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

#34651

Subodh Sarkar

Subodh Sarkar
#34663
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Subodh Sarkar is a Bengali poet, writer and editor, and a reader in English literature at City College, Kolkata. He is a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. Biography Subodh Sarkar, born in 1958, is a noted Indian Bengali poet, editor, translator and Associate Professor in English at City College, Calcutta University. His first book of poems was published in the late 70s. He received the West Bengal Bangla Academy Award for poetry in 2000. His PhD is on the hyphenated identities of Indian American women writers writing in English. He visited Russia and Turkey as a member of the Indian Writers’ delegation organized by Sahitya Academy in 2010.
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#34652

Richard Felix Staar

#34664
Overall Influence
1923 - 2018 (95 years)
Richard Felix Staar was an American political scientist and historian. He held a position of senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. His areas of specialization included Russia and East-Central Europe , military strategy, national security, arms control, and public diplomacy. He was an author of numerous books and articles.
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#34653

Anthony Joseph Scirica

#34665
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Anthony Joseph Scirica is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Early life and career Scirica was born on December 16, 1940, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University in 1962. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1965. He was a Fulbright scholar at Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela in 1966. He was in private practice of law in Norristown from 1966 to 1980. He was an assistant district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, from 1967 to 1969.
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#34654

Manuel de Paiva Boléo

#34666
Overall Influence
1904 - 1992 (88 years)
Manuel de Paiva Boléo was a professor of Romance philology and Portuguese linguistics. Biography External links Biography - in Portuguese
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#34655

W. Keith Campbell

#34667
Overall Influence
William Keith Campbell is an American social psychologist known for his research on narcissism. He is a professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He completed his BA at University of California, Berkeley, MA from University of California, San Diego, PhD at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and a number of books, including The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatments and The Narcissism Epi...
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#34656

Mouhanad Khorchide

Mouhanad Khorchide
#34668
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Mouhanad Khorchide is an Austrian sociologist and Islamic theologian, teaching as a professor at the University of Münster in Germany. Personal life and studies The scientific advisory board of the Austrian Documentation Center for Political Islam is headed by Khorchide.
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#34657

Colin Davis

#34669
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Sir Colin Rex Davis was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett.
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#34658

Lucia Berlin

#34670
Overall Influence
1936 - 2004 (68 years)
Lucia Brown Berlin was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years after her death, with the publication of a volume of her selected stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women. It hit The New York Times bestseller list in its second week, and within a few weeks had outsold all her previous books combined.
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#34659

G. C. Berkouwer

G. C. Berkouwer
#34671
Overall Influence
1903 - 1996 (93 years)
Gerrit Cornelis "G.C." Berkouwer was for years the leading theologian of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . He occupied the chair in systematic theology of the Faculty of Theology, Free University in Amsterdam.
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#34660

Mateo Valero

Mateo Valero
#34672
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Mateo Valero Cortés is a Spanish computer architect. His research encompasses different concepts within the field of computer architecture, a discipline in which he has published more than 700 papers in journals, conference proceedings and books. Valero has received numerous awards, including the Eckert–Mauchly Award in 2007, for "extraordinary leadership in building a world class computer architecture research center, for seminal contributions in the areas of vector computing and multithreading, and for pioneering basic new approaches to instruction-level parallelism." He is the director of ...
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#34661

Julia Heiman

#34673
Overall Influence
Dr Julia R. Heiman is an American sexologist and psychologist. The sixth Director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University, she began on June 1, 2004. Dr. Heiman is also a professor in the Psychology Department at Indiana University with a joint appointment in the Psychiatry Department at the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis.
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#34662

Virginia Ruzici

Virginia Ruzici
#34674
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Virginia Ruzici is a former professional tennis player from Romania. She won the 1978 French Open singles championship. Career Ruzici became a professional tennis player in 1975. One of her main assets on court was her powerful forehand. In a career spanning 12 years, Ruzici won 12 career singles titles, including one Grand Slam title, the 1978 French Open. In the final, she beat 1977 French Open champion Mima Jaušovec 6–2, 6–2. Ruzici also won the French Open doubles event with Jaušovec in 1978 and reached the mixed doubles final in 1978. She appeared in the French Open singles final in 1980...
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#34663

Tom Traves

#34675
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Thomas Donald Traves is a Canadian academic professor and administrator. He was the 10th President of Dalhousie University, serving from 1995 to 2013. He was appointed for a one year term as Interim President of Brock University on October 1, 2016.
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#34664

Scott Pruett

Scott Pruett
#34676
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Scott Donald Pruett is an American retired racing driver who has competed in numerous disciplines of the sport. In the 1980s, Pruett established himself as a top sports car racer, winning two IMSA GTO, and three Trans-Am championships. Later in his career, he won five Grand-Am championships. In the 1990s, Pruett competed in CART Championship cars. After a brief stint in NASCAR, he returned to sports cars.
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#34665

Karl Jenkins

#34677
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins, , HonFLSW is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song "Adiemus", the Adiemus album series; Palladio; The Armed Man; his Requiem and his Stabat Mater .
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#34666

Derek Lowe

#34678
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Derek Christopher Lowe is an American former professional baseball pitcher. During his career, he played in Major League Baseball for the Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees, and Texas Rangers.
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#34667

Stefania Jabłońska

Stefania Jabłońska
#34679
Overall Influence
1920 - 2017 (97 years)
Stefania Jabłońska was a Polish physician and professor specializing in dermatology. She worked at the Medical University of Warsaw. In 1972, she theorized the association of human papilloma viruses with skin cancer in epidermodysplasia verruciformis.
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#34668

Walter K. Andersen

Walter K. Andersen
#34680
Overall Influence
Walter K. Andersen is an American academic known for his studies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – a Hindu nationalist organization. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and is a part of the faculty of Tongji University, Shanghai . Previously, he taught comparative politics at the College of Wooster before joining the United States State Department as a political analyst for South Asia specializing in India and Indian Ocean affairs. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor a...
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#34669

Erwin Friedrich Wagner

Erwin Friedrich Wagner
#34681
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Erwin Friedrich Wagner is an Austrian biochemist known for his research on the molecular basis of cancer and associated conditions such as inflammation and cachexia. He was deputy director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid, Spain, until 2019. Since 2019, Wagner is a group leader affiliated with the Medical University of Vienna.
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#34670

Alexander Bolonkin

#34682
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
Alexander Alexandrovich Bolonkin was a Russian-American scientist and academic who worked in the Soviet aviation, space and rocket industries and lectured in Moscow universities, before being arrested in 1972 by the KGB as a dissident. He served terms of imprisonment and exile for 15 years until 1987, when he emigrated to the US as a political refugee.
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#34671

Hugo de Burgh

#34683
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Hugo de Burgh is the founder of the China Media Centre at the University of Westminster. He previously ran the Centre for Media Research at Goldsmiths College. de Burgh is State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs Endowment Professor at Tsinghua University, honorary fellow at the 48 Group Club, and board member at the Great Britain–China Centre. de Burgh is a member of the Social Democratic Party and will be standing as a candidate of that party at the next UK general election.
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#34672

Javier Cercas

Javier Cercas
#34684
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Javier Cercas Mena is a Spanish writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain. He was born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, Spain. He is a frequent contributor to the Catalan edition of El País and the Sunday supplement. He worked for two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States.
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#34673

Konnan

Konnan
#34685
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Charles Rudy Ashenoff , better known by his ring name Konnan, is a Cuban-born American professional wrestling personality, manager, and former professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Major League Wrestling and Impact Wrestling. In Impact, he was the manager of The Latin American Xchange and currently serves as a member of the creative team. During a career spanning almost three decades, he has wrestled for independent and national promotions in the United States and Mexico, and held fifteen title belts in nine promotions. He has also worked as a manager, color commentator, booker, and creative consultant, primarily for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide .
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#34674

Sirry Alang

#34686
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sirry Alang is a Cameroonian-American Health Services Researcher. She is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Health, Medicine and Society at Lehigh University. Alang is also a Medical Sociologist. Her research examines the structural causes of health inequity and the social determinants of health.
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#34675

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed

#34687
Overall Influence
1934 - 2012 (78 years)
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was a Somali politician and former colonel in the Somali National Army. He was one of the founders of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, as well as the Puntland state of Somalia, the latter of which he served as the first president. In 2004, Ahmed also helped establish the Transitional Federal Government, which he led as President of Somalia from 2004 until 2008.
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#34676

Monique de Saint-Martin

#34688
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Monique de Saint-Martin is a sociologist born in France. Introduction She is the director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales , Monique de Saint-Martinis is known for her work with Pierre Bourdieu. The focus of her research is on the sociology of elites, the sociology of the Grandes écoles and the sociology of employers. Prior to her position at the EHESS, she was involved with the Laboratory Council of the Center for the Study of Social Movements from 2005 to 2008.
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#34677

Clifford Ladd Prosser

#34689
Overall Influence
1907 - 2002 (95 years)
Dr. Clifford Ladd Prosser was an American physiologist focused on research of comparative physiology of animals. The American Physiological Society said "Ladd Prosser was among the few giants of comparative physiology in the second half of the twentieth century". He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim fellow, and a recipient of 50th Anniversary Award of the American Society of General Physiologists. He served as editor of the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
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#34678

Kenneth A. Oye

#34690
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Kenneth Akito Oye is an American political scientist and Professor of Political Science and Data Systems and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Director of the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies and former Director of the MIT Center for International Studies.
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#34679

Morris S. Arnold

Morris S. Arnold
#34691
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Morris Sheppard Arnold is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
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#34680

Manfred Bietak

#34692
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Manfred Bietak is an Austrian archaeologist. He is professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Vienna, working as the principal investigator for an ERC Advanced Grant Project "The Hyksos Enigma" and editor-in-chief of the journal Ägypten und Levante and of four series of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental and European Archaeology .
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#34681

Peter Arcidiacono

#34693
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Peter Arcidiacono is an American economist and econometrician. He received his PhD from Wisconsin in 1999 and has taught at Duke University ever since. He became a fellow of the Econometric Society in 2018.
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#34682

Annie Mac

#34694
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Annie Macmanus , known professionally as Annie Mac, is an Irish DJ, broadcaster and writer. She hosted a variety of shows on BBC Radio 1, including BBC Switch and Future Sounds. She also DJed in various locations, including hosting her AMP Lost and Found venues in places like Ibiza.
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#34683

Tania A. Baker

#34695
Overall Influence
Tania A. Baker is an American biochemist who is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and formally the head of the Department of Biology. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin–Madison and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University under the guidance of Arthur Kornberg. She joined the MIT faculty in 1992 and her research is focused on the mechanisms and regulation of DNA transposition and protein chaperones. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a How...
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#34684

Leonard I. Zon

#34696
Overall Influence
Leonard I. Zon, M.D., is the Grousbeck Professor of Pediatric Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of the Stem Cell Program, Children’s Hospital Boston.
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#34685

Kevin Guskiewicz

#34697
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Kevin Guskiewicz is an American academic administrator who is the 12th chancellor and 30th chief executive of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He gained prominence as a neuroscientist, sports medicine researcher, and Kenan Distinguished Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is one of the Principal Investigators of the Injury Prevention Research Center, and directs the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center. He is a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. On January 1, 2016, he became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill. On February 6, 2019, he w...
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#34686

Rob J. Hyndman

#34698
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Robin John Hyndman is an Australian statistician known for his work on forecasting and time series. He is Professor of Statistics at Monash University and was Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Forecasting from 2005–2018. In 2007 he won the Moran Medal from the Australian Academy of Science for his contributions to statistical research. In 2021 he won the Pitman Medal from the Statistical Society of Australia.
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#34687

Sossina M. Haile

#34699
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Sossina M. Haile is an American chemist, known for developing the first solid acid fuel cells. She is a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, Illinois, US. Haile received the National Science Foundation National Young Investigator Award , Humboldt Fellowship , Fulbright Fellowship , and AT&T Cooperative Research Fellowship . The Humboldt and Fulbright fellowships supported her research at the Max Planck Institut für Festkörperforschung [Institute for Solid State Research], Stuttgart, Germany . She earned the 2001 J.B. Wagner Award of the High Temperature ...
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#34688

Michael Rosen

#34700
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Michael Ira Rosen is an American mathematician who works on algebraic number theory, arithmetic theory of function fields, and arithmetic algebraic geometry. Biography Rosen earned a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University in 1959 and a PhD from Princeton University in 1963 under John Coleman Moore with thesis Representations of twisted group rings. He is a mathematics professor at Brown University.
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#34689

Jacob van Rijs

Jacob van Rijs
#34701
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Jacob van Rijs Ir. FRIBA is a Dutch architect, urban planner and one of MVRDV’s three founding partners. Besides giving lectures worldwide van Rijs is also professor Entwerfen und Baukonstruktion at the Technical University of Berlin. Moreover, he regularly lectures and takes part in student juriesat universities and institutes worldwide. His teaching experience comprehends TU Munich, TU Delft, University of Wismar, ETSAM University Madrid, Royal Academy of Arts Copenhagen, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Rice University, Houston, amongst others. Within the Royal Institute of Dutch Archite...
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#34690

Lillian BeVier

#34702
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Lillian Riemer BeVier is a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. She was the first woman to become a full professor at the law school, and she holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus.
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#34691

Ulrike Tillmann

Ulrike Tillmann
#34703
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Ulrike Luise Tillmann FRS is a mathematician specializing in algebraic topology, who has made important contributions to the study of the moduli space of algebraic curves. She is the president of the London Mathematical Society in the period 2021–2022.
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#34692

Demetri Psaltis

#34704
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Demetri Psaltis is a Greek-American electrical engineer who was the Dean of the School of Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne from 2007 to 2017. He is a professor in Bioengineering and Director of the Optics Laboratory of the EPFL. He is one of the founders of the term and the field of optofluidics. He is also well known for his past work in holography, especially with regards to optical computing, holographic data storage, and neural networks. He is an author of over 1100 publications, contributed more than 20 book chapters, invented more than 50 patents, and currently ha...
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#34693

Pål Nyrén

#34705
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Pål Nyrén is a biochemistry professor at the Royal Institute of Technology , Stockholm. He is most famous for developing the pyrosequencing method for DNA sequencing. Career 1999 Professor in Biochemistry, KTH, Stockholm1997 Founder of the company Biotage AB 1988 Associate professor Biochemistry, University of Stockholm1985-86 Postdoc at LMB, MRC, Cambridge, G.B. with prof John Walker1985 PhD Biochemistry, University of Stockholm 1981 MSc Chemical Engineering, KTH, Stockholm
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#34694

Ove Fundin

#34706
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Ove Fundin is a Swedish former professional motorcycle speedway rider. He competed in the Speedway World Championships from 1951 to 1970. Fundin is notable for winning the Speedway World Championship Final five times , a record bettered only by Ivan Mauger and fellow Swede Tony Rickardsson who each won six World Championships. He finished runner-up in the championship 3 times and was third in 1962, 1964 and 1965 meaning that from his first win in 1956 until his last in 1967, Fundin did not finish lower than a podium place in a record eleven World Finals. He was known by the nickname of the "Flying Fox" or just "the Fox" because of his red hair.
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#34695

Benjamin Z. Kedar

Benjamin Z. Kedar
#34707
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Benjamin Ze'ev Kedar is professor emeritus of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was president of the international Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East , chairman of the board of the Israel Antiquities Authority and vice-president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities . He is 2019 The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture laureate in history and the 2020 Israel Prize laureate in history research.
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#34696

Debra Nails

#34708
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Debra Nails is an American philosophy professor who taught at Michigan State University. Nails earned her M.A. in philosophy and classical Greek from Louisiana State University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1993. Previously, she taught in the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at Mary Washington College. Nails taught courses on the history of philosophy, continental rationalism, metaphysics, and modern philosophy.
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#34697

Curt Wittlin

Curt Wittlin
#34709
Overall Influence
1941 - 2019 (78 years)
Curt Wittlin was a Swiss philologist and an expert of medieval Catalan language and literature. Biography Wittlin studied romance philology in Basel with Germà Colon, and later in Paris, Florence and Barcelona. He got his PhD in 1965 with a thesis about the Catalan translation of Brunetto Latini's Treasure by Guillem de Copons. He became Professor of Romance Philology and Historical Linguistics at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon , where he arrived in 1967.
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#34698

Nikita Borisov

#34710
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Nikita Borisov is a cryptographer and computer security researcher, currently an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . His notable work includes one of the first cryptanalyses of the WEP wireless encryption protocol together with Ian Goldberg and David Wagner, and the design of the Off-the-Record Messaging protocol with Goldberg.
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#34699

Ulrike Mosel

#34711
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Dr. Ulrike Mosel is a professor of linguistics and head of the linguistics department at the University of Kiel. She has held these positions since 1995. Mosel is the co-editor and author of nine academic books, including Essentials of Language Documentation with Jost Gippert and Nikolaus Himmelmann. This book is as described as "a landmark" in the field of Language Documentation.
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#34700

Bartolo Colón

#34712
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Bartolo Colón , nicknamed "Big Sexy," is a Dominican-American professional baseball pitcher for the Karachi Monarchs of Baseball United. He previously played for 11 different Major League Baseball teams: the Cleveland Indians , Montreal Expos , Chicago White Sox , Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim , Boston Red Sox , New York Yankees , Oakland Athletics , New York Mets , Atlanta Braves , Minnesota Twins , and Texas Rangers . Colón also played for the Águilas Cibaeñas of the Dominican Professional Baseball League and the Acereros de Monclova of the Mexican League. In August 2022, Colón announced that he intended to retire after the 2022–23 Dominican winter season.
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