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
#34601
Rui Costa
#34613
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Rui Manuel César Costa is a Portuguese former professional footballer who is the 34th president of sports club S.L. Benfica. He also succeeded Luís Filipe Vieira as president of the club's SAD board of directors.
Go to Profile#34602
Philip J. Hanlon
#34614
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Philip James Hanlon is an American mathematician, computer scientist, and academic administrator, who served as the 18th president of Dartmouth College, his alma mater, from June 2013 until June 2023. Previously, he served as the 13th provost and executive vice president for academic affairs of the University of Michigan from 2010 to 2013.
Go to Profile#34603
Susan Weber
#34615
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Susan Weber is an American historian. She is the founder and director of the Bard Graduate Center for studies in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture affiliated with Bard College in Dutchess County, New York. She was previously married to George Soros.
Go to Profile#34604
Garth Saloner
#34616
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Garth Saloner is a South African-born American economist. He is the John H. Scully Professor of Leadership, Management and International Business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was the dean from 2009 to 2015.
Go to Profile#34605
Jadwiga Staniszkis
#34617
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Jadwiga Staniszkis is a Polish sociologist and political scientist, essayist, a former professor at the University of Warsaw and the Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu , a Polish campus of National-Louis University.
Go to Profile#34606
Richard Weber
#34618
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Richard Robert Weber is a mathematician working in operational research. He is Emeritus Churchill Professor of Mathematics for Operational Research in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
Go to Profile#34607
Peter Nijkamp
#34619
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Peter Nijkamp is a Dutch economist, Professor of Regional Economics and Economic Geography at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and President of the Governing Board of the Netherlands Research Council . He is ranked among the top 100 economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc, and is by far the most prolific economist. Towards the end of his career at the VU university Nijkamp faced accusations of self-plagiarism and VU-appointed investigators have criticised referencing methods in some of his work.
Go to Profile#34608
Robert X. Browning
#34620
Overall Influence
Robert Xavier Browning is a professor at Purdue University and head of the C-SPAN Archives in West Lafayette, Indiana. Education and academic career Browning graduated from Marquette University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1972. He received a master's degree in public administration in 1977 and a master's degree in political science in 1978, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1981, he was awarded his Ph.D., also from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, under the direction of Ira Sharkansky with the thesis "Political and economic predictors of policy outcomes: U.S. socia...
Go to Profile#34609
Daisuke Takahashi
#34621
Overall Influence
Daisuke Takahashi is a full professor of computer science at the University of Tsukuba, specializing in high-performance numerical computing. Education and career Takahashi received a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1993 and a master's degree in engineering in 1995, both from Toyohashi University of Technology. He completed a Ph.D. in information science from the University of Tokyo in 1999. After working as a researcher at the University of Tokyo and at Saitama University, he joined the University of Tsukuba in 2001.
Go to Profile#34610
Berta Scharrer
#34622
Overall Influence
1906 - 1995 (89 years)
Berta Vogel Scharrer was an American scientist who helped to found the scientific discipline now known as neuroendocrinology. Career She received her Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1930. She worked at the university with Professor Karl von Frisch, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for his work with bees. After completing her education, Berta and her husband, Ernst Scharrer embarked on a remarkable scientific career together. Their journey began at the Research Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, where Berta focused on the study of spirochaete infections in th...
Go to Profile#34611
Indira Hinduja
#34623
Overall Influence
Indira Hinduja is an Indian gynecologist, obstetrician and infertility specialist based in Mumbai. She pioneered the Gamete intrafallopian transfer technique resulting in the birth of India's first GIFT baby on 4 January 1988. Previously she delivered India's first test tube baby at KEM Hospital on 6 August 1986. She is also credited for developing an oocyte donation technique for menopausal and premature ovarian failure patients, giving the country's first baby out of this technique on 24 January 1991.
Go to Profile#34612
Richard Shore
#34624
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Richard Arnold Shore is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University who works in recursion theory, the partial order of the Turing degrees.Shore settled the Rogers respectively, are not isomorphic.In joint work with Theodore Slaman, Shore showed that the Turing jump.
Go to Profile#34613
John Mortvedt
#34625
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
John Jacob Mortvedt was an American soil scientist who worked with micronutrient fertilizer. Early life and education Born and raised on a Dell Rapids, South Dakota, farm to Ernest and Clara Mortvedt, John Mortvedt earned a bachelor's degree in agronomy from South Dakota State University in 1953. After a brief return to the farm, Mortvedt was a pilot for a US Army aviation unit stationed in Colorado, between World War II and the Korean War. He married Marlene Fodness in Rapid City, South Dakota, on January 23, 1955. Mortvedt studied for a master's degree in soil science from SDSU and graduated in 1959, continuing for his Ph.D.
Go to Profile#34614
Edward Acton
#34626
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Edward David Joseph Lyon-Dalberg-Acton is a British academic and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. His title from birth is The Honourable but is never referred as such professionally or on the university website.
Go to Profile#34615
Hans Endres
#34627
Overall Influence
1911 - 2004 (93 years)
Hans Endres was a German religious philosopher and author. He was a pioneer in the para-scientific areas of transpersonal psychology and integral management. Endres studied at Heidelberg University, the University of Vienna, the University of Graz and in London, studying philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, anthropology and psychiatry, amongst other subjects. Prior to commencing his studies at Graz he became a member of the Nazi Party.
Go to Profile#34616
Gerhard Chroust
#34628
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Gerhard Chroust is an Austrian systems scientist, and Professor Emeritus for Systems Engineering and Automation at the Institute of System Sciences at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. Chroust is an authority in the fields of formal programming languages and interdisciplinary information management.
Go to Profile#34617
Maneesh Agrawala
#34629
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Maneesh Agrawala is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. He returned to Stanford in 2015 as the director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, after nearly a decade on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#34618
Terry Todd
#34630
Overall Influence
1937 - 2018 (81 years)
Terence Todd January 1, 1938 – July 7, 2018 Todd also held a career as a journalist on the staff of Sports Illustrated magazine, as well as doing commentary for CBS, NBC, ESPN and National Public Radio.
Go to Profile#34619
Sardar Fazlul Karim
#34631
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Sardar Fazlul Karim was a Bangladeshi academic, philosopher and essayist. Early life and family Sardar Fazlul Karim was born on 1 May 1925, to a lower middle class family in the village of Atipara located in the Backergunge District of the Bengal Presidency . His father, Khabiruddin Sardar, was a farmer, and his mother, Safura Begum, was a housewife. He had one brother and three sisters, and they grew up in the village.
Go to Profile#34620
Miguel Robles-Durán
#34632
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Miguel Robles-Durán is an urbanist, Associate Professor of Urbanism at The New School / Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, and co-founder of the non-profit Cohabitation Strategies, a cooperative for socio-spatial research, design and development based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and New York City, US.
Go to Profile#34621
Mark Harman
#34633
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Mark Harman is an Irish-American translator, most notably of Franz Kafka's work, and professor emeritus at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, United States, where he served as Professor of German & English and College Professor of International Studies.
Go to Profile#34622
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow
#34634
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow , also known as Arkadag, is a Turkmen politician who is currently the chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan . He previously served as the 2nd President of Turkmenistan from 2006 to 2022, when he entered into a power-sharing arrangement with his son, Serdar, the current president.
Go to Profile#34623
Gael García Bernal
#34635
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Gael García Bernal is a Mexican actor and producer. He is known for his performances in the films Bad Education , The Motorcycle Diaries , Amores perros , Y tu mamá también , Babel , Coco , and Old , for his role as the titular character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe television special Werewolf by Night , and for his role as Rodrigo de Souza in the series Mozart in the Jungle .
Go to Profile#34624
Viken Babikian
#34636
Overall Influence
Viken L. Babikian is an American doctor of Armenian origin and professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. Babikian received his undergraduate degree from the American University of Beirut, and his M.D. from Northwestern University School of Medicine. He completed a neurology residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals and a stroke fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the Boston University Department of Neurology in 1986. He studies cerebrovascular disorders such as stroke.
Go to Profile#34625
Raymond Lyttleton
#34637
Overall Influence
1911 - 1995 (84 years)
Raymond Arthur Lyttleton FRS was a British mathematician and theoretical astronomer. He was born in Warley Woods near Birmingham and educated at King Edward VI Five Ways school in Birmingham, going from there to Clare College, Cambridge to read mathematics, graduating in 1933. He was elected a Fellow of St John's College in 1937 and appointed a lecturer in mathematics in the same year . A keen amateur cricketer, he played minor counties cricket for Cambridgeshire from 1946–1949, making fifteen appearances. He was Reader in Theoretical Astronomy from 1959 to 1969, after which he was appointed ...
Go to Profile#34626
James Otteson
#34638
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
James R. Otteson is an American philosopher and political economist. He is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. Formerly, he was the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, Professor of Economics, and executive director of the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University. He is also a Senior Scholar at The Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C., a Research Professor in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom and in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona, a Visitor of Ralston College, a Research Fellow for t...
Go to Profile#34627
H. Vinson Synan
#34639
Overall Influence
1934 - 2020 (86 years)
Harold Vinson Synan was an American historian, author, and alliance leader within the Pentecostal movement. Synan published a total of 25 books, a majority related to Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic movements. He served as General Secretary of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and later as Chair of the North American Renewal Service Committee from 1985 to 2001. From 1994 - 2006 he served as Dean of the School of Divinity at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In 2016, Synan moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to re-join the faculty of Oral Roberts University as Interim Dean of the College of Theology and Ministry, where he served for two years.
Go to Profile#34628
Romano Amerio
#34640
Overall Influence
1905 - 1997 (92 years)
Romano Amerio was a Swiss-Italian theologian and a late critic of post-Conciliar evolutions in liturgy and ecclesiology. His magnum opus is Iota Unum. It is a work dedicated to the study of the ruptures in Church teaching and tradition following the Second Vatican Council.
Go to Profile#34629
Peter Whelan
#34641
Overall Influence
1931 - 2014 (83 years)
Peter Whelan was a British playwright. Whelan was born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, England. As a student from 1951–55 Whelan was an inspirational figure in the newly-formed Drama Society at the experimental University College of North Staffordshire, later Keele University. At Keele he met his wife Frangcon Price, who also excelled in drama as a student and in her later career. They married in 1958.
Go to Profile#34630
Justin Lewis
#34642
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Justin Lewis FLSW is a Professor of Communication and Creative Industries at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. He is the Director of Clwstwr, an Arts and Humanities Research Council and Welsh Government funded Research & Development innovation centre for the Screen and News sectors and Media Cymru, a £50 million, 23 partner consortium, funded by UK Research and Innovation, Cardiff Capital Region and Welsh Government, designed to boost inclusive and sustainable media sector innovation in Wales. He is also Chief Field Editor for Frontiers in Comm...
Go to Profile#34631
Leonard Wantchekon
#34643
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Leonard Wantchekon is a Beninese economist and professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and an affiliate of the Economics Department at Princeton University. He taught at Yale University and New York University . He is the founding director of the African School of Economics, which is based in Benin. His study with Nathan Nunn on the impact of slave trading on modern-day trust is among the most-cited studies in economics.
Go to Profile#34632
Norman Kember
#34644
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Norman Frank Kember is an emeritus professor of biophysics at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and a Christian pacifist active in campaigning on issues of war and peace. As a Baptist, he is a long-standing member of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. As a conscientious objector to military service, he worked in a hospital in the early 1950s, which stimulated his interest in medical physics. He has been involved with the "Peace Zone" at the annual Greenbelt Festival.
Go to Profile#34633
Melvyn Greaves
#34645
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Sir Melvyn Francis Greaves FMedSci, FRS is a British cancer biologist, and Professor of Cell Biology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. He is noted for his research into childhood leukaemia and the roles of evolution in cancer, including important discoveries in the genetics and molecular biology underpinning leukaemia.
Go to Profile#34634
Mick Guzauski
#34646
Overall Influence
Nathan "Mick" Guzauski is an American multi-platinum mixing engineer and sound engineer. He has nine Grammy Awards and eleven nominations. His work spans a wide range of styles, including jazz, R&B, Latin, rock, pop, easy listening, funk and hip hop. The first Spanish-speaking artist Mick worked was the Spanish singer "Mónica Naranjo" in 1996 on her multi platinum album "Palabra de Mujer" produced by Cristóbal Sansano . He won a 2002 Latin Grammy for Thalía's "Arrasando", four 2004 Latin Grammys for Alejandro Sanz's "No Es Lo Mismo" , and the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, for Eric Clapton's "Back Home." As of 2001, he had mixed 27 # 1 singles.
Go to Profile#34635
David Noel Freedman
#34647
Overall Influence
1922 - 2008 (86 years)
David Noel Freedman was an American biblical scholar, author, editor, archaeologist, and, after his conversion from Judaism, a Presbyterian minister. He was one of the first Americans to work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is the son of the writer David Freedman. He died of a heart ailment.
Go to Profile#34636
Scott Silliman
#34648
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Scott Livingston Silliman is a Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Law at Duke Law School, and Emeritus Executive Director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. He was also an adjunct professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , and at North Carolina Central University.
Go to Profile#34637
Emilio Estevez
#34649
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Emilio Estevez is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen. Estevez started his acting career in the 1980s and was one of a group of actors known as the Brat Pack. He is notable for starring in The Outsiders , The Breakfast Club , and Wisdom . He is also known for appearing in Men at Work , Freejack , Loaded Weapon 1 , Mission: Impossible , Rated X , and Bobby . Estevez also starred in two film franchises: Young Guns and its 1990 sequel, and The Mighty Ducks .
Go to Profile#34638
Peter Burleigh
#34650
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Albert Peter Burleigh is an American diplomat who worked as a Foreign Service Officer and joined the American Academy of Diplomacy. Early life and education Burleigh was born March 7, 1942, in Los Angeles. He graduated from Hollywood High School and then Colgate University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1963.
Go to Profile#34639
Dietmar Salamon
#34651
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Dietmar Arno Salamon is a German mathematician. Education and career Salamon studied mathematics at the Leibniz University Hannover. In 1982 he earned his doctorate at the University of Bremen with dissertation On control and observation of neutral systems. He subsequently spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Mathematical Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, followed by one year at the Mathematical Research Institute at ETH Zurich. In 1986 he became a lecturer at the University of Warwick, where he was appointed full professor in 1994. The summer semester 1988 he...
Go to Profile#34640
Alina Chan
#34652
Overall Influence
Alina Chan is a Canadian molecular biologist specializing in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she is a postdoctoral fellow. During the COVID-19 pandemic she became known for questioning the prevailing consensus regarding the origins of the virus and publicly advocating a laboratory escape hypothesis.
Go to Profile#34641
Juan Francisco Fuentes
#34653
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Juan Francisco Fuentes Aragonés is a Spanish historian specialized in contemporary history. Born in 1955 in Barcelona, he is professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. His works cover contemporary history and socialism in Spain, including biographies of José Marchena, Francisco Largo Caballero, Luis Araquistáin, and Adolfo Suárez. He collaborated with Javier Fernández Sebastián, with whom he wrote Historia del periodismo español and Diccionario político y social del siglo XX español.
Go to Profile#34642
M. Brian Blake
#34654
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
M. Brian Blake is an American computer scientist/software engineer and the eighth president of Georgia State University. He was previously the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at George Washington University; executive vice president of academic affairs and the Nina Henderson Provost at Drexel University; the dean of the graduate school and vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Miami; an associate dean for research and professor at the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame; and department chair and professor of computer science at Ge...
Go to Profile#34643
Joaquim Maria Puyal
#34655
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Joaquim Maria Puyal i Ortiga is a Catalan journalist known for his work in television and radio. Biography He was born on March 24, 1949, in the city of Barcelona. He graduated in romance philology at the Universitat de Barcelona and later obtained a degree in Communication Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2010 he earned a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics by the Universitat de Barcelona, defending an Extraordinary Awarded thesis.
Go to Profile#34644
Dag Øistein Endsjø
#34656
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Dag Øistein Endsjø is a Norwegian professor of religious studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. He's been published in thirteen languages. Career Endsjø research focuses on the continuity between traditional Greek and early Christian beliefs, sexuality and religion, religion and human rights, and religion and popular culture. In his book Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity , he demonstrates how Christian resurrection beliefs also connect to ancient Greek beliefs in resurrection and physical immortality and may have contributed to the early success of Christianity in the Hellenistic Mediterranean.
Go to Profile#34645
Ronnie Baxter
#34657
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Ronnie Baxter is an English former professional darts player who competed in Professional Darts Corporation events. He used the nickname "The Rocket" for his matches. Baxter was known for his fast robotic throwing action. He currently resides in his hometown Blackpool. Baxter is widely regarded as one of the best players never to have won a major TV title. He is still active on the exhibition circuit.
Go to Profile#34646
Alexander Payne
#34658
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Constantine Alexander Payne is an American and Greek film director, screenwriter and producer. He is noted for his satirical depictions of contemporary American society. Payne has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award and three Golden Globe Awards as well as a nomination for a Grammy Award.
Go to Profile#34647
Michael Roth
#34659
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at :de:Michael Roth ; see its history for attribution. Michael Roth was a German engineer and professor of automation, specializing in microprocessor technology, computer science and sociology as well as philosophy of science. He was one of the pioneers in the area of computer engineering in Germany.
Go to Profile#34648
Kim Beazley
#34660
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kim Christian Beazley is an Australian former politician and diplomat. Since 2022 he has served as the Chairman of the Australian War Memorial. Previously, he was leader of the Australian Labor Party and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. After leaving parliament, he served as ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2016 and governor of Western Australia from 2018 to 2022.
Go to Profile#34649
Chuck Stone
#34661
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Charles Sumner "Chuck" Stone, Jr. was an American pilot, newspaper editor, journalism professor, and author. He was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and was the first president of the National Association of Black Journalists, serving from 1975 to 1977. Passionate about racial issues and supportive of many liberal causes, he refused to follow any party line, "but called the issues as he saw them."
Go to Profile#34650
Jonathan Partington
#34662
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jonathan Richard Partington is an English mathematician who is Emeritus Professor of pure mathematics at the University of Leeds. Education Professor Partington was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he completed his PhD thesis entitled "Numerical ranges and the Geometry of Banach Spaces" under the supervision of Béla Bollobás.
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