subsequently reappointed for a second, third and a fourth term, the latter of which ended in mid 2018.
Go to Profile#34508
Loyiso Nongxa
#34520
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Loyiso Nongxa is a South African mathematician, the current Chairperson of the National Research Foundation of South Africa and a former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg .
Go to Profile#34509
Tomas J. Philipson
#34521
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Tomas J. Philipson is a Swedish-born American economist who served as the Acting Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Trump administration. He departed from the position and the Council at the end of June, 2020, to return to the University of Chicago. He holds the Daniel Levin Chair in Public Policy at the University of Chicago, with posts in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, Department of Economics, and the Law School. He was a Director of the Becker Friedman Institute at the university.
Go to Profile#34510
Zvi Lotker
#34522
Overall Influence
Zvi Lotker is an Israeli computer scientist and communications systems engineer who works in the fields of digital humanities, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, network algorithms, and communication networks. He is an associate professor in the Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University.
Go to Profile#34511
Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
#34523
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Henri is Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He has reigned since 7 October 2000. Henri is the eldest son of Grand Duke Jean and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. He is a first cousin of King Philippe of Belgium. In 2019, Henri's net worth was estimated around US$4 billion.
Go to Profile#34512
Taika Waititi
#34524
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Taika David Cohen , known professionally as Taika Waititi , is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor and comedian. He is known for directing quirky comedy films and has expanded his career as a voice actor and producer on numerous projects. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Grammy Award, as well as two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.
Go to Profile#34513
Gary Wright
#34525
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Gary Malcolm Wright was an American musician and composer best known for his 1976 hit songs "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive". Wright's breakthrough album, The Dream Weaver , came after he had spent seven years in London as, alternately, a member of the British blues rock band Spooky Tooth and a solo artist on A&M Records. While in England, he played keyboards on former Beatle George Harrison's triple album All Things Must Pass , so beginning a friendship that inspired the Indian religious themes and spirituality inherent in Wright's subsequent songwriting. His work from the late 1980s onwar...
Go to Profile#34514
Hans van Vliet
#34526
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Johannes Cornelis van Vliet is a Dutch computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of Software Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, known for his work in quantitative aspects of software engineering.
Go to Profile#34515
Joshua B. Bederson
#34527
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Joshua B. Bederson is an American neurosurgeon, Leonard I. Malis, MD/Corinne and Joseph Graber Professor of Neurosurgery, and System Chair of Neurosurgery at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and an attending neurosurgeon at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Go to Profile#34516
Sandu Popescu
#34528
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Sandu Popescu is a Romanian-British physicist working in the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. Education and career He studied with Yakir Aharonov, followed by postdoctoral research positions with François Englert, and then with Abner Shimony and Bahaa Saleh. From 1996 to 1999 he was Reader at the Isaac Newton Institute, University of Cambridge.
Go to Profile#34517
Yogesh Jaluria
#34529
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Professor Yogesh Jaluria is Board of Governors Professor and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He is a specialist in thermal sciences and engineering.
Go to Profile#34518
Karl-Göran Mäler
#34530
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Karl-Göran Mäler was a Swedish economist. Mäler was born in 1939 in Sollefteå. He pursued undergraduate study in mathematics, statistics and economics at Stockholm University. Mäler specialized in economics at the graduate level, attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the United States before earning a doctorate from Stockholm University in 1972. He was a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics between 1975 and 2002. Mäler was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1981, and served on its Committee for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel until 1994.
Go to Profile#34519
Stephen Smith
#34531
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Stephen William Smith is an American biographer, editor, journalist, and writer. He is a former editor of the French daily newspaper Libération and the former deputy editor of the foreign desk at Le Monde. For many years he worked as a traveling correspondent for Radio France International and Reuters News Agency in West and Central Africa.
Go to Profile#34520
David Rimoin
#34532
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
David Lawrence Rimoin was a Canadian American geneticist. He was especially noted for his research into the genetics of skeletal dysplasia , inheritable diseases such as Tay–Sachs disease, and diabetes.
Go to Profile#34521
George Levinger
#34533
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
George Levinger was Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Born in Berlin, Germany, he fled the Nazi regime with his Jewish family in 1935, first moving to Switzerland and then to London, before emigrating to the United States in 1941. He received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1946. After his army service in Tokyo and time in the import-export business, he received a 1951 M.A. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and a 1955 Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. He later taught at Bryn Mawr College , Wes...
Go to Profile#34522
Barry Fry
#34534
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Barry Francis Fry is an English former football player and manager. An inside forward, Fry scored a goal for England Schoolboys in front of nearly 100,000 supporters at Wembley and was seen as the best player in the team. He went on to sign for Manchester United as an apprentice but never played for the first team and then had brief spells with Bolton Wanderers, Luton Town and Leyton Orient, before he retired prematurely due to injury.
Go to Profile#34523
Melvyn A. Goodale
#34535
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Melvyn Alan Goodale FRSC, FRS is a Canadian neuroscientist. He was the founding Director of the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience. He holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology, Physiology & Pharmacology, and Ophthalmology at Western. Goodale's research focuses on the neural substrates of visual perception and visuomotor control.
Go to Profile#34524
Vermont C. Royster
#34536
Overall Influence
1914 - 1996 (82 years)
Vermont Connecticut Royster was the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal from 1958 to 1971. He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his writing, and numerous other awards. Royster was famed for providing a conservative interpretation of the news every day, especially regarding economic issues.
Go to Profile#34525
Mohammad Maleki
#34537
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
Mohammad Maleki was an Iranian academic and pro-democracy nationalist-religious activist who served as president of the University of Tehran. Life and career Maleki was a founder of Legam, the Campaign for Step by Step Abolition of the Death Penalty. He appealed for the judiciary to uphold the constitutional rights of non-Muslims, and called for investigation into the persecution of members of the Baháʼí Faith.
Go to Profile#34526
Ali Sunyaev
#34538
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Ali Sunyaev is a professor for computer science and director of the Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology . Life His father is Rashid Sunyaev . His mother Gyuzal Sunyaeva is a physician. His brother Shamil Sunyaev is Distinguished Chair Professor for genetics at the Harvard Medical School at the Harvard University. Due to the work of his father, his family moved from the Russian Federation to Germany in 1996.
Go to Profile#34527
Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut
#34539
Overall Influence
1953 - 1994 (41 years)
Johannes Lambertus Adriana van de Snepscheut was a computer scientist and educator. He was a student of Martin Rem and Edsger Dijkstra. At the time of his death he was the executive officer of the computer science department at the California Institute of Technology. He was also developing an editor for proving theorems called "Proxac".
Go to Profile#34528
Virginia Mary Kendall
#34540
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Virginia Mary Kendall is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. President George W. Bush appointed her to the bench on January 3, 2006. In addition to serving on the bench, Judge Kendall is also a noted expert on child exploitation and human trafficking, as well as an adjunct law professor and author.
Go to Profile#34529
Brian Laudrup
#34541
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Brian Laudrup is a Danish former professional footballer who played as a winger, forward or as a midfielder, and was regarded as one of the most talented players of his generation. He currently works as a football commentator, pundit and analyst on Kanal 5 and 6'eren. Laudrup manages a football academy for marginalised youth.
Go to Profile#34530
Elizabeth A. Clark
#34542
Overall Influence
1938 - 2021 (83 years)
Elizabeth Ann Clark was a professor of the John Carlisle Kilgo professorship of religion at Duke University. She was notable for her work in the field of Patristics, and the teaching of ancient Christianity in US higher education. Clark expanded the study of early Christianity and was a strong advocate for women, pioneering the application of modern theories such as feminist theory, social network theory, and literary criticism to ancient sources.
Go to Profile#34531
David Lyons
#34543
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
David Lyons is an American moral, political and legal philosopher who is emeritus professor of philosophy and of law at Boston University. Education and career Lyons earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University where he studied under John Rawls. He taught at Cornell University from 1964 until 1995, when he joined the BU faculty. His former students include David O. Brink.
Go to Profile#34532
Julio Ángel Fernández
#34544
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Julio Ángel Fernández Alves is a Uruguayan astronomer and teacher, member of the department of astronomy at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo. He is also a member of PEDECIBA, , and the Uruguayan Society of Astronomy. From 2005 to 2010, he was the Dean of the Universidad de la Republica's Faculty of Sciences. The asteroid 5996 Julioangel, discovered in 1983, was named after him.
Go to Profile#34533
Laurel L. Wilkening
#34545
Overall Influence
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
Laurel L. Wilkening was an American planetary scientist and college professor. She was chancellor of the University of California, Irvine from 1993 to 1998. Early life Wilkening was born in Richland, Washington, and raised in Socorro, New Mexico. Her mother, Ruby Alma Barks Wilkening, was a teacher; her father, Marvin H. Wilkening, was an atomic scientist during World War II, and a physics professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Reed College in 1966. She completed doctoral studies in chemistry at the University of California, San Diego in 1970, under advisor Hans Suess.
Go to Profile#34534
Stephen E. Harris
#34546
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Stephen Ernest Harris is an American physicist known for his contributions to electromagnetically induced transparency , modulation of single photons, and x-ray emission. In a diverse career, he has collaborated with others to produce results in many areas, including the 1999 paper titled “Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold gas,” in which Lene Hau and Harris, Cyrus Behroozi and Zachary Dutton describe how they used EIT to slow optical pulses to the speed of a bicycle. He has also contributed to developments in the use of the laser, generating paired photons with si...
Go to Profile#34535
G. I. Williamson
#34547
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Gerald Irvin Williamson was an American Reformed theologian, pastor, and author. Biography G. I. Williamson was a Christian minister for fifty years. He retired from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church ministry in 2011. Having learned to play clarinet and saxophone because of his enthusiasm for the music of famous dance bands such as Glenn Miller and the Dorsey brothers, Tommy and Jimmy he became a professional musician. After serving in the army during World War II and while working as a dance hall musician, Williamson converted to Christianity at age 21. He attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan for one year and then transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Go to Profile#34536
Gary Cole
#34548
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Gary Michael Cole is an American actor. He began his professional acting career on stage at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1985. His breakout role was as Jack 'Nighthawk' Killian in the NBC series Midnight Caller .
Go to Profile#34537
Rebecca Hains
#34549
Overall Influence
Rebecca Hains is an American communication and media studies scholar and author. She is a professor in the Media and Communication Department at Salem State University and is a frequently quoted expert on the subject of children's media culture and marketing, which she studies from a feminist media studies and critical/cultural studies perspective.
Go to Profile#34538
Roger Miller
#34550
Overall Influence
1936 - 1992 (56 years)
Roger Dean Miller Sr. was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and his chart-topping country hits "King of the Road", "Dang Me", and "England Swings".
Go to Profile#34539
Shirley Collado
#34551
Overall Influence
Shirley M. Collado is an American psychology professor and academic administrator. She was the 9th president of Ithaca College. Collado was the second woman to hold the post and the first person of color. She is the first Dominican American to be named president of a four-year college in the United States. Prior to joining Ithaca, Collado was assistant professor of psychology, dean of the college and vice-president for student affairs at Middlebury College, then vice president for institutional planning and community engagement at Lafayette College. After returning to Middlebury College to ser...
Go to Profile#34540
Con Slobodchikoff
#34552
Overall Influence
Constantine "Con" Slobodchikoff is an animal behaviorist and conservation biologist. He is a professor at Northern Arizona University where he studies referential communication, using Gunnison's prairie dogs as a model species. Much of his recent research has shown a complex communicative ability of the Gunnison prairie dog alarm calls. In early 2008 he formed the Animal language Institute to create a place where people can find and share research in animal communication, including language.
Go to Profile#34541
Edward Balcerzan
#34553
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Edward Balcerzan is a Polish literary critic, poet, prose writer, and translator. Awards 1971 – nagroda czasopisma "Odra" za książkę Oprócz głosu. Szkice krytycznoliterackie. PIW, Warszawa 19711989 – nagroda Fundacji Literatury za książkę Poezja polska w latach 1939–1965, cz. II: Ideologie artystyczne. WSiP, Warszawa 19881992 — nagroda Fundacji A. Jurzykowskiego w Nowym Jorku w dziedzinie teorii literatury za Przygody człowieka książkowego. . PEN, Warszawa 19901998 – nagroda Polskiego PEN Clubu za Śmiech pokoleń – płacz pokoleń. Universitas, Kraków 19971998 – nagroda "Literatury na Świecie" za książkę Literatura z literatury .
Go to Profile#34542
John C. Collins
#34554
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Clements Collins is a British-born American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at Pennsylvania State University. He attended the University of Cambridge where he obtained a B.A. in mathematics 1971 and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1975. He worked as a postdoc and assistant professor from 1975 to 1980 at Princeton University. Collins was part of the faculty of the Illinois Institute of Technology from 1980 to 1990. From 1990 to the present, he has been a faculty member in the department of physics at Pennsylvania State University where he currently holds the position of distinguished professor.
Go to Profile#34543
Albrecht Schöne
#34555
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Albrecht Schöne is a German Germanist. From 1960 to 1990 he was a professor of German philology at the University of Göttingen. Career Schöne was born on 17 July 1925 in Barby an der Elbe. After graduating from secondary school he immediately performed his military service. During World War II he was made prisoner of war. Schöne subsequently worked as a lumberjack until 1947. From 1947 to 1951 he studied German literature, history, philosophy, theology and psychiatry at the universities of Freiburg, Basel, Göttingen and Münster. In 1952 Schöne took his Ph.D. from the University of Münster. In...
Go to Profile#34544
Boris Sharkov
#34556
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Boris Yuriyevich Sharkov is a Russian physicist. Biography Boris Sharkov studied physics from 1967 to 1973 at Moscow Engineering Physics Institute at the Faculty of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. In 1979 he received his doctorate in plasma physics. He organized a group for heavy-ion research in laser-produced plasma at ITEP, which deals with the development of source of highly charged ions for the ITEP accelerator. In 1991 he earned his second doctorate in "Physics of the ion beam of charged particle beams and accelerator physics." In 1999 he was awarded the title of Professor by the...
Go to Profile#34545
Lee Daniels
#34557
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Lee Daniels is an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter. His first producer credit was Monster's Ball , for which Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress, making Daniels the first African-American film producer to solely produce an Oscar-winning film. He made his directorial debut with Shadowboxer in 2005 and has since then directed the films Precious , The Paperboy , The Butler and The United States vs. Billie Holiday . Of these, Precious was the most critically acclaimed, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including two nominations for Daniels, for Best Director and Best Picture.
Go to Profile#34546
Jenny Saffran
#34558
Overall Influence
Jenny Saffran is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She specializes in language acquisition and early cognitive development, and she also conducts research on music cognition. Saffran views language acquisition as based on general cognitive processes such as statistical learning, and has conducted numerous empirical studies that support this view. She received a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Saffran is married to fellow psychologist Seth Pollak, and she is the daughter of cognitive neuropsychologist Eleanor Saffran.
Go to Profile#34547
John Bercow
#34559
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
John Simon Bercow is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior to becoming Speaker, he was the first MP since Selwyn Lloyd in 1971 to be elected Speaker without having been a Deputy Speaker. After resigning as Speaker in 2019 and opting not to seek re-election as MP for Buckingham in the 2019 general election, Bercow left Parliament. In 2021, he joined the Labour Party but was suspended in 2022.
Go to Profile#34548
Ray Whitrod
#34560
Overall Influence
1915 - 2003 (88 years)
Raymond Wells Whitrod, was an Australian police officer and criminologist. He was considered a world leader in the way society treats victims of crime. He was known as a man of high professional standards, with a commitment to justice, equity and integrity. He became best known for his term as Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, resigning in protest in 1976 at the corruption then endemic in Queensland, and in particular over the appointment by the Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, of Terry Lewis as Assistant Commissioner.
Go to Profile#34549
Nobuko Takagi
#34561
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Nobuko Takagi is the professional name of Nobuko Tsuruta, a Japanese author. She has won the Akutagawa Prize and the Tanizaki Prize, she has been named a Person of Cultural Merit, and her work has been adapted for film.
Go to Profile#34550
Sarah E. Turner
#34562
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Sarah E. Turner is an American professor of economics and education and Souder Family Endowed Chair at the University of Virginia. She also holds appointments in the university's Department of Economics, the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and the School of Education and Human Development . She is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.
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