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
#34751
André Franquin
#34763
Overall Influence
1924 - 1997 (73 years)
André Franquin was an influential Belgian comics artist, whose best-known creations are Gaston and Marsupilami. He also produced the Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1946 to 1968, a period seen by many as the series' golden age.
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Tom Rosenstiel
#34764
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Tom Rosenstiel is an American author, journalist, press critic, researcher and academic. He is the Eleanor Merrill Visiting Professor on the Future of Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. He was for the previous nine years the executive director of the American Press Institute. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rosenstiel was founder and for 16 years director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism , a research organization that studies the news media and is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#34753
David Beetham
#34765
Overall Influence
1938 - 2022 (84 years)
David Beetham was a social theorist who made extensive contributions in the fields of democracy and human rights who was Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds. Early life and education Beetham was born in Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire and grew up in Birkenhead, then in Cheshire. He was the second of three sons of Tom Beetham, a Methodist minister, and his wife Elain . He attended Kingswood School in Bath and gained a scholarship to study at Merton College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#34754
Johannes Holtfreter
#34766
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Johannes Holtfreter was a German-American developmental biologist whose primary focus was the “organizer,” a part of the embryo essential for the development of the proper body plan. Biography Holtfreter was born on January 9, 1901, in Richtenberg, Pomerania, Germany, as the only son and second out of three children. As a child, he captured animals and made drawings of them, and after graduating from the Realgymnasium, he wanted to enter field biology. Upon beginning this path at the University of Rostock and the University of Leipzig, he eventually moved to the University of Freiburg to study under Doflein, a famous naturalist who died soon after Holtfreter transferred.
Go to Profile#34755
Madeleine Rebérioux
#34767
Overall Influence
1920 - 2005 (85 years)
Madeleine Rebérioux was a French historian whose specialty was the French Third Republic. She is also a historian of the Labour movement. From 1981 to 1988, she was Vice-president of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. From 1991 to 1995 she was President of the Ligue des droits de l'homme and had been a signatory to the Manifesto of the 121. She was an officer of the Légion d'honneur. Madeleine was an active board member of Le Mouvement Social and later became its editor. Madeleine was against the war in Vietnam. She was president of French league of human rights - la Ligue des droits de l'homme - ...
Go to Profile#34756
Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
#34768
Overall Influence
1932 - 2014 (82 years)
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was a Sierra Leonean politician who served twice as the 3rd President of Sierra Leone, from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by profession, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992.
Go to Profile#34757
Elisabeth Camp
#34769
Overall Influence
Elisabeth Camp is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. Camp's work has focused on forms of thought and speech that do not fit standard propositional models. She has written extensively about figurative speech such as sarcasm and metaphor, arguing that these forms of speech force listeners to reconsider their standard methods of delineating the difference between what is meant and what is said.
Go to Profile#34758
Domenico Grasso
#34770
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Domenico Grasso is an American engineer, professor and the sixth chancellor of the University of Michigan–Dearborn. He has previously served as provost of the University of Delaware, vice president for research and dean of two different colleges at the University of Vermont. Grasso is Smith College's Picker Engineering Program's founding director.
Go to Profile#34759
Stevan K. Pavlowitch
#34771
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Stevan Kosta Pavlowitch was a Yugoslav and British historian, emeritus professor of Balkan history at the University of Southampton, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Biography Stevan Kosta Pavlowitch was born in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 7 September 1933, into a well-known Serbian family of diplomats from the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. His father Kosta St. Pavlović was a diplomat, who was personal secretary of Vojislav Marinković, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister; his grandfather, also named Stevan K. Pavlović, was an influential lawyer, interpreter an...
Go to Profile#34760
Lincoln Stein
#34772
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Lincoln David Stein is a scientist and Professor in bioinformatics and computational biology at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. Education Stein completed a Doctor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a PhD in Cell Biology at Harvard University both in 1989 via the MD-PhD program. His thesis investigated gene cloning in Schistosoma mansoni.
Go to Profile#34761
Nahoko Uehashi
#34773
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Nahoko Uehashi is a Japanese writer, primarily of fantasy books, for which she has won many awards. Uehashi is also Professor of Ethnology at Kawamura Gakuen Women's University, having completed a PhD focusing on the Yamatji, an indigenous Australian people.
Go to Profile#34762
John J. Garstka
#34774
Overall Influence
John Joseph Garstka is the acting CISO for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense Biography Garstka is a recognized international speaker and has delivered the Network Centric Warfare message to military and commercial audiences worldwide. In addition, he has lectured at Harvard University, Georgetown University, the University of California at Irvine, University of Maryland, the Army War College, the Air War College, the Naval War College, and the Naval Postgraduate School.
Go to Profile#34763
František Listopad
#34775
Overall Influence
1921 - 2017 (96 years)
František Listopad was a Czech poet, prose writer, essayist, theatre and television director, promoter of Czech literature and culture abroad, regarded as an expert on Central European thought and cultural output.
Go to Profile#34764
Margherita Marchione
#34776
Overall Influence
1922 - 2021 (99 years)
Sister Margherita Marchione was an American Roman Catholic sister, writer, teacher and apologeticist, who dedicated herself in her later years to the defense of Pope Pius XII. Early life Marchione was born in February 1922 in Little Ferry, New Jersey, one of eight children of Crescenzo and Felicia Marchione, immigrants from Campania, Italy. She attended St. Mary's School in nearby Hackensack, and in 1935 she joined the Religious Teachers Filippini. She became a nun in 1938 at the age of 16.
Go to Profile#34765
Ashutosh Dutta
#34777
Overall Influence
Ashutosh Dutta is a computer scientist, engineer, academic, author, and an IEEE leader. He is currently a Senior Scientist, 5G Chief Strategist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, APL Sabbatical Fellow, Adjunct Faculty and ECE Chair for EP at Johns Hopkins University. He is the Chair of IEEE Industry Connection O-RAN Initiative and Co-Chair for IEEE Future Networks Initiative.
Go to Profile#34766
Keke Rosberg
#34778
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Keijo Erik Rosberg , known as "Keke" , is a Finnish former racing driver and winner of the Formula One World Championship. He was the first Finnish driver to compete regularly in the series, as well as the first Finnish champion. He is the father of 2016 Formula One World Champion Nico Rosberg and is the only World Champion to see his son win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship.
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David Hilberman
#34779
Overall Influence
1911 - 2007 (96 years)
David Hilberman was an American animator and one of the founders of classic 1940s animation. An innovator in the animation industry, he co-founded United Productions of America . The studio gave its artists great freedom and pioneered the modern style of animation. As Animator and Professor Tom Sito noted: "Arguably, no studio since Walt Disney exerted such a great influence on world animation." He and Zack Schwartz went on to start Tempo Productions which became an early leader in television animated commercial production. In short, he played an important role in the new directions the ar...
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Anna Molka Ahmed
#34780
Overall Influence
1917 - 1994 (77 years)
Anna Molka Ahmed was a Pakistani artist and a pioneer of fine arts in the country after its independence in 1947. She was a professor of fine arts at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. Early life and career Anna Molka Ahmed was born Molly Bridger to Jewish parents, in London, England on 13 August 1917. Her mother was Polish and father was Russian. She converted to Islam at the age of 18 in 1935, before marrying Sheikh Ahmed in October 1939, who was then studying in London. She studied painting, sculpture and design at St. Martin School of Arts in London, and received a scholarship to th...
Go to Profile#34769
Edward Norman
#34781
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Edward Robert Norman is an ecclesiastical historian and former Church of England priest. From 1999 to 2004, he was Canon Chancellor of York Minster. He was educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he received an Open Scholarship.
Go to Profile#34770
Robert Saxton Taylor
#34782
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
Robert Saxton Taylor was an influential library scholar and information scientist who served as Dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies from 1972 to 1981. His research and publications focused attention on users of information systems and information services.
Go to Profile#34771
Albert Hofman
#34783
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Albert Hofman is a Dutch clinical epidemiologist. He is currently the Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Public Health and the chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Go to Profile#34772
L. Leonard Packer
#34784
Overall Influence
#34773
Teo Fabi
#34785
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Teodorico Fabi is an Italian former racing driver. He competed in Formula One, IndyCar, and sports car racing. He claimed pole position in his rookie year at the 1983 Indianapolis 500. Teo is the older brother of former Formula One driver Corrado Fabi.
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A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
#34786
Overall Influence
1928 - 1998 (70 years)
Aloysius Leon Higginbotham Jr. was an American civil rights advocate, historian, presidential adviser, and federal court judge. From 1990 to 1991, he served as chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Originally nominated to the bench by President Kennedy in 1963, Higginbotham was the seventh African-American Article III judge appointed in the United States, and the first African-American United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was elevated to the Third Circuit in 1977, serving as a federal judge for nearly 30 years in all.
Go to Profile#34775
Milton R. Konvitz
#34787
Overall Influence
1908 - 2003 (95 years)
Milton Ridbas Konvitz was a Cornell University faculty member. He died September 5, 2003, at the age of 95. Early life, education and early career He was born in 1908 in Safed, a city in what is now Israel that was then part of the vilayet of Sidon of the Ottoman Empire, and was the son of Rabbi Joseph Konvitz and grandson of Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky . In 1915, he immigrated to the United States, becoming a citizen in 1926. He studied at New York University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1929 and in 1930 a law degree. In 1933, he received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell. Pr...
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T. Alexander Aleinikoff
#34788
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Thomas Alexander Aleinikoff is Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School in New York City. He was a law professor and dean at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He served, from 2010 to 2015, as the Deputy High Commissioner in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. He was most recently a visiting professor of law and Huo Global Policy Initiative Research Fellow, Columbia Global Policy Initiative.
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Keith Richards
#34789
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, singer and recording producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history. His career spans over six decades, and his guitar playing style has been a trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Richards gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and he was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. First professionally...
Go to Profile#34778
Wolf Biermann
#34790
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Karl Wolf Biermann is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976. Early life Biermann was born in Hamburg, Germany. His mother, Emma , was a Communist Party activist, and his father, Dagobert Biermann, worked on the Hamburg docks. Biermann's father, a Jewish member of the German Resistance, was sentenced to six years in prison for sabotaging Nazi ships. In 1942, the Nazis decided to eliminate their Jewish political prisoners and Biermann's father was deported to Ausc...
Go to Profile#34779
Zhang Kangzhi
#34791
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Zhang Kangzhi , born in Tongshan, Jiangsu province, is one of the two Changjiang Scholars in the discipline of Public Administration, a professor and a tutor of a PhD in the Department of Public Administration of Renmin University of China , an adjunct professor of the Center for Public Administration Research of Sun Yat-Sen University, a standing director of the fifth council of the Chinese Public Administration Society, and guest professor, chair professor, and adjunct professor of many other universities.
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Stephen Joseph Rossetti
#34792
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Stephen Joseph Rossetti is an American Catholic priest, author, educator, licensed psychologist and expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests. He has appeared on such television shows as Meet the Press and Larry King Live. He served as president and CEO of Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland from 1996 to 2009 and as president from 2013 to 2014. In October, 2009 Rossetti stepped down from this position and in January 2010, joined the faculty of The Catholic University of America to teach in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. Since 2009, h...
Go to Profile#34781
Canibus
#34793
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Germaine Williams , better known by his stage name Canibus, is a Jamaican-American rapper. He gained fame in the 1990s for his ability to freestyle, and released his debut album Can-I-Bus in 1998. Canibus has released 13 solo studio albums, as well as multiple collaboration albums and EPs with other rappers as a member of the Four Horsemen, Refugee Camp All-Stars, Sharpshooterz, Cloak N Dagga, the Undergods and one-half of T.H.E.M.
Go to Profile#34782
Catrin Finch
#34794
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Catrin Ana Finch is a Welsh harpist, arranger and composer. She was the Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales from 2000 to 2004 and is visiting professor at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Finch has given recitals at venues throughout the world.
Go to Profile#34783
Klaus Biemann
#34795
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Klaus Biemann was an Austrian-American professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work centered on structural analysis in organic and biochemistry. He has been called the "father of organic mass spectrometry" but was particularly noted for his role in advancing protein sequencing with tandem mass spectrometry following pioneering work conducted in this area by Michael Barber.
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Carl E. Walsh
#34796
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Carl Eugene Walsh , is an American economist. He has been an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1987, and retired in 2020 as Distinguished Professor of Economics. He twice served as chair of the Economics Department at the university as well as Vice Provost for Silicon Valley Initiatives and Associate Vice Chancellor for Planning and Programs at UCSC. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City , Philadelphia and San Francisco .
Go to Profile#34785
Red Kelly
#34797
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Leonard Patrick "Red" Kelly was a Canadian professional hockey player and coach. He was also a Liberal Member of Parliament for the Toronto-area riding of York West from 1962 to 1965, during which time he also won the Stanley Cup—twice—while actively playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kelly played on more Stanley Cup-winning teams than any other player who never played for the Montreal Canadiens; Henri Richard , Jean Beliveau , Yvan Cournoyer and Claude Provost won their Cups with the Canadiens. He was also the only player to have never played for the Canadiens to be part of two of the nine dynasties recognized by the National Hockey League in its history.
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Jorgen Arendt Jensen
#34798
Overall Influence
Jorgen Arendt Jensen from the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 for contributions to medical ultrasound imaging systems.
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Mark Schwarzer
#34799
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Mark Schwarzer is an Australian former professional soccer player who played as a goalkeeper. He represented Australia at international level from 1993 to 2013, and was selected for both the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups.
Go to Profile#34788
Asher A. Friesem
#34800
Overall Influence
Asher A. Friesem is a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Friesem received B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan in 1958 and 1968, respectively. From 1958 to 1963 he was employed by Bell Aero Systems Company and Bendix Research Laboratories. From 1963 to 1969, at the University of Michigan’s Institutes of Science and Technology, he conducted investigations in coherent optics, mainly in the areas of optical data processing and holography. From 1969 to 1973 he was principal research engineer in the Electro-Optics Center of Harris, Inc., performing research...
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Richard R. John
#34801
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Richard R. John, Jr. is an American historian who specializes in the history of business, technology, communications, and the state. He is a professor of history and communications at Columbia University.
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Loren H. Rieseberg
#34802
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Loren H. Rieseberg is a Canadian-American botanist. Born in Alberta, Canada, his family moved to the US. He graduated from Washington State University with a Ph.D. in 1987. He is a Professor of Botany at the University of British Columbia and a Distinguished Professor of Biology at Indiana University, and head of the Rieseberg Lab. In October 2016, he was appointed the Director of the UBC Biodiversity Research Centre, replacing Sally Otto. He is on the editorial boards of numerous journals and has edited Molecular Ecology for many years.
Go to Profile#34791
Luc J. Van Gool
#34803
Overall Influence
#34792
Scott Kiesling
#34804
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Scott Fabius Kiesling is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. With the completion of his dissertation, Language, Gender, and Power in Fraternity of Young Men's Discourse, Kiesling received a PhD in linguistics in 1996 from Georgetown University, where he previously completed an M.S. in linguistics. He also received a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Kiesling has held previous academic positions at the University of Sydney and The Ohio State University.
Go to Profile#34793
Arnold Krammer
#34805
Overall Influence
1941 - 2018 (77 years)
Arnold Paul Krammer was an American historian who specialized in German and United States history and a professor in the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He was twice a Fulbright scholar: between 1992–1993, he studied at the University of Tübingen and, between 2002–2003, he studied at the University of Jena.
Go to Profile#34794
Kyle MacLachlan
#34806
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. He is best known for his collaborations with American filmmaker David Lynch, starring as Dale Cooper on the television series Twin Peaks , for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and its film prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me . MacLachlan is also known for his roles as Paul Atreides in Dune and Jeffrey Beaumont in Blue Velvet , both also directed by Lynch. His other film roles include Lloyd Gallagher in The Hid...
Go to Profile#34795
Joe Wright
#34807
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Joseph Wright is an English film director. His motion pictures include the literary adaptations Pride & Prejudice , Atonement , Anna Karenina , and Cyrano , the action thriller Hanna , Peter Pan origin story Pan , and Darkest Hour , a political drama following Winston Churchill during World War II nominated for Best Picture.
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Elkie Brooks
#34808
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Elkie Brooks is an English rock, blues and jazz singer. She was a vocalist with the bands Dada and Vinegar Joe, and later became a solo artist. She gained her biggest success in the late 1970s and 1980s, releasing 13 UK Top 75 singles, and reached the top ten with "Pearl's a Singer", "Sunshine After the Rain" and "No More the Fool" . She has been nominated twice for the Brit Awards.
Go to Profile#34797
James McAvoy
#34809
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
James McAvoy is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his feature film career began. His notable television work include the thriller State of Play , the science fiction miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune , and the drama series Shameless .
Go to Profile#34798
Lulu Miller
#34810
Overall Influence
Louisa Elizabeth Miller, better known as Lulu Miller, is an American writer and Peabody Award-winning science reporter for National Public Radio. Miller's career in radio started as a producer for the WNYC program Radiolab. She helped create the NPR show Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel.
Go to Profile#34799
Jurgen Ruesch
#34811
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
Jurgen Ruesch was an American psychiatrist. Life Jurgen Ruesch was born in Naples, Italy, to Swiss parents. He studied at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and moved to San Francisco in 1943 to head a project at the newly opened Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute of the University of California, San Francisco. He remained as professor at the University of California until his retirement in 1977; he also maintained a private psychiatric practice.
Go to Profile#34800
John Napier
#34812
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
John Napier is a set designer for Broadway and London theatrical performances. Education John Napier was born in London. He studied at Hornsey College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, studying under notable set designer Ralph Koltai.
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